Tying the sail in place, Eh noticed the lawn chair next to the pool and asked—You sleep here last night?

The branks of fear in her mouth, she pretended she hadn’t heard.

But that evening she saw him looking out the window several times, to see if she was sleeping there.

So she placed an inflatable mattress in the pool and slept on it with Kat as protection. Eh would never dare to step into a pool with a dolphin in it, or even to reach for her across the pool. Kat seemed to like Cora being on the mattress in the water. She bumped the mattress and hummed low pitched rumbles through the mattress. Even though she couldn’t wear her hearing glasses in the pool, Cora could still feel the sound vibrate the mattress. Kat hummed and burbled, talking to Cora all night long. Cora wondered just how much dolphin activity they were missing at night. Was it possible dolphins were nocturnal?

Cora half-slept on her watery bed, waking frequently. She dreamed Kat was singing to her in Portuguese, and then in Greek. Unfortunately Cora didn’t speak either language so didn’t know what was being said.

* * *

Bored and isolated, with nothing else to do, within two days Kat was imitating Cora’s speech, not just the number of syllables but also the sound of the vowels. She was beginning to kazoo the way she had when being operated on.

Cora would say, Talk three words, and Kat would repeat the sentence as best she could through her blowhole, Ahh Eeee Ooo.

Each time she managed, Cora showered her with food and squid and much attention.

So Cora started saying Talk and different short sentences.—Talk. See the ball.

Kat responded—Ahh, eee eh ahh.

The bottom of the pool was getting murky. Each time Cora saw Kat poop, she would grab a net and scoop out as much as she could. She assumed Kat peed in the water too, but the urine she could not see or filter out. Her legs, she noticed, began to itch from being in the water and Kat was blinking a lot. So she asked Blum for a second above-ground pool so they could have a clean pool to move her into. He considered her request, not saying yes immediately. She imagined how much Kat’s eyes might hurt.

She touched him on the arm, stepped in closer and said please.

He ran his hand down her backbone, letting his fingers come to a rest on her hip. Giving the flesh there a light squeeze, he nodded yes.

Tibbet watched this with angry eyes and popped another Tums in his mouth.

When the new pool arrived, she had it filled within two hours and they moved Kat to it, then drained the other pool. The smell made the men cough as they cleaned its sides.

In the new pool, Kat scrubbed every part of her body off on the clean walls. She blinked less. She rubbed against Cora and worked even harder on the lessons.