She tried twice more to sneak away when she thought Kat was sleeping, but both times Kat woke and squealed with even greater emotion.

So at 10 P.M., Cora placed a lawn lounge chair beside the pool and lay down in the chair, a towel over her as a blanket. With the back of the chair propped up, she could let one hand trail in the pool. Kat lay next to her in the water, making burbling contented noises, the side of her head bumping into Cora’s fingers. The water lapped in the pool. Each time Kat blew, it was like the hot exhale of a cat who’d just eaten a very rotten fish, the mist of that breath gently raining down on Cora’s face.

At times Kat clicked at Cora’s hand in the water. Cora could feel the clicks against her skin and in the bones of her hand. Tiny morse-code taps of affection.

She woke up at one point. Her hand in the pool had fallen asleep and her whole arm felt like a dead limb. She pulled her arm in against her, flapping her jellyfish hand around, trying to get circulation back into it. The only light was the pinpricks of stars above. There was the smell of seaweed and salt. Kat was cooing to herself and spitting water high into the air like a bored child in a bath. Cora settled her arm into her lap and fell back to sleep.

At dawn she woke, her face against the plastic straps of the lawn chair. She could tell she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again. So she got up to start the training, fetching from the outdoor fridge a bucket of cut-up butterfish, with a few squid as special treats.

Talk—said Cora, and Kat responded with one sound. Cora threw her a chunk of butterfish.

Talk more—said Cora. Kat responded with two sounds and got another chunk of fish.

Talk three sounds—Cora said. Kat made three sounds and earned a squid.

It was so much easier to hear her responses without the other dolphins squealing at the same time. Kat’s eyes followed her everywhere she went, nothing else to pay attention to. That morning, Cora taught her to respond to four sounds and then five. Kat listened, head cocked, focused on the puzzle of what was being requested.

Once the day began to heat up, Cora cautiously dipped her legs into the pool to cool down. Kat didn’t seem to mind, so Cora eased her way all the way in, standing up in the water. Kat brushed against her repeatedly. Perhaps she missed the touch of the other dolphins.

Partway through the afternoon, Cora noticed Kat’s back was a little pink. Normally the dolphins were far underwater, not exposed to the sun. She wondered if dolphins could get sunburns.

She asked Blum to have the men hang a sail over the pool from tree to tree to shade it entirely. They did so within an hour.