Recently I sent him a long-overdue postcard. SPRING, I wrote, in fat capital letters. That was all.
By my reckoning, I am five months pregnant. The past few weeks have been odd, to say the least. I have kept one hand planted on my belly at all times, tucked under the swing of my sweatshirt, verifying the reality of my situation. I have floated through the cabin in a daze, attending to no one and nothing around me. I have not taken a single photograph — except in dreams. I have left my cameras under my bed. I have climbed Lighthouse Hill, standing in the wet wind, staring toward California. I have found myself on the coast, looking for my lost-and-found seal pup. But I have been unable to distinguish between the dozens of little bodies lolling in the sunlight. The female elephant seals are gone. The males are nowhere to be found. The babies, abandoned, huddle together, gathering courage for the new life ahead.
Eventually I will tell someone. Maybe my father. Maybe Mick. None of the biologists are aware of my circumstances, I am certain. The men are oblivious by nature, and Lucy does not pay enough attention to me to have noticed a change; I am simply an obstruction in the path of her mop. For now, I intend to ponder the matter on my own. I will let my opinions arrange themselves with each shift of mood, dancing, falling, and resettling, like the beads in a kaleidoscope.
I often find myself holding still, head bowed, trying to sense the life inside. My stomach is warm. My womb is heavy, grounding me to earth. I feel as though I am coming back to myself. Not Melissa. Not Mel. Not mouse girl. Not the image on the camera screen. Not the woman in the mirror.
ON A CLOUDY morning, I made a decision. The biologists were out on Seal Watch. I saw them go, four figures marching down Marine Terrace, heading for the water. The sky looked as though it had been ironed improperly, a length of cloth rumpled here and there by bunches of crinkled gray. Galen was carrying a carton of gear. Mick was giving instructions with big gestures. Forest and Lucy had their heads close, as though sharing secrets. As soon as they were out of sight, I got to work.
I had not decided what to do about the baby. I had not decided whether to keep it. I had not made up my mind about adoption, termination, suicide, feticide. I was not sure if I had bonded with the fetus. I could not tell whether the glow in my chest came from panic or love or shock or heartburn. I had not decided whether to call Captain Joe to come fetch me. I had not settled the question of whether to summon a helicopter. I had not fully accepted that I was not dreaming, or altered beyond redemption, or trapped in the perspective of someone I could not trust. I had not decided whether to throw myself into the sea. I had not decided much of anything.
But I had made up my mind about Lucy’s pet.
In the kitchen, I found a plastic bucket. I filled this with tap water and carried it to the coffee table, setting it beside Oliver’s tank. Then I rummaged through the fridge until I found the crabmeat. As usual, the octopus was in stealth mode, nowhere to be seen. But I knew the drill. I tapped three times on the lid. I had often seen Lucy do this, signaling to the octopus that it was time to eat. At once a bubble of tawny skin erupted from the pebbled floor. Oliver’s arms were in motion, writhing and whirling, propelling him upward. His eyes poked out on stalks. I saw the horizontal bar of each pupil, the yellow iris. At this point, Lucy would usually open the small trap door and drop the crabmeat through the aperture.
I, however, removed the entire lid of the tank. For the first time, Oliver and I looked at each other face-to-face, with no screen or pane of glass between us. He turned an angry crimson. He was unsettled. No one had ever taken the lid off his cage before. Octopuses were too clever, too determined to escape; it wouldn’t be safe to leave the tank open, even briefly. I dropped the crabmeat with a splash. Oliver grabbed for it absentmindedly, his yellow eyes still fixed on me.
Even now, I can’t explain what was driving me. The inclination had come with the force of an edict from heaven. There was no gainsaying it. Maybe it had to do with the indignity of Oliver’s captivity in this wild place. Maybe it had to with Lucy herself — her ignorance, her cruelty. Maybe it had to do with the prodigal seal pup that had been returned to me, against all odds, by the islands — the pup who had, in turn, revealed to me the tiny creature incubating in my own belly. That fish-fetus swam in a private tank, a bath of amniotic fluid. Squirming in the warm darkness. Wiggling its anemone fingers. Sharing my breath and blood.
Slowly I stretched out both hands, my palms hovering above the water. After a moment, Oliver took the initiative. His tentacles were as slippery as earthworms. I could not restrain a grimace. The suckers hurt a little, which surprised me; I had imagined them to be smooth and hard, like suction cups. Instead, they seemed to be made of a thousand tiny feelers. I did not rush him. I allowed him to explore my skin. The furious red began to leave his flesh. He wrapped a wet arm around my pinkie. It was an oddly intimate gesture, his grip as gentle as a baby’s.
Then I felt a pull. He was hoisting himself upward, levering himself against my fingers. He was heavier than I had anticipated — the weight and solidity of a softball. The tentacles slithered around my wrists, braided across my skin.
A few minutes later he was in the plastic bucket. I had my coat on, heading for the sea. The air was tinged with salt. Oliver bobbed awkwardly around, sloshing back and forth with each stride. Occasionally the centrifugal force would roll him over in a pinwheel of tentacles. I was moving fast, though there was not a soul to be seen. For the moment, I had Southeast Farallon to myself. I was glad of it. When Lucy noticed, in a day or two, that her pet had disappeared, I would do my best to feign innocence. Oh, the octopus? Gosh, the last time I saw him, he was in his tank.
At the shoreline I slowed down. The stones were slippery, coated with algae. Up close, the water was laced with shadows. I braced myself against a boulder. The sea lapped quietly. I picked up my bucket, tipped it slightly — and Oliver came flying out, lunging through the air, his tentacles akimbo. A rainbow of droplets followed him. He landed in the surf with an undignified smack. I laid a hand on my belly, that taut, fiery orb. This posture had become habitual to me.
Then I felt something new. There was an answering caress from inside my body. A brush. A shift. I did not recognize the sensation. A butterfly seemed to have grazed its wings against the dark interior of my womb.
I froze. I did not breathe until the feeling came again. The touch was as gentle as a snowflake landing. But I knew what was happening now. It was the baby’s quickening. It was the first palpable movement. It was proof of life.
I did not cry. I was done crying. I could still see the octopus, caught in the swell of a wave. Before my eyes, he sucked in a mouthful of water and plunged downward. A wisp of red. A flicker of tentacles. An ocean that was no longer empty.
BIRD SEASON
31
LIFE IS NOT what I thought it was. I am not what I thought I was. A photographer, a nomad, a motherless daughter. A letter-writing woman, shedding a wake of paper and words across the world like the trail of an airplane. An artist with a camera for a brain: cold, clear, calculating. A woman in black.
Galen had asked me: What is your nature, Miranda?
Something happened to me the day I made contact with the seal pup. The day I broke the rule of noninterference. The day I crossed to the other side of the camera and photographed myself. The day I remembered I had a body.