Aquarium by David Vann

generations, or maybe a hundred generations, or maybe more. To know there was a great city two thousand years ago in this place, and that your ancestors helped build it and lived there and worked there. When you walk down a small road, all the others who are walking there with you from before.
    Steve put a final layer of sauce over the top and then picked up a hunk of hard parmesan and a grater. My mother hugged him from behind. I better enjoy you now, she said. Sounds like someone is leaving for Albania.
    Sadly that never happens. We never go back.
    You should, I said. At least to visit. You have to.
    Steve laughed. Okay, then. Commanded. Now it will happen.
    He grated the cheese over the top and then put the casserole dish in the oven. Twenty minutes, he said.
    Why don’t you go lie down, my mother said to me. You look tired.
    So I went to my room to leave them alone. I lay on my bed with the lights out and looked for shapes on the ceiling. Curtain light, bent into waves by the folds. Passing cars like shortened days, rising and falling. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and had no thoughts.
    I woke disoriented. Hungry. I struggled to rise and cross the floor and found them at the table, the dinner dishes stacked on the counter. You didn’t wake me, I said.
    No, sweet pea, you looked so tired.
    But I missed dinner.
    It’s still here, Steve said. I’ll serve you right up. He put his hat back on, stood and waved me over to a seat, said, Bella, prego, and served me a plate of eggplant parmesan on pasta, with a bit of salad on the side. Buon appetito, he said.
    I felt half asleep still, groggy and lost. I took a bite with my fork and it was only warm, not hot, but it was good. I have a grandfather, I said.
    What’s that? Steve asked.
    Stop, Caitlin, my mother said.
    She said she has a grandfather?
    Yes, my mother said. My father decided to reappear after nineteen years to play grandpa.
    Wow.
    I met him at the aquarium.
    You didn’t meet him. He tracked us down. He’s old and lonely now, probably dying and needs a nurse, and since I have such great practice at being a nurse, why not me? Or he feels like a miserable fuck for what he’s done and now he wants to be forgiven.
    Nineteen years, Steve said. That’s a long time.
    Since Caitlin wants to bring you into this, you might as well know he left me to take care of my dying mother. Left us alone with nothing. When I was fourteen.
    I couldn’t eat the eggplant. I was just staring down, pulling it apart with my fork. The dark ribbon around each piece hidden under bread crumbs, soft yellow meat with darker swirls, camouflage, swimming in a thick red sea. Lying flat on the bottom, hidden away.
    Why did you want me to know? Steve asked quietly.
    So you can help, I said.
    Oh, this is beautiful. My mother threw her arms in the air. Thank you both. This is great. Because I’ve been such a bad person, and my father is such an angel.
    No, Steve said. No. I wasn’t trying to say anything.
    Well Caitlin is. Caitlin told me she hates me. I want Grandpa.
    My mother said it in a whining, baby voice, making fun of me. Then she reached over and knocked on my forehead. Knock, knock, she said. You don’t have a fucking grandpa.
    Sheri, Steve said.
    Get out. Get the fuck out.
    Steve looked down, slumped, and we all just waited, silent. I could hear our clock and my mother’s breathing. I could feel my forehead where her knuckles had been. Then Steve rose and grabbed his jacket and walked out. No good-bye, and he didn’t even turn around to look at us.
    My mother pounded the table with her fist, my plate jumping. Is this what you want? she asked, her mouth all twisted up. To take everything away from me? You want me to just work and that’s it? No life?
    No.
    Well then. Wake the fuck up. You get me or him. Not both.

I burrowed under my blankets and curled into a ball, like a lungfish waiting for rain. Hibernation, but called estivation, since it’s for the hot summer instead of cold