Yes, yes—she yelled in victory.—Yes! Yes! Yes!

She danced around the pool, throwing him fish after fish and whooping in joy.

And Tibbet stepped into the homearium, his eyes big. He did not enter the homearium because he had seen what Junior had done to the back of her calf. No. He stepped in to check she had not said the word fish in a high dolphin voice.

The other men laughed at him when he told them, said he was imagining it. Until Tibbet played the recording.

THIRTY
Homearium, Weeks 6–8

For the next few days, she tried to get Junior to speak again. She tried and tried, but heard nothing like a recognizable word from him. Just the same single syllables that he’d uttered before: Ahh and ehhh and sometimes urr.

On the fourth day, while she was reporting to Blum, Tibbet suggested the possibility that Junior saying Fish that one time was an accident. With the dolphin saying so many humanoid sounds, it was bound to happen sooner or later that those sounds would combine into an actual word, akin to a monkey slapping at a typewriter.

She was mad, of course, and marched back into the water. Holding up Junior’s favorite punchball, she said Talk, ball, ball, while under the water she let Junior use her calf again.

The men, standing in the office, could not see.

And of course, he said Bhh-all.

* * *

Through the window, she and Junior watched the men each night, the living room a lit-up stage. Without her hearing glasses, outside of the building, she could not hear a word they said. Undistracted in this way, she observed all that was revealed.

She could tell each time Blum took more of Leary’s pills. He would stare at things and people for a long time, his eyes a little glassy, and when he laughed, he threw his head back and let the sound roll from his mouth.

She saw other things. She saw the way Tibbet ate Tums all day long and rubbed his belly along the side, a little like a pregnant woman, as though it ached.

She saw, when no one was looking, the way Eh’s eyes watched the others, his handsome tennis-player face as empty as a plate.

She noticed that week something had changed with Tibbet’s wife. She came for dinner more frequently than normal. Her face seemed bright, almost lit from within, and she would look at anything in the room except Blum. When she was around, he also changed, talking more than normal, his chest puffed out like a bird.

One evening, when Eh was at the counter washing the dishes, Tibbet got up to pour himself a martini. While both of them were turned away, Tibbet’s wife touched Blum’s hand and they exchanged looks.

* * *

She and Junior developed an agreement. Once a day, she let him use her leg.

Junior was so very grateful. At night, he floated beside her bed, staring at her. He went to sleep sucking on her toe. He worked for hours each day by himself, at the shallow end of the homearium. She’d placed another mirror there at the surface, and he would practice in front of it, at an angle where he could watch his blowhole as he tried to make different sounds. He was actively trying to get better, to make the sounds she wanted him to speak.