The vet answered Cora’s questions, but unlike many of the men she’d been around, he always returned the conversation to her, asking questions about the dolphins, about living in the pool, the research center and the men there.

When she spoke, he would not interrupt, but listened, attentive. The corners of his mouth, a little tight.

After lunch, he walked her back to the research center and said goodbye at the entrance to the homearium. Junior and the men in the building would examine him. Waving goodbye, he’d remind her to meet him next week at the same cafe.

The thought crossed her mind that he might be trying to care for her, might consider her similar to one of his hurt animals.

* * *

Junior’s progress continued. By the eighth week, during her daily report to Blum, she barely had to say a word. Eh would step into the room also, while Tibbet played the best examples of Junior speaking. The men stood there listening, their eyes pointed in different directions, each thinking their own thoughts.

THIRTY-ONE
Homearium, Weeks 9–11

One day Blum ushered a man and his child into the homearium. He introduced the man as Professor Fred Curry from Clark University, and this was his three-year-old, Greg. He said they were vacationing here, but since Fred’s wife felt sick today, the two of them had decided to visit to see the work with Junior.

During these introductions, Cora noticed each of them was focused on different things.

Blum watched Fred.

Fred stared at scantily clad Cora with her buzzcut standing in the middle of a pool, the furniture hanging from the ceiling, a dolphin at her side.

The child spotted Junior, squealed and ran to the edge of the pool.

And Junior beelined to the child, popping his head out of the water, a foot away, to examine the tiny human. It was clear he’d never seen a child before.

It took her some time for her to persuade Junior to turn away from the child and focus on the lesson instead. Meanwhile Blum and Fred started discussing a conference they’d both attended last year. From the way Blum did most of the talking and Fred kept nodding at everything he said, it was clear who was the Harvard professor. Neither of them paid attention to Junior. The child, however, never looked away from him.

When Junior finally spoke, saying fff-ishh, there was a skip in time.

Fred turned, almost as though his name had been called. He looked at Junior, then around the homearium. Perhaps searching for Allen Funt of Candid Camera, for everyone to burst out laughing at the joke.

Blum, on the other hand, looked as satisfied as a well-fed cat.

Seeing Fred’s surprise, Junior refused to say another word in front of him, no matter how Cora pleaded over the next few minutes, nor how many fish she held up as bribes.

So Blum led Fred into the research center to have lunch instead. She watched them through the window. The men gave Fred a mixed drink and a large meal, then a second drink, while they talked and talked. Tibbet brought over some spectrograms for Fred to examine and pressed play on the reel-to-reel recorder. While the recording played, the men watched the ceiling with their lips pursed, as though this was classical music.