At the kelp forest exhibit, I named what we were seeing — leopard sharks, garibaldi, the surfperch threading through the kelp — and Sabrina turned her head to look at me.
“How do you know what those are?”
“I read.”
“You read?”
“I read up before today.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You studied for this?”
“Yes.”
“You studied for an aquarium date?”
“Yes.” I nodded.
She didn’t say anything for a second. Then she said, quieter, “Thank you.”
I held her hand on the way to the next exhibit.
At the jellyfish exhibit, the lights were blue, and the jellyfish were the color of glass. Bonnie was bent over the placard, sounding out bioluminescence, and I kissed the top of Sabrina’s head as she leaned over it beside Bonnie.
She looked up at me, didn’t say anything, and put her hand in my back pocket.
The octopus tank was in the back. The room was dark, and the tank lighting was a soft greenish gold, and the octopus was — at first — not visible at all.
“Where is she?” Bonnie asked.
“Maybe in the rocks.”
“Where in the rocks?”
I crouched next to her and pointed. “There.”
In a crevice in the back of the tank, one orange arm was visible against the rock. Bonnie went still. The arm moved. A second arm came around the corner. A third. Then the body — the bulbous, intelligent, watching head — emerged from the crevice and moved across the back of the tank.
Bonnie didn’t breathe.
“Mom.” She didn’t turn her head. “Mom.”
“Yeah, baby?”
“She is right there.”
“She is.”
“She is so beautiful.”
The octopus moved up the back wall and paused. It looked briefly at Bonnie. Bonnie was an inch from the glass.
“Mom.”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I love her.”
Sabrina smiled. A real smile this time, soft and unguarded, and I couldn't take my eyes off her.
