Entering the house just now from dropping off Nora at pre-school and Charlie at school, I hear the toilet running.
Earlier this morning, Nora up only half an hour after Emily and me, she sits watching a show when Charlie shambles into the living room where the three of us greet him.
“I just had the worst nightmare – not just a bad dream, a horrible dream” – so Emily tugs him toward her, pulling him close, and urges him to tell it out.
“In my dream I flushed Nora down the toilet and we couldn’t get her back.”
“It’s okay, honey,” etc., Nora sitting on the couch only a few feet away.
Hour later, Mom gone off to work, the kids careen through their morning routine, getting ready for school, Charlie reports, “Dad, Choral’s dead” – his betta fish, who lives by itself in the tank on Charlie’s desk. It has died only overnight, since Charlie feeds it twice daily and did so last night.
I empty the tank of its water, gingerly getting Choral between thumb and forefinger, taking it outside and flinging it onto the frozen ground to appease the backyard scavengers.
When I return to Charlie’s room, checking to see if he’s dressed, I pull him into my now cold body and ask him how he feels.
“Sad” – then: “What did you do to him? Did you flush him down the toilet?”
What will I make of my faith in the persons of this house when, having asked Charlie if he doesn’t see how in his dream he substituted one person for another – since when fish die we do often flush them down the toilet – Charlie answers, “Choral is not a person!”
Jeff Hamilton lives in St. Louis and teaches at Washington University.
*Photo courtesy of coolhandkarl.