Monkey Sea Monkey Do

The other kids have been complaining about the bag, the teacher tells me, says the bag in a way that tells me she expects I already know what that is. But I have no idea what bag she means, have to ask “what bag,” and then she’s got that look of disappointment, the one that says why aren’t you on top of this, why aren’t you doing a better job.

“The plastic bag with the water and the little flakes. I’m sure you’ve seen it at home,” she says even though she knows damn well I haven’t, wouldn’t have asked about it if I’d seen it. Pretty easy to piece together what it is, though, water and flakes are all the clues I need. It’s got to be the brine shrimp.

As far as I knew they were all in a plastic container on her dresser. I tried talking her out of the sea monkeys in the first place. "What about hamsters," I said, but Casey was adamant. She didn’t say so, but I could tell she was disappointed as soon as she dumped the packet into the water. What do you expect, I wanted to tell her, everyone’s known they’re a scam for decades now. I don’t know a lot, but I’m sure that’s not the kind of thing to say to a seven-year-old, so I kept my mouth shut.

“There’s a smell to it,” the teacher says. I find that hard to believe but I guess the message is really that it’s weird, get it under control.

I wonder if the other kids have been making fun of her or going straight to the teacher. I don’t know how they handle things these days. Childhood feels as new for me as it is for Casey. Sure I went through it once before but it seems so different now, not like I remember it, though that could have something to do with the drugs that came between then and now. I don’t mention that to the teacher. I get enough looks from her as it is.

“I’ll talk to her,” I say. I don’t know what else to tell her, how to convince her that I’m trying. “Give her a break,” I want to say, but what I really mean is “give me a break.” “I’m still new here,” I want to say, have wanted to say every day for almost two years now. “I wasn’t ready for any of this.”

***

I wasn’t there when she was born. I didn’t even know when my sister went into labor. I was a handful of time zones away and I still had more drinking years ahead of me, so odds are good someone told me what was happening but it got drowned away. Didn’t even meet her until she was two months old, and even then it took my sister bringing her to my doorstep. I’d like to say that it would’ve been different if I’d known how things would end up, but I’m pretty sure that’s not true. I’d like to say I fell in line after the first time we met and was a star aunt, but that’s sure not true. "It wouldn’t have made a difference," I tell myself the nights I can’t sleep, and though it’s not as many as it used to be it’s still a lot.

The other thing I tell myself is “we are trying, we are doing our best.” The we is important because it’s not just me, she has to figure all this out, too. I didn’t ask for this, but neither did she. Of course we both think it would have been better if that truck hadn’t blown through a red light in the same moment my sister Becca was crossing the street, the light in her favor but what good are lights against all that mass and momentum. All we can do now is work with what we’ve got, even if none of it is what we asked for.

***

”A lot of the kids have the digital pets, which could be a more appropriate way to connect with her peers,” the teacher says, and I read between the lines and figure that yeah, they’re making fun of Casey. “They just download the app on their phones.”

Seems funny for a bunch of seven-year-olds to have phones. "Who are they calling?" I wonder. Are they checking emails? Used to be that kids worked in factories and mines, though by the time I was born conventional wisdom said let kids be kids, which meant piles of toys and afternoons spent screaming through sprinklers and allowances spent at shifty looking ice cream trucks. Maybe it’s come back around by now, kids have to be adults again only the machinery’s gotten smaller.

Casey doesn’t have a phone, just an old iPad that can connect to the internet most of the time but isn’t exactly reliable about it. Now it feels like that isn’t enough, and the next thought is how could I possibly think that was good enough and that goes hand in hand with “I’m terrible at this.” At least it’s familiar territory. I feel like I’m terrible at this at least a couple times a week. Was more, but I’ve started to get the suspicion that most everyone is terrible at this, this being helping kids grow up without too much damage. At least the biggest damage so far didn’t come from me. So far it’s the world doing the worst.

“I’m just suggesting that there may be a more socially acceptable alternative,” the teacher tells me. Does she talk to the moms like this, I wonder, or does she save it all up for the aunts? Or is it just for me, maybe there are aunts she thinks are doing a better job. Maybe there are no other aunts.

How would she talk to Casey’s dad if he was here instead, if he stayed instead of running off to what he called a monastery and what the internet calls a cult? Either way, they preach the importance of stripping away the old life, and Casey is part of the old life, so here she is in an apartment with an aunt who never wanted kids, and there he is somewhere up in the hills with a shaved head. I wrote him letters for a while, actual pen and paper letters, had to buy stamps and envelopes and everything. “She misses you,” I said at first, but they became more like “I don’t know what I’m doing, we need you to be here.”

All the letters came back in a pile, rubber banded together, return to sender. I got the message. "You’re on your own," all my letters said back to me. Men get to go shave their heads and chant and leave behind the people they were. Women get to raise kids who look more and more like their sisters, have to keep living in the old life, living in it and living in it and living in it.

***

Casey’s on the little plastic chair in the hall where she was told to wait, not even kicking her legs just sitting still. More still than it seems like a child should be capable, though it doesn’t seem strange for her. Just seems like she’s gotten good at not moving. I try to guess at where she’s got the bag. Must be in her backpack, but how does she keep it from popping is the big question. Seems impressive that she’s figured that out on her own, but of course the teacher doesn’t want to know more about that.

She doesn’t say anything as we walk to the car. I don’t know how much she knows about what the teacher wanted to talk about, and I don’t know if I should bring it up, so it’s safer to keep my mouth shut. Could be that Casey thinks the same thing, though maybe that’s projecting too much onto a second grader.

“Spaghetti for dinner tonight?” I ask once she’s all buckled into the booster seat that, according to her weight, she still needs. She’s still so small. Too small? I wonder all the time. Can someone just tell me she’s the right size I plead to no one in particular, though I guess someone would definitely tell me if she wasn’t. Her teacher would have some roundabout way of pointing it out, probably.

Casey nods. The girl will never turn down spaghetti, thank god for that. Nice to know that we have at least one thing that is stable, consistent. Easy, even.

The teacher has texted a link to the digital pets all the kids apparently love by the time we get home, and I decide that’s enough from her for today and toss my phone in my bag so I don’t keep looking at it. Up the stairs we go, me to the kitchen to start water boiling, Casey to her dining room turned bedroom.

The door’s part open but I knock on it anyway, always knock because seems like even a seven-year-old should have some privacy. She’s staring into the little plastic tank on the dresser. The teacher said flakes but I think they look more like a glob of snot. How many tiny shrimps make up that blob. I’m curious but don’t care enough to figure it out. It feels like I should fluff her hair or rub her back or something, but I’m not sure any of those are right so I keep my arms folded. I came in to say that dinner’s ready, but now that I see her staring at the sea monkeys I don’t want to pull her away, not yet. Something in my gut says to wait. My gut has been responsible for all manner of bad choices, but I decide to give it a chance. Maybe it’s learned a thing or two by now.

“How are they doing?” I ask.

“Good,” she says. “There’s kinda a lot of them now.” From her tone, I can’t tell if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

“Do you think they need a bigger tank?” I ask, try to give her an opening to talk about the bag, but she just shrugs and that’s the end of that. I get on my knees, which is tougher than I really want to admit, and look into the water with her. If I squint the snot has little legs and tails, but I still can’t tell how many are in there.

Instant Life! the package promised, and I guess it didn’t lie, those little things are flapping and fanning themselves around in little circles. Life was delivered, just no promises about the quality. Suppose that’s true for all of us, though.

***

Becca got turned into water instead of ashes, which I guess is all the rage now, or at least I took the funeral home’s word for it. I’m not sure where she ended up after the funeral, the water that was once my sister. I know my brother-in-law didn’t bring her up into the hills and she didn’t get dropped off with Casey so somewhere in between all that was left of her disappeared. I asked about it in a couple letters but fat lot of good that did. Maybe she was used to water plants or got poured down a storm drain or some sweet idiot drank her without realizing. No matter where she went she could be rain pattering down in the Amazon now. I hope she is. She would have liked that, I think, though I know she would have liked to be here more. Becca would know what to do about the bag, although there probably wouldn’t have been a bag in the first place if she was still here.

After dinner and brushing teeth and tucking into bed, I fish my phone out of my purse, feel around all the snacks and Kleenex I never used to carry. First thing I do is send a thumbs-up to the teacher. Better that than to have her text me again to make sure I saw her message, I figure. Second thing takes more time, means digging first into my memories and then into the internet. I can picture something like a bracelet with a big clear dome on it, an image from a commercial back when I was around Casey’s age. I’m not even sure it’s a real memory. Turns out it is, though the internet tells me it’s a watch and not a bracelet. Aquarium Watch it’s called, picture of a sea monkey that looks nothing like brine shrimp waving from under the plastic bubble. Even better are the necklaces, though, same idea but the bubble’s on a string, just scoop a little out from the tank to fill it. Has to be better than the bag, I figure, so I find a shady-looking website that sells them pretty cheap and add one to the cart, then say fuck it and add a second. I’m sure Becca would think it was hilarious to be squirted into Sea Monkey necklaces, but since we don’t have any of her left we’ll have to do the best we can with what we have.