The Deepest Love

I was raised by women who had survived love.

They told us this while feeding us, while cleaning the nursery, while removing bits of shell from the soft places beneath our jaws. My mother had survived it once. Grandmother had survived it four times and considered herself qualified to speak on almost anything.

I used to lie awake beneath my mother's chin, watching her gills open. Between them and the dark I had a narrow strip of water to myself. If she rolled, I moved with her. She could do this without waking.

One night I asked where my father slept.

Her gills stopped for a moment.

“What's brought this on?”

“Does he sleep somewhere?”

“You've had a bad dream.”

“I haven't been asleep.”

She turned her light toward me. I closed my eyes against it, which looked enough like obedience that she settled again.

“He's with me,” she said.

I waited until her breathing slowed. Then I went around her, keeping clear of the teeth. There was a fold under her belly she never let me shelter in. I had thought it was sore. I looked into it now, but her light couldn't reach that far, and before I could get closer she woke.

“What are you doing down there?”

“Looking.”

“Well, stop. You'll wake everybody.”

In the morning she brought me the soft part of a shrimp. She held it while I tore off pieces, the way she had when I was too small to feed myself.

“Your father adored you,” she said.

“Did he meet me?”

She pulled the shrimp away.

“I am trying to tell you something nice.”

***

We were taught that somewhere beyond the nursery a female was waiting for each of us. We would find her by scent. Her light would guide us the last little way. After that, we would be taken care of.

There were lessons about being taken care of. They occupied considerably more time than the lessons about teeth.

“Will we still hunt?” Oru asked once.

“You won't have to,” our teacher said.

Oru liked hunting. He had a split in one fin from pursuing a shrimp into a crack that narrowed after he entered it. I had pulled him out. We had agreed that the shrimp was enormous.

“What if we want to?” he asked.

Our teacher looked at his damaged fin.

“I should think you've done quite enough of that.”

When Oru found a scent, his mother announced it before he did. The aunts gathered around him, remarking on how ready he looked. He kept his torn fin pressed against his side.

That night he came to the cleft where I slept when my questions had exhausted Mother. He nosed me awake.

“Will you wait here?”

“For what?”

“In case.”

I made room. He squeezed beside me, scraping the rock. He had grown since the shrimp.

“How long?” I asked.

“I don't know how far it is.”

We worked out a place beyond the nursery lights where he could return without being seen. If he found it safe, he would come and tell me. If he didn't, I would bring him food. We discussed whether I could catch enough for two. Oru said he would help, and for a while that made the whole arrangement seem possible.

“What if she's awful?” he whispered.

“Bite her.”

He laughed so hard he knocked grit from the roof. We went still. His mother called from outside, asking what was funny.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Come along, then. You need your rest.”

Oru stayed wedged beside me.

“I'm frightened.”

“You'll be here?”

I touched his split fin.

The next morning they praised him for leaving without a backward glance. His mother had positioned herself behind him. There hadn't been anywhere else to look.

***

I brought food to the meeting place until it spoiled before anyone ate it. Then I hunted there instead, so I could tell myself I had a reason to come.

Once I asked Oru's mother how long males generally took to return.

“Oh, sweetheart.” She brought her face close. “He's happy.”

“Have you heard?”

“He's found his place.”

“But have you heard from him?”

She looked past me for my mother.

Later, during a lesson for younger boys, she described his departure. She remembered how eager he had been. She remembered having to hold him back.

“He was frightened,” I said.

The boys turned toward me. Oru's mother waited for them to turn back.

“Excitement can look that way.”

“He asked me to wait for him.”

“No, he didn't.”

I repeated what he had said. The words sounded different with the little boys listening. They had been ours, spoken in a crack too small for either of our mothers.

“You must have dreamed that,” she said.

Mother arrived before the lesson ended. She took me aside by the upper fin, gently enough that I could have resisted if I had wanted everyone to see me hurt her.

“You're confused,” she said. “You were the frightened one.”

“Oru said it.”

“And now you've given him your fear. He isn't here to defend himself.”

She brought me back to the boys. Oru's mother waited with her face turned away.

“Tell them what happened,” Mother said.

I told them again.

Her grip moved closer to the bone.

“What actually happened.”

I could no longer remember whether he had said frightened or afraid. I tried to picture his mouth. Everybody waited while I lost it.

“I might have misunderstood.”

“There,” Mother said. “Was that so difficult?”

Oru's mother forgave me in front of the boys. Then she asked me to explain why I had done it. Mother helped until we settled on jealousy.

At home she asked whether Oru's mother had ever been unkind to me.

“No.”

“Has she fed you?”

“Yes.”

“Let you sleep beside her when I was hunting?”

“Yes.”

“And this is how you repay her.”

I tried to explain about the meeting place. Mother closed her eyes. I stopped before mentioning the food.

***

The body caught on the ledge below the nursery, turning slowly whenever the current strengthened. Most of the female's head was gone. A strip of skin held her to the rock.

We ate what fell. Mother had taught me to check the gills first; small creatures sheltered there, and living food was preferable if you could manage it. I approached from the torn side.

Something small hung beneath her belly.

I thought it had caught itself feeding. Its mouth was buried so deeply that I could see only the outer edges of the jaws. I swam around to look for a place to grip it.

There was no seam.

Skin ran from the female into the little body. Underneath it, two more hung in the same way. One had lost almost every feature by which I knew a male. The other retained a fin, shriveled against its flank.

I looked for a split in it.

The fin had rotted too badly to tell. I kept looking anyway, turning it until the thin rays separated between my teeth.

Inside the female's wound, vessels branched toward the attached bodies. I followed one with my nose. It entered a male through the place where his mouth should have ended.

I pulled back too quickly. The strip holding the carcass tore, and the whole thing rolled toward me. A small head brushed my side. I struck out at it, then followed the body as it sank, trying to find the head again.

By the time Mother came, it was below the light.

She caught me before I could follow it farther.

“What have you been eating?”

I couldn't make my jaws close.

“Let me see.”

“There were males.”

She inspected my mouth.

“Attached to her.”

“Spit that out.”

A piece of fin drifted between us. Mother caught it in her mouth.

“Don't,” I said.

She swallowed.

“There. Now come away from this filthy thing.”

***

She kept me beneath her light that night. Every time I moved, it moved. I could see the raw place where her tooth had caught my upper fin while bringing me home.

“You frightened me,” she said.

“What happened to them?”

“You went below the ledge. You know better.”

“They were stuck.”

“Joined.”

“I tried to pull one loose.”

Her mouth opened.

“You did what?”

“He couldn't have swum away. There was hardly anything left.”

“You don't pull a family apart because you don't like the look of it.”

I had held that piece of fin in my mouth. I could still feel it against my tongue.

“Is that what happens to us?”

“Eventually you share a life. Yes.”

“My whole body?”

“You're making it sound ugly.”

“You said she would take care of me.”

“And she will.”

“You never said I would lose my eyes.”

“We've discussed joining all your life. Don't pretend you weren't listening.”

“Then why couldn't I ask about it?”

“You could always ask me anything.”

“I'm asking now.”

“And look at the way you're doing it.”

I lowered my voice. She told me not to use that cold voice with her.

“Where does my body go?”

She told me about nourishment. She told me about the difficulty of living in the abyss with eggs to support and no certainty that food would come. She had gone hungry for me. More often than I knew. Did I imagine she had enjoyed that?

“Did Father know?”

“He was very proud.”

“Before he bit you. Did he know before?”

Mother drew her lower fins against herself.

“You think I trapped him.”

“Did you tell him?”

“He wasn't a child.”

“I'm nearly old enough.”

“Well, you certainly don't behave it.”

I moved toward the fold beneath her belly. She turned with me. I tried the other side.

“Stop that.”

“Let me see him.”

“You have seen quite enough.”

She pressed me against the rock. Her fin covered most of me. I had sheltered beneath it during storms and while large things passed overhead, when she would make her light very small and wait with her mouth open. She held me just as carefully now.

I asked whether he had tried to leave.

She tightened her fin.

“I loved your father.”

“That's not what I asked.”

“It's the answer you're getting.”

Grandmother found us like that. Mother was crying by then. I couldn't see her face, but her breathing kept catching above me.

“He thinks we've all been lying to him,” she said.

Grandmother lowered herself until I could see the little knots along her underside. I had seen them all my life. One moved when she breathed.

“Go on,” she told me. “Say it to me.”

“I want to know what happens.”

“You know.”

Mother's fin loosened. I stayed where I was.

Grandmother picked a bit of grit from the rock with her teeth.

“Nobody said life was fair.”

They had said gentle. They had said safe, often enough that I had gone looking for Oru with food in my mouth. I tried to remember whether anyone had said fair.

“You're upsetting your mother,” Grandmother added. “And for what? What would you do instead?”

I didn't have an answer they would let me finish.

***

For a while I was unwell.

That was the explanation given to the nursery. Two aunts stayed near me, taking turns when one needed to hunt. They were patient with everything except questions. If I asked about Oru, they brought food. If I refused it, they told Mother I had stopped eating.

I learned to eat first.

My teacher came to discuss what she called the unfortunate discovery. She wanted to know whether I had repeated it to the younger males.

“They ought to know.”

“They will, when they're ready.”

“When is that?”

“You weren't ready. Look what it's done to you.”

She asked how many males I had seen.

“Three.”

“All alive?”

“The female was dead.”

“So you couldn't tell.”

“I could see what was left of them.”

She waited, giving me time to correct myself.

“Three,” I said again.

“Your mother says you found a bit of spoiled food. You were hungry. You hadn't been sleeping.”

“She saw the fin.”

“What fin?”

“The one she swallowed.”

My teacher backed away. At last I had said something she could take to the others.

I asked her what my father had been called.

She told me to ask Mother.

Mother said I already knew. When I said I didn't, she asked why I wanted to drag him into another argument.

That night I tried to remember anybody saying his name. I could remember the shrimp she'd taken from me. I could remember Oru trying to laugh quietly, the effort of it shaking the rock against my side.

My father had been brave. He had been devoted. I went through every story until Mother told me to stop moving and sleep.

“You're safe,” she said. “Nobody here has ever hurt you.”

I tucked the torn fin against my side so she wouldn't see me looking at it.

I left while she was hunting.

I had been obedient long enough that the aunt watching me let me go to the cleft alone. I waited inside until her light turned away, then squeezed through the narrow end. Stone dragged across my torn fin. For a moment I was caught, and I almost called for her.

***

I went first to the place where I had promised to wait.

The water there tasted of a female farther out. I had noticed it before and assumed it belonged to one of the aunts. Away from the nursery, it became stronger.

I hunted badly. My fin hurt, and I was accustomed to light. Twice I struck at things that turned out to be larger than I was. After the second time, I stayed inside a dead shell until hunger drove me out.

At home Mother would have found something soft for me. I thought of asking her to bring it to the ledge. We could eat without discussing anything. I rehearsed the request until I heard how apologetic it sounded.

The scent reached inside the shell. When I came out, I knew which way to go.

I went the other way.

That cost me what strength I had recovered. At intervals I stopped and turned, testing whether the trace was still there. It was. Even when I found food, I ate facing toward it.

I had meant to search for other males. There must be some who had seen what I had, or who had simply failed to find anybody. I tried following currents that carried no female scent. Nothing answered when I called.

Eventually I stopped calling. Small lights had begun to gather each time I did.

I slept in short bursts, waking whenever something touched me. Once I woke swimming. I had left the rock without remembering it, and the water ahead was warm with her.

Her light came into view while I was deciding where to hide.

She was holding it low, over a ragged piece of flesh. Little things fed there. I watched one work its way along the edge, picking. I could catch it. I could take it and leave.

Then she moved, and I saw beneath her.

Two males hung against her belly. The larger had a pale depression where an eye had been. The other was small enough to disappear into the fold when she turned.

I looked for Oru's fin. Again. I hated myself for being glad I couldn't find it.

She saw me looking and adjusted herself, a small, embarrassed movement. Mother did that when somebody caught her sleeping with her mouth open.

The female pushed the scrap of food toward me.

I stayed out of reach. I wanted to ask about the males. Whether either had come to her with a torn fin, whether they had spoken, what she called them now. My mouth opened, and I found myself trying to arrange the questions so they wouldn't hurt her feelings.

She waited. Her light shook a little between us.

“Hello,” she said.