Fish Food

Mom looks more tense than usual. Her forehead is sweating because she is carrying about six paper bags full of groceries, and although the boy never saw her do it, he was convinced she could open the door with just her toes. How else could she have her arms completely full and her keys tucked deep in her purse and still manage to open the door? She never calls for help. When he hears their front gate squeak, he always stands at attention by the door in case she calls, but she never calls. 

One of the bags slips from her arms as she’s squatting down to set them on the floor next to their refrigerator. The lid to a jar of mustard pops open as it rolls from the toppled bag and mom says a bad word and goes to get paper towels from the pantry, but the boy, now shirtless, is already kneeling down to clean up the mess. It is his play shirt, the one that used to be white but is now a little yellow and also has a hole in the right armpit. He throws it on top of the mustard glob, hoping it will absorb it, but it’s Dijon. It’s thick. He starts mopping it up, sliding the shirt side to side, pressing the yellow-brown into the grout. 

“Stop,” mom says abruptly from behind him. “Just stop.”

He stands, and mom takes his place on the floor. He is chilly now, without his shirt, so he runs to his room to get another. He decides on another play shirt. He chooses a black one because he can hear mom mumbling something about having to use club soda to remove the mustard stain from his white shirt, but if he wears black then she won’t have to waste her club soda should there be another condiment casualty. 

He runs back into the kitchen and starts removing items from the bags, swiftly but neatly setting them on the counter in the process. He is looking for fish food to feed Jamie, his betta fish. He named him after his favorite babysitter who moved away for a boy named Chris. He never met Chris, but he never liked Chris. He did love Jamie, and now he loves Jamie just as much. Jamie had really long brown hair that fell down to her waist, and Jamie had the longest fins of the whole bunch he and mom looked at in the pet store. Mom bought Jamie when Jamie decided to move away. The boy didn’t know he would name the fish Jamie until he saw it magnified in its little plastic container on the shelves with all the other fish, who paled in comparison. He instantly fell in love with Jamie, and he was happy again. 

“Mom, where’s the fish food?” he asks after emptying all the bags of their contents. 

“Fish food?”

“Yes. I need to feed Jamie.”

Mom sighs.

“You didn’t tell me you needed fish food.” 

“I do! It’s been two days.”

“Two days…” she sighs again. “If you’re not going to take care of your fish, we might as well get rid of it.”

At least this is what the boy can understand. Her words are blended together with other mumbled grievances, and she has begun loudly chopping onions. He hears something like damn Jamie and sometimes he doesn’t know if she is talking about Jamie or Jamie, but in this case he is pretty sure. 

In his room, he sits at his desk chair and peers into the fish bowl, watching Jamie swim gracefully around the fake palm tree and tiki hut in the middle. The whole house smells like onions and butter at this point, and he wonders if it’s making Jamie hungry.

“Sorry, buddy. Mom forgot to buy you food because I forgot to tell her you needed food.”

He gives a forced smile close to the bowl to assure Jamie it will all be okay. His breath fogs up the glass, and he draws a tiny cheeseburger. He wonders if Jamie would enjoy the pencil shavings on his desk because they look an awful lot like his food. 

The phone rings, and mom answers. It’s probably mom’s friend Trina. She calls every day after work. The boy hears the name Rupert, and he isn’t surprised. That is a typical conversation topic between mom and Trina. Rupert was, at one point, the boy’s father. Now he is just a man who calls on Christmas and who Trina has a lot to say about, even though he’s not really hers to complain about.

Trina says something, and mom agrees. Trina talks for a long time, and mom is silent. Then mom says something about how unhelpful he is, and the boy is sure Trina is smiling. 

“Ya know, buddy. Mom has been real stressed at work lately,” he says, plopping down in his desk chair again after picking out a coloring book from his drawer. 

Mom works long days during the week and even a little on weekends. She always seems to be frowning, but not in an angry or sad way. It’s more of a concentrated look, like if anything gets in her way, her whole day will be ruined. 

He sweeps the pencil shavings off the desk with his hand. He looks at them on his palm before brushing them off over the trash can. He thinks of the fish food. He thinks for a moment that maybe Trina isn’t complaining about Rupert, but him. He can never hear the other end of the telephone, but mom always agrees with comments like so unhelpful and he does this on purpose, ya know. 

Surely mom isn’t talking about him. But then he remembers the fish food. The damn Jamie. The club soda on his play shirt and the little bit of mustard still staining the grout. 

“I’m not doing it on purpose, mom,” he whispers, and a tear falls on the open coloring book page, landing on the eye of a half-colored betta fish.

That night after mom is in bed, the boy sneaks into the kitchen and grabs a small mixing bowl. In his room, he stands in front of Jamie’s bowl, tears wetting his cheeks.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” he says, as he scoops Jamie into the mixing bowl.

He stays in his black play shirt and loose pajama pants, but he slips on a pair of wool socks. Mom says wool socks dry faster than cotton.

He quietly opens the back door and shuts it again behind him so he doesn’t let the moths in. The air is warm and damp. He carefully steps off the patio and makes his way through the yard that stretches far behind their house and ends at the creek. The walk feels longer than normal, maybe because he is careful not to spill any water from the bowl. Maybe because he can’t take his eyes off of Jamie, and he feels quite sad. 

The trees around the creek block the light of the moon, and the boy is careful to find stable footing on the slippery rocks. He finds a large flat rock and squats down close to the water. He takes one deep breath and is crying hard now but he knows this is what’s best for mom. He lowers the mixing bowl and lets Jamie go. 

For a moment, he panics. He can’t see Jamie in the dark creek water. He reaches his hand into the creek to try to scoop him back into the mixing bowl, but all he feels is the cold, flowing water.

“This is what’s best,” he keeps reminding himself. “This is what’s best.”

He stands up, says goodbye, and makes his way back to the house. He tries to steady his breath before entering the house so he doesn’t wake mom, but he can’t seem to get it under control. He is sad. So sad. But he knows this is what’s best. 

Waking to an empty fish bowl is the hardest thing the boy has gone through in a long time, probably since he stood on the front porch waving goodbye as Jamie’s little blue car drove away for the last time. He decides it would be best to get rid of Jamie’s bowl and palm tree and tiki hut and maybe even the coloring book. 

He lifts the fish bowl from the table and plans on taking it right out to the garbage can, but it slips from his hands and falls hard to the floor. It cracks in two, and water soaks his carpet. He begins to cry again and takes off his play shirt to clean up the mess.

“What happened?” mom asks from the kitchen when she hears the crash.

“Nothing,” he tries to yell in a calm voice, but it comes out all shaky. 

Mom walks into the room to find the boy pressing his shirt hard on a puddle next to broken glass.

“Stop,” she says. “Just stop. You’re going to cut your hand. Don’t move.”

She leaves for a moment, then returns with a towel and a mixing bowl.

“Hop up on your bed so you don’t cut your feet on the glass,” she says, tossing the towel on the carpet.

“What is the bowl for?” 

“The fish.”

“Jamie?”

“Yes. Did you see where he went?” She is now looking under the desk and the bed for a stray fish.

“Jamie is gone,” the boy says and begins crying again.

Mom stops looking for the fish and sits on the bed next to the boy.

“What do you mean Jamie is gone?”

The boy explains everything between choppy breaths. He explains about the fish food and the phone conversation and the pencil shavings, the mixing bowl and the wool socks and the dark creek water and how scared he was when he couldn’t see Jamie anymore. 

“Oh, buddy,” mom says. Her face still looks concentrated, but less like a frown. More like compassion.

“And what’s the worst part is that Jamie never got to eat before he left,” he cries. “I didn’t even feed him and now he doesn’t know where to find food and he’s probably hungry.”

Mom tells the boy to put on his shoes, and they walk to the car together. They drive to the pet store, and the boy cries harder when he sees all the betta fish lined up in their clear plastic containers. They walk to the aisle with the fish food, and mom asks the boy which one is Jamie’s favorite. 

“The green one,” he points.

Mom slides her hand between the fish food with the green lids and the red lids, and using her palm and forearm, pushes the whole row of green lids into her basket.

“Let’s go,” she says.

When they get home, they walk straight to the backyard. Mom has one hand on the boy’s back and the other gripping a paper bag full of fish food. They arrive at the creek, and the boy shows his mom which large flat rock to stand on. 

Without saying a word, mom opens one container of fish food and sprinkles it in its entirety into the creek. The boy watches as the food drifts down the creek like tiny floating leaves. 

Mom turns to the boy and squats down to meet him at eye level, her concentrated face now a comfort to him.

“Wherever Jamie is right now, he’ll always be cared for. He’ll always be fed. He’ll always be safe,” she smiles. “You don’t need to worry anymore.”

One by one, they pop off the green lids and sprinkle fish food up and down the creek, together.