Sea Creatures by Susanna Daniel

since long before Frankie even existed.
    I heard a door open and shut and Charlie appeared. By this point, Frankie had arranged items from my tote in a line on a clear patch of the floor—a lip gloss, a pair of sunglasses, a pen—and was jumping over each, then spacing them farther apart and starting again, a rudimentary hopscotch. He was restless.
    Charlie had changed into green swim trunks and a white T-shirt. He carried a few business envelopes in one hand and held them out to me, watching Frankie as he hopped. “For Riggs,” he said.
    â€œI’ll take them today.” I put the envelopes in my tote.
    Frankie went up to Charlie and signed a few times.
    Charlie said, “Swim, swim, yes. Are you ready?”
    Frankie nodded.
    Charlie raised his eyebrows at me. “Are you ready?”
    â€œRight downstairs?” I said, forcing him to maintain eye contact. “Where I can see you?”
    â€œRight downstairs, yes.”
    The alternative to letting him go was not letting him go, which wasn’t a great option, either. I saw nothing suspect or even heedless in Charlie, and I believed I could trust him.
    I helped Frankie pull off his shirt. “Wear your shorts,” I said. He’d left diapers behind early at his own insistence, but I’d brought spare clothes just in case. “ Be very safe ,” I said to them both, hearing the anxious quiver in my own voice.
    â€œWe will,” said Charlie, and Frankie followed him out of the room, sending a wave in my direction.
    At the window I watched them make their way down the dock. The clouds had gone and the breeze had died. My son’s shoulder blades cast slim shadows on the pale canvas of his back. Charlie said something and Frankie nodded eagerly. They lay down on their stomachs, heads bobbing over the dock’s edge. Charlie splashed at the water and Frankie did the same. A silver swim ladder bucked gently on its hinges, and Charlie got up and stepped down a couple of rungs, then held out his arms. Frankie was hesitant, but then he leaned forward so Charlie could ease him into the water. The water reached Charlie’s chest. At first, Frankie clung to him, but eventually he started to point his chin and scoop his hands and kick wildly, splashing and letting a little space grow between them. My heart buoyed. I watched for another minute or two, then went back to work.
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    AFTER AN HOUR—I CHECKED ON them regularly, wishing badly that I could abandon my task and just stand at the window spying, studying my son’s joy like a scientist—they came upstairs wrapped in faded blue towels. Frankie trailed Charlie, eyelids heavy.
    Sleep , he signed.
    Every time he made the sign—and it wasn’t rare for him to request sleep, even to beg for it—I’d had the same hopeful thought: maybe it skips a generation. I knew that many three-and-a-half-year-olds were sleeping less during the day or refusing naps entirely. For Frankie, this seemed far out of reach. Every day, no matter what was going on, he insisted on napping for a couple of hours or more.
    â€œIn here,” said Charlie, opening a door.
    In the room, there were two full beds and a wooden chest of drawers. Over the chest of drawers hung two oil paintings similar to the ones in the living room: wide poinciana canopy in one, palm trees and sandy beaches in the other. I’d seen enough of Charlie’s work to know that he hadn’t painted these himself. The beds were pressed against opposite walls, and the one that shared a wall with the room where I’d been working—the office, as I now thought of it—was the most carefully made, so I assumed the other was the bed where Charlie slept. Charlie pulled dry clothes from the dresser and left the room, tucking his chin to his chest as he went, as if he’d been intruding. After I helped Frankie wiggle into dry underwear, he climbed into the neatly made bed and pulled the sheets to