Sea Creatures by Susanna Daniel Read Free Book Online

cottage. They’d confirmed there was nothing wrong with his hearing. They said he was making a choice, shutting his mouth when another child would open it. They said there was likely a reason, and they quizzed me about my marriage and about Graham and his parasomnia, which led me to understand that children in difficult homes sometimes go mute—but they settled on no clear explanation.
    When I thought of what life would be like for Frankie in school and as an adult if he never started to talk, I felt a fist tighten around my heart.
    I asked Lidia to watch him while I dressed. As I retreated to the main berth—this was the first time since we’d moved aboard that I would close the room’s flimsy accordion door—she said, “Move it. You’re running late.”
    I pulled on shorts and ran a brush through my hair. I dug through the storage trundle for a crushable straw hat that had belonged to my mother, which I’d adopted as my own long before she died. I dropped a towel and sunscreen into a tote.
    Through the thin door, I heard Lidia saying, “Sweet boy, can you say Mimi ? Meee-Meee . . .”
    I opened the door. “Lidia,” I said, “please don’t.” I’d made the request three or four times since we’d arrived.
    â€œMama’s right,” she said to Frankie. “No pressure. This isn’t the military, it’s Mimi’s house. Meeee-meee ’s house—”
    I shut the door.
    When we were ready to leave, Lidia handed me a photocopy of a handwritten list. It wasn’t in her handwriting, which was loopy and illegible. This handwriting was tiny and precise, all the letters capitalized, as if shouting in a small voice. There were four stores listed and about thirty items total. From a bait and tackle shop in the Grove, several items. CREAM KROMKA CRAB BONEFISH FLY (4), for example; 1 LB SPOOL CLEAR MONO FILAMENT LINE (ANY BRAND). From a place called the Knitting Garden: 1/2 DOZ 11 MM ENGLISH RIM WOODEN BUTTONS (ASH) and 1/2 DOZ 11 MM COCONUT BUTTONS (UNCARVED), as well as three types and colors of yarn. Beneath the name of the print shop, FAX COPY PRINT, there was only one line: SEE MR. HENRY GALE. The list alone begged the question of what I was getting myself into.
    By June in South Florida, it’s more or less as hot as it will remain through the middle of October, when finally the heat relents for a few months. Some women—my childhood friend Sally was one example—were either so accustomed to the heat or so immune to it that they coiffed the way they might if they lived in permanent winter, where the crisp and dry air was more skin- and hair-compliant. Maybe there were products I’d never heard of that could have helped, but for me, being in Miami meant dispensing of makeup, dry-cleaned clothing, and smartly styled hair. I’d inherited my grandmother’s coarse dark curls, and my round face meant a shorter cut would be unflattering, so there was little to be done. In Miami, I secured my hair in a messy bun or ponytail at the nape of my neck, curls fat and frizzy in the humidity. I wore sleeveless shirts and Bermudas or cotton skirts every day. In South Florida, it’s not the intensity of heat or humidity that wears you down—it’s the perseverance of it.
    Lidia, who’d mentioned she was running late to meet her power-walkers club, escorted us to the driveway. She hovered in the driver’s-side window as I started the car. I tended to drive with the windows down and the air-conditioning fully throttled, and always had. It blasted my face as we idled. Up close, Lidia’s skin showed age—deep lines around her mouth, creases down her thin lips, faint speckled scars along her jawbone—though generally she gave the impression of a much younger woman. She squinted at me and adjusted her visor. “You’re all right?” she said, then answered herself. “You’re all