Page 28

I always hear Benigno before I see him, Mother. He treads so differently upon the earth than the Shark.

Wordlessly, he climbs the steps to my cage where we observe each other for a long moment in the din of chugging and bubbles. He looks tired and wet from rain and, by the pinch of his brows, almost lost. It is a meager improvement to the wounded expression he made at hearing me call him beautiful.

He finally sets down his lamp, slips past me, and disappears into shadow, returning with a heavy cloth coated with paint and a long wooden seat, which he pushes flush against the open pane. With relief as much as curiosity, I watch him lie down on it and drape the cloth over himself for warmth, his hat tucked under his dripping head and body curled toward the glass. Shivering, he presses his palm against it in a wordless bid—for what? Forgiveness? Consolation? My very heart?

He can have them all. Beautiful Benigno, who works so dutifully to bring comfort to my circumstances, then sacrifices his own by sleeping on a cold ledge. I would tell him that remembrances of his kind loveliness are all that calm my tremors of late, if only he could bear to hear me say it.

Despite the engine’s relentless noise, I feel it—the quiver of his pulse through the water, swift as a sailfish—and dare to wonder if his heart beats this way for me.

I traverse the sand on fingertips toward him, my fins drifting back into place across my shoulders as I lie beside him and press my hand to his against the glass. I thought I had grown accustomed to his night-sky eyes, but they look at me differently tonight, holding my gaze like a question.

So I answer.

My other hand reaches for him, and meeting the pane instead of his cheek, traces the gentle outline of his face on the surface. Benigno’s eyes close—as if he can feel me. As if, indeed, he has never felt a tender caress in his life before I tried to convey one through the glass.

Would that I could touch him again, in affection instead of rage.

When at last he sleeps, I open an eye to appreciate the softness of his body at rest, his hard edges smoothed, serene as a lake.

He looks like he is floating.