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A Novel
by Shelby Van Pelt
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The stubs get stashed in an old shoebox on top of her refrigerator, unopened. The funds accrue in an out-of-mind account at the Sowell Bay Savings and Loan.
She marches toward the supply closet now, at a purposeful clip that would be impressive by anyone's standards but is downright astonishing for a tiny older woman with a curved back and birdlike bones. Overhead, raindrops land on the skylight, backlit by glare from the security light at the old ferry dock next door. Silver droplets race down the glass, shimmering ribbons under the fogbound sky. It's been a dreadful June, as everyone keeps saying. The gray weather doesn't bother Tova, though it would be nice if the rain would let up long enough to dry out her front yard. Her push mower clogs when it's soggy.
Shaped like a doughnut, with a main tank in the center and smaller tanks around the outside, the aquarium's dome-topped building is not particularly large or impressive, perhaps fitting for Sowell Bay, which is neither large nor impressive itself. From the site of Tova's encounter with the chewing gum, the supply closet is a full diameter across. Her white sneakers squeak across a section she's already cleaned, leaving dull footprints on the gleaming tile. Without a doubt, she'll mop that part again.
She pauses at the shallow alcove, with its life-sized bronze statue of a Pacific sea lion. The sleek spots on its back and bald head, worn smooth from decades of being petted and climbed on by children, only enhance its realism. On Tova's mantel at home, there's a photo of Erik, perhaps eleven or twelve at the time, grinning wildly as he straddles the statue's back, one hand aloft like he's about to throw a lasso. A sea cowboy.
That photo is one of the last in which he looks childlike and carefree. Tova maintains the photos of Erik in chronological order: a montage of his transformation from a gummy-grinned baby to handsome teenager, taller than his father, posing in his letter jacket. Pinning a corsage on a homecoming date. Atop a makeshift podium on the rocky shores of deep blue Puget Sound, clutching a high school regatta trophy. Tova touches the sea lion's cold head as she passes, quelling the urge to wonder yet again how Erik might've looked now.
She continues on, as one must, down the dim hallway. In front of the tank of bluegills, she pauses. "Good evening, dears."
The Japanese crabs are next. "Hello, lovelies."
"How do you do?" she inquires of the sharp-nosed sculpin.
The wolf eels are not Tova's cup of tea, but she nods a greeting. One mustn't be rude, even though they remind her of those cable-channel horror films her late husband, Will, took to watching in the middle of the night when chemotherapy nausea kept him awake. The largest wolf eel glides out of its rocky cavern, mouth set in its trademark underbite frown. Jagged teeth jut upward from its lower jaw like little needles. An unfortunate-looking thing, to say the least. But then, looks are deceiving, aren't they? Tova smiles at the wolf eel, even though it could never smile back, not even if it wanted to, with a face like that.
The next exhibit is Tova's favorite. She leans in, close to the glass. "Well, sir, what have you been up to today?"
It takes her a moment to find him: a sliver of orange behind the rock. Visible, but mistakenly, like a child's hide-and-seek misstep: a girl's ponytail sticking up behind the sofa, or a socked foot peeking out from under the bed.
"Feeling bashful tonight?" She steps back and waits; the giant Pacific octopus doesn't move. She imagines daytime, people rapping their knuckles on the glass, huffing away when they don't see anything. Nobody knows how to be patient anymore.
"I can't say I blame you. It does look cozy back there."
The orange arm twitches, but his body remains tucked away.
THE CHEWING GUM mounts a valiant defense against Tova's file, but eventually it pops off.
Excerpted from Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. Copyright © 2022 by Shelby Van Pelt. Excerpted by permission of Ecco. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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