She tried a few times to ease her toes out of his mouth, but each time he would startle up and squeal, splashing water everywhere, soaking her and the bed. So she ended up sleeping that night with one foot in the water and her head on a wet pillow. This tired, it didn’t matter that much.

She slept deeply, waking twice to hear him burbling at her.

She felt, already, he was accepting her as his mother.

TWENTY-FOUR
Homearium, Day 3

Two days later, when she walked down to the lagoon to feed the other dolphins at 6:30 A.M., Bernie was lying still and sideways at the bottom of the lagoon.

The moment she saw him, she knew, but still she dove in fast, in her clothes, as though spotting a drowning swimmer. Under the water, the keening of the other dolphins filled her body, high-pitched and deafening, underwater banshees. He lay at the bottom, his fixed eyes and open mouth, his purple tongue, rocking gently in the current like some fleshy bath-toy.

The men had the vet’s number jotted down by the phone. They did not seem surprised. She pulled Bernie into the shallows and they dragged the body onto the beach.

The vet arrived within an hour to perform the autopsy, a leather bag in hand. She was sitting there on the shore, blinking at the body. Somehow, she had not realized the dolphins could die. She had not understood.

The vet, whose name was Dr. Crantz, saw her expression and touched his fingertips to her forearm. It was a little like the way the dolphins touched each other, a momentary pressure.

He asked the men to move the body around the corner of the house for the autopsy, while he got his coveralls to do the work. She was grateful he wasn’t cutting Bernie up where the other dolphins could see, where she could see. It was possible, of course, that he chose this spot simply because it was in the shade.

After an hour, he came back around the corner. He sat on the shore, scrubbing his face with the heels of his hands. There was no blood visible on him.

She sat down beside him. For the last few days she’d spent most of her day looking at Junior. Dr. Crantz’s lack of a beak seemed surprising. At the moment, he appeared tired.

He looked up at her, saw her glasses with the thick arms and asked—Hearing aid?

Small teeth, his tongue moving neatly in his mouth, easy to lipread.

—Yes, I’m partially deaf.

Some people, when she told them this, shifted back a tiny bit, as though deafness might be contagious. He stayed where he was instead, examining her face.

—Can you hear me ok?

She nodded. Not having worn her hearing glasses much for a few days, she felt she could hear him remarkably well.—What happened to Bernie?

He said—The dolphin? No disease or problem I could find. No water in the lungs. He didn’t drown.