"The Steelheads are the exact same fish as the Rainbows," he said as he watched a big silver-gray Steelhead take a bite of meat from her hand. "They just grew up to look different."
"Why?"
"Well, you know that all the trout migrate."
"Migrate?"
"They go to other places downstream," he said. "That is, unless you've got them penned up in ponds like these."
"Why do they do it?"
Cleav shrugged. "Curious maybe," he suggested. "Or looking for the right mate. Nobody knows really, the trout just do it," he said. "But they always return to their spawning waters, the place where they were born."
Esme nodded.
"Now, all the trout travel," Cleav said. "But the Steelheads go the farthest. At one time in his life this big gray fish was swimming in the ocean."
"In the ocean?"
"Yes," Cleav told her. "It's the salt water that changes the Rainbow's pretty colors to gray."
"And his colors never come back?"
Cleav shook his head. "No, once he's been to the sea he's changed forever. The Steelhead can come back home here, stay for the rest of his days, and live among the other Rainbow trout, but he'll always be different because of where he's been."
The Steelhead came up for another bite and Esme watched him with a strange sadness in her eyes.
"He's like you, Cleavis."
"What?"
"He's like you. He'll never be a sea fish, but he's seen the ocean, and he's been marked by it."
She turned her head to face him. "You went to the city, and it changed you, too." Glancing around, she indicated her surroundings. "You'll always live here in Vader, but the city put its mark on you, and you'll never be like the rest of us."
Cleav was silent, staring at her.
The silence between them lengthened.
Esme looked down at the Steelhead swimming in the pond. "I'm gonna name this fish."
Cleav's eyes went to the streak of swishing silver beneath the water.
"All right," he said. "What name are you going to give him?"
A broad and bittersweet smile brightened her face.
"I'm gonna call him the Gentleman."
Together they finished the feeding. Esme hummed softly to herself, but Cleav was quiet, almost troubled. He'd come to care deeply for Esme, but it unsettled him that she could read him so easily. It made him feel uneasy. He should never have told her about his time in the city. He'd not shared that with a living soul. But at the time it seemed right to talk to Esme. And it felt so good that she could understand. It felt too good.
He wanted to be with her constantly, to tell her everything that happened, every curious word that was said, and every foolish thought or dream he had. It wasn't natural for a man to feel that way, he was sure.
Or maybe it was natural. Looking across the room at her examining the items stored at the far end of the hatching house, he wondered if this is what it was to be in love.
Esme Crabb was not at all the kind of woman he'd thought he could be in love with, the kind of woman he'd want for a wife. But it wouldn't be the first time he'd been wrong. That was the way of natural science. Each scientist had perceptions that he tried to prove. As often as not, a scientist proved himself wrong.
Had he proved himself wrong? Could he love Esme Crabb? Maybe he could.
