“They can be a terribly gossipy bunch. But they’re my friends . . .” Tova trails off, allowing her words to be swallowed by the hums and gurgles of the pumps. How strange her voice sounds in here, muted by the muggy air. Oh, what the Knit-Wits would say if they could see her now. The old pack of hens would have a field day with this. Tova wouldn’t blame them. What is she doing here, telling her life story to this strange creature?
Still gripping her wrist firmly, the octopus traces the birthmark on her forearm, the one Tova used to hate when she was young and vain. Back then, it sat like an outcast on her smooth, pale skin, three outrageous splotches, each the size of a kidney bean. Now, the birthmark is barely noticeable among the wrinkles and liver spots. It seems to be of great interest to the octopus, though, as he prods it again.
“Erik used to call it my Mickey Mouse mole.” Tova can’t help but smile. “He was jealous, I think. He said he wanted one, too. One time, when he was about five, he got ahold of a permanent marker and drew one on his arm, just like mine.” She lowers her voice. “Mind you, he also decorated the davenport with that pen. The marks never did come out.”
The octopus blinks again.
“Oh, how upset I was at the time! But I’ll tell you what, when Will and I finally got rid of that davenport, years and years later . . .” Tova just nods, as if the sentence ought to have the decency to finish itself. And she doesn’t add that she hid in the bathroom as the furniture men made their way down the gravel driveway. Every piece of Erik was a fresh loss, even his ill-gotten artwork.
“He died when he was eighteen. Here, actually. Well, out there.” She tilts her head at the far end of the room, toward the tiny window overlooking Puget Sound, now darkened by night. Has Marcellus ever hoisted himself up there and peered out? Would the sight of the sea be a comfort to him? Or would it be a slap in the face, seeing his natural habitat, so close, yet so far? It reminds Tova of when her old neighbor Mrs. Sorenson would sometimes put her cage of parakeets on her porch when the weather was pleasant. They liked to listen to the wild birds sing, Mrs. Sorenson explained. It always made Tova feel oddly sad.
But Marcellus doesn’t follow her gaze to the dark little window. Maybe he doesn’t even know it exists. His eye is still fixed on Tova.
She continues. “He drowned one night. Out on a little boat. All by himself.” She shifts on the stool, chasing the ache away from her bad hip. “It took weeks of searching, but they finally found the anchor. Its line was cut.” She swallows. “They continued to look for the body, but Erik was already picked apart by then, I’m sure. Nothing lasts long at the bottom of the ocean.”
The octopus averts his eye for a moment, as if accepting some measure of culpability for his brethren, for their position in the food chain.
“They said he must have done it himself. No other explanation.” Tova draws in a ragged breath. “It’s always been so peculiar, though. Erik was happy. Well, he was eighteen, so who knows what was going on in his brain? And yes, we had that argument . . . oh, it was silly. He and his friends were kicking a soccer ball in the house and they knocked over one of my Dala Horses. My favorite one. It was old, brittle . . . My mother brought it over from Sweden . . . Its leg broke off.”
She straightens on the stool. “In any case, he was also upset with me for forcing him to take that job working the ticket booth. But what was I to do, let a teenager loaf around all summer?”
The loafing was a trait Erik had inherited from Will. The two of them would lounge for hours in the den, watching football or baseball or whatever sort of ball was in season. Afterward, Tova would come through with the vacuum and suck up the potato chip crumbs from the seams of the davenport and take a rag to the water stains their sweating soda cans left behind on the coffee table. Even after Erik was gone, Will would do the same thing every time there was a game on: sit on his same cushion while Erik’s sat empty. Loafing as usual, as if nothing had changed. It always irritated Tova.
Keeping busy was much healthier.
“Any reasonable parent would have insisted their child get a summer job,” she continues with a tiny tremor in her voice. “Of course, if I’d have known what would happen . . .” Without thinking much about it, she reaches her free hand into her apron pocket, finds her rag, and begins to scrub at the crusty white calcifications lining the black rubberized rim of the tank. Stubborn, but eventually the gunk relents. The octopus maintains his grip on her other arm, although his eye shimmers in a quizzical manner that Tova interprets as: What on earth are you doing, lady?