Dahlia’s dream is also a memory. In the dream, Dahlia is a child, and she is at the beach. She is sitting with legs thrust out to the side, half buried in the warm sand. All around her, other kids laugh and scream, running in and out of the waves, circling and zig-zagging, all trying to get close, but not too close, to the objects of their fascination. But Dahlia stays put. Then all of a sudden—as is often the case in dreams, and in reality for children too small to determine their own fates—Dahlia is up in the air. She has been scooped up by strong arms. She is being held and carried.
“You looked like you could use a ride, missy,” the man with the arms says.
In the dream, Dahlia has been waiting for this. This is the best part. This is Mr. Stills.
“Let’s get closer so you can see,” Mr. Stills says.
He is a tall man and in his arms, Dahlia feels she is very high up. It is such a different perspective than she normally has on the world. Some children would be scared by this sudden change in altitude, but not Dahlia. She looks at Mr. Stills’ curly knots of brown hair and his big smile, and feels confident that she is safe in his grasp. She breathes him in and he smells like the ocean.
Dahlia is perched up on Mr. Stills’ shoulders now—so broad, they are like bench seats for tiny Dahlia—and what she sees are men in rubber boots all up and down the shore. Some are bent over, some upright, arms outstretched. Below the men are the squid. The squid lie in wet sand, helpless. These men reach for the squid, then throw them as far as they can into the cold blue water. Their movements are smooth—like the men, all working together, are a machine. In this way, they are clearing the sand of the poor, displaced creatures. Mr. Stills explains that he and his crew will stay here as long as it takes, until all the squid are back in the bay where they belong. Dahlia looks behind her and sees the children, still running and laughing, daring each other to touch the squid. Beyond that, music, magicians, vendors selling food—fried squid bites and ink pops. It is a festival, a party, this special day once a year when the men come to throw the squid. Dahlia’s family is up there on the beach, somewhere, and she strains to see them, but can’t pick them out so she turns her attention back to the men and their work, the way they hold each squid so gently, swinging it down toward their waists then up, then letting go at just the right moment, sending it flying. A dozen squid at a time, sailing in beautiful arcs back to their home in Monterey Bay.
When Dahlia wakes, it’s the feeling of being held that lingers. Dahlia has not been held in a very long time, not since her husband, Terry, passed away more than a decade ago. Even then, Terry never held her like that. Terry was also a big man, a strong man, but he was always so cautious when picking Dahlia up. Even when he was being playful, he was cautious. Her father was the same way, and her younger brother Isaac, once he got big enough to pick her up, clumsy about it. That was always the way with any others who had ever held her: cautious or clumsy. No one was ever as cavalier, or as graceful, as Mr. Stills.
Dahlia remains in bed for a long time, replaying the dream-memory in her mind, willing her body to feel the firmness of Mr. Stills’ grip around her waist, the warmth of the sun on her face, the irritating pricks of the sand pressed into her palms. It’s only when she hears Madison rustling around in other parts of the house that Dahlia pulls on her robe and maneuvers herself out of bed and into her wheelchair.
In the kitchen, Madison sits hunched over a bowl of cereal, reading the newspaper. Her stringy, black bangs shag over her eyes. There’s a bowl and spoon set out for Dahlia too, though Madison does not bother to greet her.
“Have I ever told you about Squid Days?” Dahlia asks as she pours milk into her bowl.
Madison shakes her head without looking up from her newspaper.
“When I was a little girl, there was this wonderful festival each year on Cowell Beach. My family went every time. There was food and music and all sorts of entertainment. It’s too bad they don’t have anything like it anymore. You probably would have enjoyed it.”
“Probably not,” Madison mumbles and Dahlia is reminded how few things Madison allows herself to really enjoy.
“Regardless, it was quite the spectacle,” Dahlia says.
They eat in silence after that. The shades in the kitchen are drawn, but light still shines through and Dahlia can tell it will be a nice day. She listens for the ocean, just two blocks away, but can make out only the noise of passing traffic—a motorcycle, a city bus, the high-pitched voices of children in a pack walking past the house on their way to school. Their chattering sounds just like the children playing on the beach in her dream-memory, though those children would all be as old as Dahlia now. Dahlia thinks it would be nice to find one of those grown children and reminisce about the oddity and wonder of Squid Days. It’s been so long since she’s even thought of the event, much less spoken to someone about it. She can’t remember how long. But it would be nice to do that today, she thinks, with the images from the dream still fresh and glorious in her mind.
“I’d like to come with you to campus this morning,” Dahlia says when she’s finished her breakfast. “I want to send an e-mail to Isaac.”
Madison shakes her head. “I’ve got English then econ then I’m meeting with some people to work on a group project.”
Dahlia stares back at the younger woman. She doesn’t know what this has to do with her e-mailing Isaac.
“So you’ll be stuck in the library all day,” Madison says. “Do you want to be stuck in the library all day?”
“I don’t mind.”
“Fine. Can you be ready to leave in fifteen minutes? I don’t want to be late.”
Madison is Dahlia’s grandniece. She is nineteen years old and lives with Dahlia rent-free in exchange for helping Dahlia with tasks she can’t do herself, like driving, grocery shopping, the lifting of heavy objects, the cleaning of awkward spaces, etc. Helping Dahlia used to be Madison’s grandmother, Joanie’s, chore, but Joanie was diagnosed with type II diabetes the previous winter and is now unwell herself much of the time. When Madison is not at school, or at home with Dahlia, she is often with Joanie. And so Dahlia does not begrudge Madison her surly disposition, her near-constant bad mood. It is unfair for a young woman to have to spend so much of her free time with old women, particularly in this day and age when there are so many more exciting options for recreation.
But then, Dahlia sometimes wonders if Madison might still be angry even if she had no family obligations at all. Dahlia sometimes wonders if Madison is simply an angry person. There’s a degree to which angst is fashionable among the young. To accentuate this image, Madison dyes her hair black and wears dark make-up and dark clothes most of the time, baggy black pants cascading over black boots. When Madison was in high school, her friends looked this way, too, but now Dahlia has noticed that the handful of other girls Madison associates with have cast off their black wear for jean shorts and college t-shirts or even sundresses. Short hair seems all the rage this season, red or blond. Dahlia wonders why Madison has not made this transition with her peers.
In the car, Madison listens to a grating, guttural kind of rock music, too harsh and turned up too loud for Dahlia’s liking. Soon though Dahlia stops noticing the music. She looks out the window of the car and is swept up by the sunny beauty of the city she’s lived in all her life. The freeway and the shopping centers and the tangle of cars, buses, bicycles on seemingly every street are new, but the sky and the water and the trees are just the same. The beaches and the boardwalk and the big wooden roller coaster. Dahlia thinks again about the excitement of Squid Days and smiles to herself.
At the community college, Madison parks in the handicapped spot in front of the library and helps Dahlia up the ramp to the front door. “I’m done at three,” she says, then turns and walks quickly back down the ramp. Dahlia watches for a moment as Madison slouches across campus, head down, shoulders rounded, and wishes she could be the one to lighten the burden for her grandniece, rather than just another obligation, weighing her down, pushing her in to herself.
Dahlia likes the college library and doesn’t mind the prospect of spending her day there. The facility isn’t particularly impressive, but it is pleasant. There are windows on all sides and there’s a coffee shop at one end of the building where she can get a sandwich or a pastry without too much fuss. Also, she is not the oldest or the most disabled person to use the library. There is often a quadriplegic woman sitting near the front entrance who Dahlia nods to when she passes. And once she saw a man who had to be at least ninety hunched over a stack of books at a study table. Dahlia doesn’t know if these people are students themselves, or, like her, relatives of students who have simply stowed them in the library for a while. Either way, she feels she’s in good company.
As she makes her way to an empty computer station, a work-study student rushes over to move the swivel chair out of the way for her. Dahlia thanks the young man, settles herself in front of the machine, and logs in to her Hotmail account. It’s just in the last few months she has learned how to use the Internet. She’s a quick typist from her days as a secretary, but she’s never been one for keeping up with technology. It was Madison who set her up with e-mail and showed her how to use Web browsers, saying, “Jesus, Dahlia, it’s 2003. You need to catch up,” and now Dahlia feels fairly comfortable with the whole arrangement, which she knows is better than a lot of people of her generation. She takes pride in that.
There isn’t much e-mail waiting for her. Just a couple of forwarded jokes from Joanie—dumb things Dahlia usually doesn’t read. She asked Madison about these joke e-mails once and Madison told her to just reply “LOL” to each one. “It means ‘laughing out loud.’ Then you don’t have to read them, but she thinks you did.” But today Dahlia doesn’t even bother with the LOLs. Instead, she writes to Isaac.
Dear Isaac,
This morning I had a dream about Squid Days and it was so vivid and beautiful, I had to tell you about it. Do you remember Squid Days? It stands out as one of the few events you, me, Mommy, and Daddy could all enjoy. Were we really so different, the four of us, that it took thousands of squid washing up on Cowell Beach to bring us together? I suppose we were. In the dream, Mr. Stills made a special trip to our beach blanket to pick me up and take me down to the water so I could see the men throwing the squid. Do you remember Mr. Stills? He was always such a kind man. You were not in the dream, but I thought you might appreciate it none-the-less.
Your loving sister,
Dahlia
She could just call Isaac to talk about Squid Days, but Isaac, a lawyer in New York (still practicing at sixty-eight, more likely to die than to retire) often uses the time difference and his hectic work schedule as excuses not to answer when Dahlia phones. And also not to return her messages. It seems to Dahlia that she and her sibling have always communicated better in writing than in person. Somehow, it’s easier for both to say what they mean in notes, letters, and postcards, with no risk of being interrupted mid-thought by the other’s voice. And so, these days, they talk mostly by e-mail.
After she’s finished writing, Dahlia browses for books. She finds a display of items on local interest. There’s one book on the history of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and another on surf culture. Both show old pictures of crowds gathered at Cowell Beach, children playing in the surf, and families on beach blankets. But neither mentions Squid Days, or squid at all for that matter.
An hour later, Dahlia gets back on the computer and sees Isaac has responded to her e-mail. His note is brief.
Sorry, Sis, no idea what you’re talking about with the Squid Days or this Mr. Stills fellow. No recollection. Your dream sounds nice though. My regards to Joanie and Maddy. Be well. –Ike
So Isaac doesn’t remember. But Dahlia remembers Isaac in his bright blue bathing trunks and sun hat, sitting in the sand, ink pop in one hand, plastic shovel in the other, digging and sucking, his lips an ink-stained smile. A fussy toddler, he was his happiest at Squid Days.
Dahlia knows Isaac’s response shouldn’t surprise her. Indeed, throughout her life, her brother seems to have made it a point to always disappoint, or undermine, or side-step Dahlia somehow. Why should this be any different? Yet, she had so hoped he’d be willing to share in her recollection of Squid Days! She wants someone to join her in the memories of this magical event, so many years in the past—to agree with her that, yes, Squid Days was truly something special, and what a shame it no longer takes place. She knows she can’t talk about it with just anyone. It’s too strange a vision, and too far removed from the modern day realities of Cowell Beach—burrito shacks and boogie board rental shops and a peculiar smell, not as bad as rotten eggs, but similar—for most to appreciate. She needs someone who was there. Really, Dahlia thinks, her brother should be that person. Dahlia decides she will try Isaac again the following day. Perhaps it is simply a matter of providing more detail to ignite in him some spark of reminiscence.
But the next morning, Madison is gone before Dahlia gets up. There’s a note on the table that says “Went to school early to study.” This means Dahlia will have to take the bus downtown to the public library if she wants to write to Isaac again.
Strangely, though almost everyone at the public library on a weekday morning is Dahlia’s age (if not older), she’s less comfortable there than at the community college. There’s this feeling of time being wasted, as if everyone is just counting the minutes until they can go somewhere else. Dahlia does not like this feeling. She much prefers the studious, focused atmosphere of the college. She finds an open computer and responds to Isaac’s e-mail from the day before.
Dear Issac,
Oh, I do wish you’d make an effort to recall Squid Days! I suspect you’ll find it there, somewhere in the recesses of your brain, if you really try. I have a picture in my mind (as clear as if it were a photograph!) of you reaching out like you wanted to catch each squid with your tiny hands before the men could throw them back in the sea. You were so fascinated by all the goings-ons there at the beach. Once, a magician came up to us and made a small wooden carving of a squid appear behind your ear. Daddy paid him a dime so you could keep it. Does none of this ring any bells? Do let me know.
Fondly,
Dahlia
She hits the “Send” button. But in her heart, she knows Isaac will still not give her the response she wants. He won’t even consider it. In true little brother fashion, even if he does remember Squid Days, he’ll deny, deny, deny, until empirical evidence forces him to admit he is wrong. It’s so silly, Dahlia thinks, this lifelong rivalry. But she’s not above it herself. She decides she will find proof of Squid Days and send it to Isaac. She’ll force him to say she’s right about Squid Days—that he was there, that he remembers, and that he liked it.
She starts with an Internet search, but finds nothing corresponding to “Santa Cruz Squid Days,” or even just “Squid Days.” Searches for “Squid in Monterey Bay” yield a plethora of results, but not the thing she’s looking for. She tries the library’s own card catalogue, unsure what books might be of use. She decides, ultimately, that newspaper clippings are the best, something proclaiming “Squid Days Is On Its Way!” in bold block script.
She flags down a library aide, a young volunteer from the local high school, and asks for help accessing the microfiche collection. She doesn’t tell the girl exactly what she’s looking for, only that she wants old articles about squid in the Monterey Bay. She doesn’t want to sound batty, talking about some weird beachside squid party from the olden days. So she keeps it simple. The girl gets Dahlia set up with the machine and brings her a reel of microfilm with a story about a squid fisherman who was killed in a bar fight in 1939 and several about the impact of pollution on the bay’s marine life. But no Squid Days. Dahlia shakes her head. “No, I’m afraid this isn’t quite right,” she says to each article.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t find what you were looking for,” the young library aide says after twenty minutes, signaling to Dahlia this project has exhausted her patience. Before she returns to the reference desk though, the aide mentions to Dahlia that the university has a marine lab out by Natural Bridges State Beach.
“They do all kinds of research about the animals that live in the bay,” she says. “So you might try them with your questions.”
Dahlia decides that’s exactly what she’ll do. A trip out to Natural Bridges seems like a lot of effort just to prove her brother wrong. But Dahlia doesn’t like to give up on a project once she’s started. She’ll get her proof of Squid Days; she’s certain it’s just a matter of looking in the right place. She thanks the aide for her help and for the information about the lab.
Across the road from the bus station, the protestors are out, waving their signs that say “No More Blood For Oil,” and “U.S. Out of Iraq,” and “Regime Change Starts At Home.” It seems to Dahlia they’re there almost every afternoon and she’s glad for this. She herself is not in favor of the war. She worries, though, that these particular protestors—mostly students from the university—lack a sense of history, and what good is political action if it takes no heed of what came before it? At least, that’s Dahlia’s feeling.
Once, she tried to engage the protestors in conversation, telling them her husband had died in the first Gulf War. But this information only seemed to baffle them and she could not tell if it was because they couldn’t see how the first Gulf War connected to the current one, or because they assumed her far too old to have lost a spouse in combat just twelve years prior. And it was true that Terry hadn’t died in combat, per se. He was an engineer whose company had been contracted by the Pentagon to design portable plumbing and irrigation systems that could be easily assembled at bases in the desert without much know-how on the part of those assembling them. He was touring an army camp in Kuwait when he’d suffered an embolism and died. He was sixty-two years old, leaving Dahlia a widow at the same age.
So now she doesn’t say anything as she passes the protestors on her way to the bus, but she does offer a quick thumbs up, which is returned by a skinny boy in ripped corduroy shorts with natty, knotted hair.
When the bus driver sees Dahlia, he lowers the bus’s wheelchair ramp and comes out to help her up and secure her and her chair into a space in the front. He chatters away in a false-friendly voice as he does this. His yammering is mostly about the weather, and then also something about birds. Dahlia isn’t sure if he’s talking to her, as though she were a child, or talking at her, as though she were a piece of luggage. Dahlia smiles back and acts as if what the driver is saying is all part of a perfectly normal adult conversation. She offers the periodic “Is that so?” and “How interesting” until he’s done and then she thanks him for his help. She could be rude. She could embarrass the man by haughtily stating that just because she’s in a wheelchair that doesn’t make her dumb. But Dahlia’s never been that way with anyone. She knows it’s a little cliché, but she always says her philosophy is just to treat others the way she wants them to treat her and hope they catch on. Like with the bus driver. Except he doesn’t catch on, and the whole charade repeats itself when the bus stops at the marine lab ten minutes later and Dahlia has to be unloaded.
The marine lab actually has two entrances—one for a small museum and aquarium whose sign proclaims “Open to the Public” in bright orange letters, and one for the laboratory whose sign does not stipulate who it is and is not open to. Dahlia picks the latter.
Inside, the lab is really just one big room, sectioned into clusters of tables and equipment, hardly any of which is in use. There’s a strange quiet to the place. A young woman working a desk near the door notices Dahlia and stands to greet her. She looks like Madison, with her stringy dyed-black hair and excessive facial piercings. But her expression is kind.
“Can I help you?” she asks.
Dahlia is unsure where to start. Here in the lab, she feels her purpose should be more scientific than personal. She says she’s looking for information about squid migration patterns—historical information, if possible. Have the bay’s squid populations decreased in recent decades? Was there ever a spike in the population, perhaps for even just a few years in the 1930s?
The girl shakes her head, says she doesn’t know the answers to any of it. Her research concentration is in salmon, primarily, she explains.
“But you might ask Cyril,” she says. “He’s our cephalopod man.”
She points toward a sturdy-looking young man wearing a lab coat that’s clearly too tight on him. He sits with his back to them on the other side of the room and the girl offers to escort Dahlia, but Dahlia declines. She doesn’t want to tax the girl’s kindness. She knows how quickly that sort of thing can happen.
She motors up to the table where the young man is hunched, looking at slides and making furious notes on a laptop computer.
“I’m told you’re someone who can answer my questions about squid,” Dahlia says.
“Is that so?”
Dahlia looks around, afraid she may have approached the wrong person. But there’s no one else in the lab.
“You’re Cyril, right?”
“Yeah. What’s your squid question?”
His face has the quality of being both boyish and severe at the same time. He’s got freckles, a mop of curly hair, and wide puppy dog eyes set a little too close together. But he’s also got a square jaw that perfectly matches a set of broad, square shoulders just below. He reminds Dahlia of the Rock’em Sock’em Robot toys Madison loved as a child. No wonder he looks uncomfortable in his lab coat. This young man is not built for science.
He doesn’t smile. This surprises Dahlia. Normally strangers smile when she talks. Sometimes these smiles seem genuinely friendly, but more often they’re patronizing, like the bus driver and the library aide. Regardless, they’re something Dahlia is accustomed to. This unsmiling face unnerves her and she finds herself flustered. She tries to say again what she said to the girl with the piercings, that she’s curious about seasonal swells in the squid population. Was it possible that sometimes there were so many squid that some would beach themselves in confusion? That hundreds of squid would beach themselves? Maybe this doesn’t happen anymore, she says, in fact she’s certain it doesn’t happen anymore. But it used to happen and what would have been the cause of that?
Cyril shakes his head. “I’m not really sure what you’re asking me,” he says.
Dahlia takes a deep breath and tries again. “When I was a little girl, every year in the summer squid would suddenly wash up on the sand at Cowell Beach. Men from the community went down to the shore to help them by throwing them back into the water. There was a festival that went along with it called Squid Days, which was organized by a man named Mr. Stills. People from all over town would come to watch. I know it seems strange, but I remember everyone enjoying it quite a bit, my own family included.”
Finally, Cyril does smile, though only a little.
“That sounds like something I’d very much like to see,” he says.
“But I was so young at the time,” Dahlia says. “There’s a lot I can’t recall. So I’m trying to find out more about it.”
Cyril tells Dahlia he’ll ask around the department and see if anyone’s ever heard of anything like what she’s described. He asks for the best way to get a hold of her and she gives him her e-mail address. She could give him a phone number, but she badly wants this young man’s help. There’s something about him—his bulk, and his no-nonsense attitude—that appeals to Dahlia. He seems maybe even a little Mr. Stills-like in these ways. And so, it is important to Dahlia that he take her seriously. It is important to her that he knows she is the sort of woman who can communicate by e-mail. He, in turn, gives Dahlia a business card identifying him as a graduate student assistant in marine biology, his own personal e-mail address written on the back.
At home that evening, Dahlia is enthused about her progress, happy to have enlisted Cyril’s help in her quest for information. She’s almost forgotten her original reason for trying to find proof of Squid Days—to spite Isaac—and now feels genuinely caught up in the research for its own sake. It’s strange that something so vivid in her memory has seemingly been erased from Santa Cruz history. She wants to know why. She feels like Indiana Jones, digging through the rubble for something valuable and lost.
Over dinner, she chatters away about Squid Days, having forgotten her concern that someone who was not there could not possibly understand it. After all, Cyril seemed to understand just fine. She tells Madison about the beauty of the men working together on the shore, the way they threw each squid so gracefully, like they were doing a dance. She talks about all the treats at the food vendor carts and how everyone in her family, especially Isaac, loved the sweet, runny ink pops the best. She tells Madison about the kindness of Mr. Stills, how he wanted everyone to enjoy Squid Days, how every year he made sure Dahlia got to ride on his shoulders down to the water so she could see with her own eyes the magic of the men throwing the squid.
“Jesus, Dahlia,” Madison interrupts, shaking her head, her mouth twisted in either concern or frustration, or both. “Tell me you haven’t told anyone else about this Squid Days thing.”
Dahlia lies and says she has not.
Dahlia’s dream is also a memory, but this time, the dream is different. Again, she is a little girl in the sand with her useless legs half buried. Somewhere nearby, Isaac is sitting in Mother’s lap, munching on squid snacks. All around, children with regular legs run like tops in stupid circles but Mr. Stills does not pick them out. Just as before, he comes only to Dahlia and scoops her up without asking. She squeals in surprise and delight. Again, he carries her on his broad shoulders to the water’s edge so she can watch the men throwing squid, the creatures strangely graceful in flight.
What is different in this dream is that the other men are not standing on the shore. They are out in the bay on boats. They are reaching into the water and pulling squid out, then tossing them onto the beach. They’re not saving the squid; they’re killing them. Dahlia isn’t upset by this though. It’s all part of Squid Days. It’s the biggest day of the year for the town’s fishing industry. She turns to see the magicians and the food vendors and the running, screaming children. She looks back at the bay. The men on the boats stay small in the distance, but the squid get bigger as they fly toward the shore.
Awake, in bed, Dahlia wonders about Mr. Stills. She has no memory of him outside of Squid Days. But in the context of Squid Days, he was always the man of the hour. He was in charge, overseeing everything, coordinating the vendors and the fishermen alike. She’s not sure how she knows this, exactly. She has no recollection of being told as much. She can’t remember anyone ever saying anything specific to her about Mr. Stills, and yet, she is certain he was someone all the other grown-ups held in high regard. She can almost hear her father, in his gravelly voice, saying, “That Stills, now there’s a man who gets things done.”
And then there’s the question of how Mr. Stills knew to seek out Dahlia. Dahlia tries to remember this as well, but can’t be certain. Was he a neighbor? A member of her family’s church? Or had he simply seen her chair lying in the sand and sensed that here was a little girl who might like to see the squid, but could not make it to the water’s edge under her own power? And then, so thoughtful, he remembered to look for the same little girl each year after. Dahlia wonders if maybe Mr. Stills even had a young relative of his own who was in a wheelchair. A niece or a daughter perhaps. And so he knew how to offer attention in a way that made Dahlia feel she was worthy not just because her legs didn’t work but because she herself was a very special person. Like her legs, working or not, didn’t matter at all. That’s the way she felt, too, when she first met Terry. She remembers how he smiled wide whenever she talked, but not in that patronizing way most people smiled. How he’d sometimes get so excited when he was walking beside her chair, chattering away, trying to impress her, that he’d speed up and actually leave her behind. She’d have to call after him, laughing, “Terry, wait for me.” And he’d come slinking back to her side, embarrassed, but still smiling.
Funny, Dahlia thinks, how some men know instinctively just the right way to be, even if they don’t know they know it.
The fact that the dream that is also a memory has changed does not bother Dahlia. Memory is, after all, fallible. But the feeling of Squid Days—sun, sand, Mr. Stills—remains consistent. And that, she thinks, is the most important thing.
All the same, Dahlia knows the images from this most recent dream will impact her search for information about Squid Days. Cyril won’t be able to help her if he doesn’t know what he’s looking for. At breakfast, she tells Madison she wants a ride out to the marine lab by Natural Bridges. She says she can be ready to go right away if Madison is worried about being late for class.
“They have an exhibit at the museum I’m very interested in,” Dahlia says. She doesn’t want to be caught in her lie from the previous night, and also doesn’t want to worry Madison more than she already has. And so, she lies again.
As usual, Madison’s facial expression conveys disapproval.
“It’s about squid,” Dahlia says. She has found the best lies often require a little bit of truth.
“Just to look and see,” she adds. “There’s no harm in learning a little bit about them, I don’t think.”
Madison’s expression doesn’t change. “Okay,” she says. “I can take you if we leave RIGHT NOW. But I don’t want this to become a whole big thing.”
Dahlia promises it will not become a whole big thing, whatever that might mean.
At the marine lab, Madison helps Dahlia to the entrance and tells her she’ll be back at noon to pick her up. Dahlia waits until the car is out of sight before she goes inside, to the laboratory not the museum.
Once again, it’s the young woman with the black hair and piercings who greets her.
“Back again, eh?” she asks, her voice high and cheerful.
“Yes. I don’t mean to be a bother, but I’d like to speak with Cyril.”
“No bother at all. I’m just waiting for my data to aggregate anyway,” she gestures to a computer behind her where numbers seem to spill down the screen in no particular order. “It’s pretty boring right now, but in a few more hours I’ll be up to my eyeballs in annual spawning trends. Cyril just went out to smoke. I’m sure he’ll be back in a sec.”
Then, as if on cue, the side door to the lab swings open, banging against the interior wall.
“Cyril, jeez, that’s so loud,” the girl says.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
Cyril gives Dahlia the exact same look as when he first saw her the day before. Clear-eyed and grim-faced. No smile. It’s a strange way to be looked at, to be sure. Dahlia worries he is somehow irritated with her, angry even. She is about to apologize, but he speaks first.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have any information for you yet. I haven’t had time.”
Very business-like. Dahlia respects this. She suspects this is meant to be the end of the brief conversation, but she persists. She assures him that’s fine. In fact, she has new information that might spare him some misguided research. Then she waits. Finally, Cyril shrugs.
“Okay. Come over here and we can talk.” He points to the lab table where Dahlia found him yesterday. She follows him across the room, the tinny sound of her chair’s electric motor seems extra loud in such a big space. And then when she stops, it’s as if there’s no sound in the room at all.
Cyril glances back toward the young woman with the piercings like he doesn’t want their conversation to be overheard. He’s not irritated, Dahlia realizes. He’s embarrassed. But who is he embarrassed for? Himself or Dahlia? She can’t tell.
“I did ask my advisor and another professor if they’d ever heard of anything like what you described. They said they hadn’t. They said it really doesn’t seem like something that could have happened, knowing what we do about squid behavior in the bay.” He looks down at her over the bridge of his glasses while he says this, like he’s a doctor offering her a diagnosis. “They suggested... maybe you weren’t remembering it correctly.”
Dahlia nods. She knows what he really means by this—that the whole story is so odd, it couldn’t have happened. It is only the failings of an old, decrepit mind. But Squid Days did happen. Dahlia is sure of it, even though the dream-memory has changed. She refuses to acknowledge any other possibility.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I wanted to tell you,” Dahlia says, plunging forward. “I wasn’t remembering it correctly. I said that men came to the beach to toss squid back into the bay for Squid Days, but now I’m certain it was the other way around. Men went out on boats to fish for the squid and then when they caught them, they tossed them onto the beach. It was really a tremendous amount of squid.”
“Yeah. My advisor suggested maybe it happened somewhere else. Is that possible?”
Dahlia says it is not. She’s lived in Santa Cruz her whole life.
“Me, too,” Cyril says. The first piece of personal information he’s volunteered, Dahlia notes.
“Is that why you chose to study squid?” Dahlia thinks again about Cyril’s resemblance to Mr. Stills. Perhaps his legacy runs through this young man in some way.
“I’ve just always been fascinated by all marine life,” he says.
“Because you grew up by the bay?”
“Yeah. Because I grew up by the bay and I thought about the whole world of plants and animals that live there but that we don’t even see most of the time. I like getting to see them now.” He looks down at his hands when he says this, like he’s, again, a little embarrassed. There’s a hint of self-consciousness in him Dahlia had not seen during their first meeting. She decides it’s a likable quality.
“How did you get here, anyway?” Cyril asks, as if he’s only just realized the inconvenience of the marine lab’s location for someone like Dahlia.
“My grandniece drives me wherever I need to go. Although yesterday I took the bus. She’ll be back at noon to get me.”
“In the future, maybe you could just call. Save yourself the trip.”
Dahlia accepts this rebuke. The marine lab is not her private research facility. Cyril is busy and doesn’t need to be interrupted by Dahlia everyday.
“Yes, of course. I’ll do that.” She’s turns her chair to leave, but Cyril stops her.
“Well, hey, you don’t have to run off right away,” he says.
Cyril tells her it’s okay with him if she wants to stay in the lab until Madison comes back. She thanks him. She asks if there’s a computer she can use while she waits. He sets her up at a desk next to his and shows her how to access the university library’s online databases, which he tells her will let her search through scholarly works, not just what’s on the Web, and again she is grateful for his knowledge and his help.
She spends the rest of her time in the lab looking for information about Mr. Stills. She and Cyril don’t speak much, except once when he asks if she’d like a cup of coffee and she declines, but she likes working next to him. His posture and focus are so studious. It makes her feel like her own research is, by extension, equally as important.
Dahlia learns there are three Stills families in the Santa Cruz area, but finds nothing about their involvement in any squid-related activities. She does come across an article in a journal devoted to nineteenth century oral history that tells a story of a man named Josiah Stills who, shortly after the incorporation of Santa Cruz as a city in 1876, single-handedly laid nine miles of railroad tracks to connect Santa Cruz to the nearby seaside town of Capitola. Sadly, this Stills was never able to acquire a train to run on his tracks as neither city wanted to finance such a project.
The article provides the story as an example of folk legends from the region. Dahlia, however, prefers to believe it’s true. Certainly no one would attempt such a thing today, but she likes to think there was once a time when an industrious man really could build his own rail line, bolstered only by brute strength and the blind optimism that if he set down the track, a train would be provided.
Dahlia knows her willingness to believe such a story puts her in the minority. Certainly many people, younger people in particular, would dismiss it as a tall tale. She thinks again about how the kids of Madison’s generation lack a sense of history. She suspects this is, in part, why Madison was so alarmed by Dahlia’s account of Squid Days the night before. If you refuse to acknowledge that the place you live was once very different from how it is now, stories from the past will seem upsetting, and those who tell them will sound like kooks. Though who could blame Madison, or her peers, for harboring such biases? It’s considerably easier to say that an old person with a strange story has lost their mind, than to consider the possibility that the world has changed so much in just a few decades.
When Madison comes to pick her up, Dahlia is waiting outside in the shade of an oak tree. She feels compelled to account for her time. She tells Madison that the squid exhibit was very informative and she went through it twice.
“And they have a computer for anyone to use,” she says. “I did e-mail and read the news.”
Madison, however, does not seem to care.
In the car, Dahlia sinks into the gut-heavy music and the view passing outside the window of the car, allowing herself to be lulled into an almost meditative state. So it is doubly surprising to her when Madison asks, “What’s an ink pop?”
The question is so strange out of context, Dahlia almost laughs. She wonders how long Madison has been thinking of ink pops, trying to piece together an image. Her first instinct is to ask Madison what she thinks an ink pop is and then tell her she’s correct, whatever her answer is for no other reason than to be allowed a moment’s insight into the girl’s mind.
“They’re popsicles made of squid ink.”
“Gross,” Madison says. “Do they taste like fish?”
“No. They taste fruity—sort of like raspberries.”
Madison doesn’t respond to this.
“They are black like ink though,” Dahlia continues. “Little kids get the juice all over themselves. It looks like everyone’s been eating Bic pens.”
“Gross,” Madison says again. But this time she smiles as she says it. Dahlia wonders if she’s misjudged Madison. Maybe she is willing to believe in Squid Days, just a little, after all. Dahlia decides not to press the issue. It’s always such a balancing act, to win Madison’s favor.
This conversation gives Dahlia another idea. When they get home, she waits until Madison is tucked away in her room with the door closed and then goes to the kitchen phone. She looks in the phone book for the number of an ice cream parlor located near downtown, one of the few places still in business from when she was a child. She wonders if they may have been the original makers of the ink pops, and if so, might they be able to validate the existence of Squid Days in some way. She calls and when a young-ish sounding woman answers, Dahlia asks to speak with the person in the shop who has worked there the longest.
“That’s Reed,” the woman says, then there’s a pause and a man’s voice on the line asking what he can do for Dahlia. This man sounds hardly older than the teenager who first answered the phone. Sometimes it seems to Dahlia everyone in the whole city is under the age of twenty-five. It’s no wonder no one remembers Squid Days, she thinks.
She asks if he knows if the shop ever made squid ink popsicles.
Reed laughs. “We’ve made ice cream out of some pretty weird things, but I’ve never heard of that,” he says.
Dahlia thanks him anyway and wishes him a nice day.
“You, too,” he says. Then he adds, “There’s a stall at the farmer’s market that sells squid ink pasta. But that’s really all I know of.”
Dahlia can’t decide if she finds this information useful or not.
Almost as soon as she hangs up the phone, it rings. It happens so quickly, Dahlia wonders if it has something to do with the call she has just made; perhaps Reed, remembering some other detail about ink pops and calling her back to say so. But when she answers the phone, it’s only Joanie.
Dahlia hears concern in her sister-in-law’s voice. “Is Maddy there?” Joanie asks.
Dahlia says yes, and offers to go get her, but Joanie says, “No, no. It’s all right. I just wanted to make sure she was there.”
Dahlia is reminded of how seriously Joanie took her role as Dahlia’s caretaker, back before she got sick and Madison inherited the responsibility in her place. Joanie had spent most afternoons at Dahlia’s house. While she was there, Joanie assumed all tasks, even small ones Dahlia could easily do herself, like checking the mailbox or answering the phone. This is one thing Dahlia appreciates about Madison—the younger woman allows Dahlia her independence as much as possible. If nothing else, Madison is never in the way.
“Well, I was just calling to check in,” Joanie says, “to make sure everything is okay. Is everything okay?”
Dahlia tells her, yes, everything is okay. Why wouldn’t it be?
“To be honest, Isaac asked me to call,” Joanie says. “He said he got some weird e-mails from you.”
This stings. That Isaac would call Joanie—a woman who isn’t even related to him (Joanie and Madison are Terry’s kin), who he’s only met in person a handful of times—to check in on her rather than simply calling Dahlia himself. Typical Isaac, anything to avoid having a real conversation with his own flesh and blood. Dahlia remembers her observation from her first e-mail of the week—were we really so different? And of course the answer is yes.
“Joanie,” Dahlia says, “perhaps you can help me here. Do you remember ever going to any festivals at Cowell Beach when you were young?”
“We went to watch the surf contests sometimes,” Joanie says. “And I remember once there was something with fireworks. For New Year’s, or Fourth of July.”
“What about a festival involving squid in some way?”
Joanie laughs, but her laughter has a nervous edge. And when she speaks, there’s real concern in her voice. “Squid? What do you mean? Is this what you were talking to Isaac about?”
Dahlia knows she’s made her sister-in-law uncomfortable, and instantly regrets it.
“Oh, well, yes, but only as a joke. I was teasing Isaac about a bit of family lore. I thought maybe I could get you in on it, as well,” Dahlia says, in hopes of assuaging Joanie’s fears. “But perhaps I went too far. I didn’t mean to worry him. It was just a little conflict among siblings. You remember how that goes, right, Joanie?”
Now Joanie laughs again, but this time it sounds genuine. “Oh sure. I used to contradict Terry just for the sake of contradicting him. It’s tough being the youngest. There was a time I would have argued the world was flat if I thought it would get his attention.”
“Well, there you go.”
“Sometimes I still catch myself thinking ‘Oohhhh, that will really piss off Terry when I tell him.’ You wouldn’t think so anymore, after so long. But old habits die hard, as they say.”
Dahlia suspects she may never stop thinking of things to say to Terry and then abruptly remembering she no longer can. She and Joanie have never had a lot in common, but they did both love Terry very much and so now they’ve got their shared grief. It’s a strange, sad bond the two women share, but it’s one Dahlia is grateful for. If not Joanie, who else would there be?
“Yes, I know,” Dahlia says.
Joanie asks how Madison is doing. Again, there is worry in her voice. Dahlia wishes she could say Madison is thriving here in her house, coming out of her shell, finding joy in the world around her. But this is simply not the case.
“She seems to be taking school very seriously,” Dahlia says, grasping for something good to share. “She’s really quite dedicated to her studies. In fact, she’s in her room doing homework right now.”
Joanie says she’s glad to hear this and talks for a bit about how she was herself quite the bookworm in her day and would have gone to college had she not been sidetracked by her early and exhausting marriage, the birth of Madison’s mother when Joanie was far too young to be a good parent, divorce, and, finally, raising a grandchild by herself when her daughter abandoned the infant Madison in Joanie’s care.
“Maybe Maddy will be a professor, or some kind of scientist,” Joanie says.
Dahlia thinks of Cyril’s colleague at the marine lab, the girl so similar to Madison in appearance, but softer in her demeanor. Maybe if Madison had something she could be passionate about, something or someone to truly care about, she could soften in this way, too.
“I think that would be lovely, yes,” Dahlia agrees.
Before she hangs up, she tries once more to mine Joanie for Squid Days information, asking if her family was ever acquainted with a man by the name of Stills. It’s risky to ask another weird question out of context, Dahlia knows, but Joanie does not seem thrown this time. She says no, the name is unfamiliar, but Dahlia can tell her mind is not really on the issue at hand—it’s still with her granddaughter, a person who causes Joanie even greater concern than Dahlia does. She wants so much more for the girl, Dahlia knows.
After dinner that night, Dahlia asks Madison to come for a walk with her.
“Where?” Madison wants to know, her voice full of suspicion.
“Not far. Just down to the beach. I want to look at the water.”
They travel the two blocks to the beach without speaking. The evening is surprisingly quiet; the only sound is the hum of Dahlia’s chair. Madison walks slowly beside her, her arms crossed, head down.
When they reach the sand, Dahlia stops. The beach slopes out in front of them several hundred yards. To the west, the big wooden roller coaster—built before Dahlia was born and rimmed with what look like oversized Christmas lights—blinks, giving off a pulsing yellow glow.
“Pleasant out,” Dahlia says.
Madison points down the road. “If we go a little further this way you can watch the sunset,” she says.
“No,” Dahlia says. “I like it here.”
But Dahlia doesn’t look at the water. Instead, she studies her grandniece. Madison keeps her head down and either doesn’t notice Dahlia staring at her, or doesn’t care. A strap has come loose from the small bag attached to the back of Dahlia’s chair and Madison reaches out, seemingly instinctively, and secures it back into place, then jams both hands into her pockets. Before Madison moved in with her, Dahlia did not know it was possible for a person to be both unflaggingly dutiful and resentful at the same time.
“Madison, what would make you happy?” Dahlia asks.
“I’d like to go back and finish my homework. I have a big assignment due at the end of the week.”
Typical Madison, Dahlia thinks. Refusing to consider any question beyond its most immediate, superficial meaning. Such a peculiar and passive kind of obstinance.
“I mean in general. You seem unhappy so much of the time.”
“I’m not unhappy.”
“But you’re not happy.”
“Well, nobody’s really happy.”
“That’s not true.”
“Name one person who’s happy.”
“I come in contact with people all the time who seem happy.”
“People who seem happy. They’re just pretending because that’s how they think they’re supposed to be. There’s a lot of societal pressure to act happy even if you’re not, you know.”
“Is it boys?” Dahlia asks. “Are you having trouble with boys, I mean?”
“Jesus, no, Dahlia. It’s not boys.”
“Because you’re really very pretty when you let yourself be. Any boy would be lucky to have you.”
“Jesus,” Madison mutters again.
“In fact, I recently met a very nice young man you might like. He studies marine biology at the university. Maybe I could introduce you.”
“No,” she says.
Dahlia scrapes some sand that has collected on the edge of her chair into her hands. She rubs her palms back and forth to feel the scratch of it. This isn’t really the conversation she hoped to have with Madison.
“You know,” Dahlia says, “for a long time I was very unhappy because I was lonely. I worried no one could ever fall in love with me because who would want to be with a woman in my condition? My life would always be a small, sad thing, I thought. But then I met Terry and he made me feel like I was so dumb to even think I was unlovable. All that loneliness just rushed away. And after that, I only wished I had been more patient and not spent so much time being sad. It’s a hard thing, not knowing what comes next. But I think you have to trust it will be something good.”
And when Madison doesn’t respond to this, Dahlia adds, “That’s all I wanted to say,” and means it.
“Are you lonely again now that Terry’s gone?” Madison asks.
The childishness of this question surprises Dahlia. As if her grandniece, in spite of her own parent-less upbringing, and her moping and angst and sad music, has never considered the implications of loss for people other than herself.
“In a way I did not think possible,” Dahlia says.
She rubs her hands back and forth until she’s certain the granules of sand have wedged themselves into her fingers for good and will stay with her forever. She remembers evenings on this beach with Terry. On warm nights, they would come down here together after dinner with a blanket and sometimes a bottle of wine. They’d leave Dahlia’s chair on the sidewalk and Terry would carry her, gently, across the sand. Even in her prime, Dahlia never weighed more than 110 pounds and it seemed to her that big, strong Terry could have carried her like this all the way to Mexico if he’d wished. They’d pick a spot to sit and chat and watch the sunset and though it was nothing glamorous or special, just a pleasant routine, they would luxuriate in the simple joy of being with each other. This memory is certain and fixed in Dahlia’s mind. She doesn’t need history books or news clippings or marine biology students to prove to her it is true.
Dahlia’s dream is also a memory. Same as before, there is the sand, the sun, the laughing, teasing children. Same as before, Mr. Stills reaching for her, carrying her, as if she weighs nothing, down to the water so she can see better. The feeling of being so safe bound up in his arms, like wherever he wanted to take her that would be all right.
But this time, there are no men at all. This time, there are only the squid. Out in the bay, they leap in and out of the water. They are flying. They are dancing. Their movement seems both deliberate and purposeless at the same time. Back on the beach there are no magicians, no vendors. The other children, who are far fewer in number, limit their play to the top of the beach near the boardwalk. They do not want to get too close. There is something unnerving in the way the squid move, yanking themselves free of the water only to crash back into it seconds later, and Dahlia thinks the other kids are right to be wary. But when Mr. Stills turns like he’s going to walk away from the shore to return Dahlia to where he found her, she says “no.” She wants to stay longer.
Unlike the previous two dream-memories, Dahlia finds no joy in this one. Instead, she wakes with a sense of melancholy she cannot shake. It’s not that she didn’t enjoy the dream. But rather that its end is unbearable. There is no Mr. Stills anymore. There’s no more Mother and Father. There’s barely even Isaac. And if there still had been Terry, none of these other absences would be so consuming, but of course, Terry is gone, too. Dahlia feels overwhelmed by her losses, weighed down by them, and cannot get out of bed.
Outside her door, she hears Madison stomping around the house, doors opening and closing, quiet punctuated by bursts of activity. It’s Saturday, the day Madison runs errands for Dahlia and also for Joanie. Dahlia knows she should catch Madison while she can and write up a grocery list for her. Otherwise Madison, left to her own devices, will bring home only cold cereal and microwave foods. But she lacks the energy.
She keeps her eyes closed and pictures the squid jumping from the bay. Why did they do that, Dahlia wonders. And if there was no real festival, then was there also no Isaac eating ink pops, no mother sitting nearby on the beach blanket? No boasting, taunting hoards of children? Perhaps, truly, they were never there at all. Perhaps it was always just Dahlia and Mr. Stills at Squid Days. There is something freeing in this thought—that Squid Days was not a shared experience, but rather something privately hers. It is possible she is the only person in Santa Cruz who knows about it because she was the only one who was there. Just her and Mr. Stills, who would certainly have long since passed away.
It’s early afternoon by the time Dahlia leaves her bedroom. She finds Madison in the den on her knees, her head and torso underneath Dahlia’s ancient writing desk. On top of the desk is a cream-colored computer monitor. A keyboard, mouse, and tangle of wires lie on the ground near Madison’s feet.
“What’s all this?” Dahlia asks.
“It’s so you don’t have to go all over town just to check your e-mail,” Madison says.
“You bought this for me?”
“Used. It’s nothing fancy, but it will do Internet stuff and word processing. I figured that’s all you need, right?” Madison has extracted herself from beneath the desk. She is looking at Dahlia like she’s waiting to be told she’s done good. Dahlia can’t remember the last time she saw Madison this way—a little girl, eager to please.
Dahlia smiles at her. “It’s lovely,” she says. “Thank you. Really.”
Madison blushes, then quickly turns back to whatever she was doing with the wires.
“Well, like I said, it’s stupid to have to go to the library or whatever for something you can do at home.”
Dahlia’s first e-mail sent from her new computer is to Cyril. She is embarrassed, having to write him again to correct her account of Squid Days. She worries he really will begin to think her demented, if he doesn’t already. But she also figures Cyril can’t find information about Squid Days if he doesn’t know what he’s looking for. It is important to be as accurate as possible.
Dear Cyril,
It appears I might once again have been wrong about the annual Squid Days event. There may have been no fishing of the squid after all. And, perhaps, no carnival to accompany the occasion. It now seems that the most likely scenario involves squid (still in large quantities) jumping in and out of the bay by their own volition. For what purpose, I do not know. This occurrence may have gathered a small, loyal group of viewers, myself and Mr. Stills included, but it is unlikely that it was a city-sponsored event as I originally thought.
Apologetically,
Dahlia Fitzsimmons
Cyril responds, thanking Dahlia for the update. He says he has something he’d like to show her. He wants to know if she has a TV and a DVD player and, if so, can he come over?
This request comes as a surprise to Dahlia, both the enthusiasm, and the forwardness of it. She and Cyril do not know each other well. But then, maybe this is another manifestation of Cyril’s Stillsness—a cavalier streak in the form of a marine biology house call. And so Dahlia replies that, yes, she does have a TV and DVD player. She gives her address and nearest major cross streets.
Cyril arrives an hour later. Dahlia answers the door when the bell rings and is surprised to see how different Cyril appears outside of the laboratory. He wears no lab coat, just a faded plaid shirt, jeans, and sandals. His hair and beard look unkempt and his face, instead of cool detachment, betrays a kind of nervousness.
“I wasn’t certain I had the right house,” he says in a breathy way, as if he’d jogged there.
Dahlia watches Cyril’s face as he peers past her inside. Something has caught his attention and is adding to his nervousness. She looks back and sees Madison standing beside the door to her bedroom, watching, her arms crossed. Dahlia ushers Cyril inside.
“Madison, this is my friend from the marine lab who I was telling you about.”
Cyril nods as if eager to validate this story. He holds up a white DVD case in his left hand.
“I’ve got a video to show your aunt,” he says.
Madison stays put and says nothing. Dahlia can’t decide if the girl is being deliberately rude, or is simply unsure of how to act appropriately around men.
“You can watch it with us if you want,” Cyril adds. “It’s not very long.”
Madison shakes her head, and when she walks past Dahlia and Cyril into the kitchen and out of sight, Cyril seems visibly relieved. Dahlia wonders if maybe Cyril isn’t sure how to act around women either.
“So, uh?” Cyril holds up the DVD case.
Dahlia points him to the small TV in the corner of the living room. He turns it on, puts the disc in, and sits down on the side of the couch closest to where Dahlia has parked her chair.
“Now, what I’m wondering is,” Cyril says, “did it look like this?”
He presses play on the remote and there, before Dahlia’s eyes, are the squid. They leap and dive, frantic, some almost slamming into others midair. It is a strange and violent scene, hundreds of squid, tentacles pinched, eyes open, silvery bodies shuddering. The video ends after just ninety seconds. There is no sound and no credits. And yet, the action is just how Dahlia remembers it, only these squid are different—they are smaller, more angular, and darker in color.
It’s odd to see, this vision from her mind projected on the television. Dahlia waits to feel the surge of emotion she associates with waking from her dream-memories. But it doesn’t come. She feels hardly anything, no more than she would watching any other video that had nothing at all to do with her personally.
“Yes,” Dahlia says to Cyril. “It was very much like that.”
She wants to know when the video was taken. Cyril says the film was made the previous year by students at a university in Poland. The leaping squid live in the Baltic Sea. Researchers don’t know why they jump like they do, but it happens every spring. There are no recorded instances of other squid doing the same thing elsewhere.
“But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened,” Cyril adds.
Dahlia asks to see the video again. She hopes maybe another viewing will spark something of that Squid Days magic within her. But its images seem just as remote the second time around. While it plays, Madison emerges from the kitchen with two glasses of what appear to be pomegranate juice. She hands one to Dahlia and sets the other in front of Cyril who half-coughs a thank you.
So at least Madison is making an effort to be a good hostess, Dahlia thinks. Although she’ll have to find a time to let her grandniece know that tea or coffee are the traditional beverages to offer guests, not whatever weird juice you happen to have around. She turns to suggest that a plate of cookies might also be nice, but Madison is already gone, having shuffled off to some other corner of the house.
The video has ended again, but Cyril is still looking straight ahead. He holds his juice glass in both hands, like a toddler. He seems to have sunken into the couch somewhat and it makes him look smaller, his arms and shoulders less prominent. His resemblance to Mr. Stills has all but drained out of him.
“You remind me a lot of my grandma,” he says, suddenly.
Dahlia nods, unsure how to respond. She is still thinking of the squid, of Madison, of the cookie plate.
“She used a wheelchair, too, from polio.”
Dahlia tells Cyril she did not have polio herself; that she was born without the use of her legs.
“Well, that’s not the only reason you remind me of her.”
He goes on to tell Dahlia how his grandmother was also interested in marine science, all science really, although only as an amateur pursuit. And how she’d encouraged Cyril as a boy in his own interests and was a good audience for all his childish theories and questions about the natural world, even helping him to run small experiments and collect creatures from tide pools to keep in an aquarium in his bedroom. And about how he would go over to her house every day after school to help her with little tasks she couldn’t do on her own. How he misses having someone like that in his life. She passed away his senior year of high school.
Dahlia does not think any of this sounds much like her in particular.
“You remind me a bit of my little brother, Isaac,” Dahlia says, not because it is true (hardly anyone ever reminds her of the inscrutable Isaac), but because the truth—I thought you reminded me of Mr. Stills, but I was mistaken—is too cruel, and unnecessary besides.
“Cool,” Cyril says. “That’s cool.”
He talks for a little longer, about squid mostly. He tells Dahlia about the research he’s doing for his dissertation and Dahlia thinks at first maybe he’s telling her this because it relates in some way to her memory of Squid Days, but she can find little connection and decides really he’s just talking to talk.
After a few more minutes, Cyril catches himself. His monologue ends abruptly and he stands to fetch his DVD from the player.
“Sorry,” he says. “That’s probably more information than you wanted.”
Dahlia assures him, no, it was all very intriguing and she was happy to hear it. Cyril smiles at this, a look of relief.
“Hey, I’m taking a boat out tomorrow to tag market squid for my research,” he says. “They’re the most common species in this region. If you want, you can come with me. That way you can at least see if they’re the same as the kind of squid you remember.”
It’s a nice offer. Again, more than Dahlia would have expected, given the nature of their relationship. Her gut instinct is to say no, thank you, that’s not necessary.
But then Dahlia thinks it’s maybe just what she needs—to be out on the bay, in the immediate presence of its creatures. Dahlia will see the squid in real life with her own eyes and it will fuse dream, memory, and present-day into one, and she will know for certain whatever there is about Squid Days to know.
She tells Cyril yes, she’d love to go out on the boat with him. He smiles again, says he’ll e-mail her with the details.
When Cyril has gone, Madison emerges once more from her bedroom.
“What’s that guy’s deal, anyway?”
Dahlia asks what she means, and wonders for a moment if Madison finds Cyril attractive, and might be, in fact, interested in Cyril.
“Because he seems like a total creeper,” Madison says. “You aren’t planning on spending any more time with him are you?”
Dahlia tells the truth and says she is.
Dahlia spends the rest of the day wondering about the dreams that are also memories. They are so much sharper than her other dreams, so much more vivid. In them, she feels the heat of the sun-warmed sand against her body, the salt from a recently eaten fried squid snack lingering in the corners of her lips. And of course, the power of Mr. Stills’ arms when he carries her. All these details, as real as the days they happened. Is it possible these dreams are a sign of some change in her body or her brain? She’s worried for the past several days that other people will take the dreams as a sign she’s losing her mind. But what if they really do indicate some sort of approaching decline? A stroke? Dementia? Even death? Dahlia thinks an afterlife spent on Mr. Stills’ shoulders would not be so bad. Eternity as a long ride toward the water, the squid nearby, her friend holding her up.
But Dahlia dismissed these thoughts easily. She is in good health for her age. She feels fine.
She wonders, too, about the disconnect between the dream-memories and the video Cyril showed her. Granted, those weren’t really her squid; they weren’t even from the same continent. But they were doing the same thing, weren’t they? The leaping? And yet, it meant nothing to her beyond the intellectual recognition that, yes, she had seen something like it before. Unless she hadn’t, of course. Unless she’d only seen men throw squid from the bay onto the beach, or from the beach onto the bay. It occurs to her that just because the leaping dream came last, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the most accurate. Or that any of the dreams were wholly and individually accurate. This makes Dahlia wonder if, even as a child, she ever really understood what Squid Days was about in the first place.
Truly, the only constant in all of the dreams is Mr. Stills. And Dahlia knows, of course, no matter where she looks, she’ll never find him. Mr. Stills, the man, is long gone.
So, the more she thinks about it, the less sure she is of what she hopes to gain from a boat ride with Cyril. In fact, she has lost the little enthusiasm she first had for the trip. She wonders if she’s been looking in the wrong places for Squid Days entirely. Perhaps that’s why she’s gained so little traction in her week of searching—why every piece of information she finds seems somehow amiss. She’s been looking out—to Isaac, to Cyril, to newspapers, Web sites, ice cream parlors, and now boat rides—when she should have been looking in. She should be solving the Squid Days puzzle within herself. Whatever that might mean. Whatever shape that search might take.
After all, it’s her memory, her dream. What’s it got to do with anyone else? Nothing, Dahlia decides. Lonely as it may seem to admit such a thing, Squid Days has got nothing to do with anyone else at all.
But she resolves to still go. If nothing else, her presence seems to mean a great deal to Cyril. She doesn’t want to appear rude or ungrateful.
The next morning, Madison helps Dahlia into the car for the drive to the marina. Dahlia is pleased by Madison’s willingness to put aside valuable study time to join Dahlia for this expedition, although somewhat less pleased by Madison’s reason for doing so.
“You’re not going out on some boat alone with that guy,” Madison said when Dahlia told her she intended to take Cyril up on his offer. “He’s probably planning to murder you and feed your body to his precious squid. He’ll probably make you dress up in his dead grandmother’s clothes first. He’ll probably make you call him Sonny Boy.”
Dahlia told Madison she was being cruel. She insisted Cyril was not dangerous; he was her friend and he was doing her a favor.
In the car though, Dahlia wonders if maybe Madison senses something about the young man that Dahlia has missed.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Dahlia says, patting Madison’s knee.
“Yeah, well, somebody has to look out for you out there on the high seas,” Madison says. Then she gives Dahlia a quick wink. Such a rare and playful moment from her grandniece. It makes Dahlia want to lean over and hug the girl. But that would be too much for Madison, Dahlia knows. Instead, she decides to let Madison in on her secret.
“I wouldn’t normally do this sort of thing,” Dahlia says. “But it’s regarding Squid Days.”
“I figured. It’s okay though. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, I guess.”
“I know it seems weird, but someday you’ll have something like this happen to you,” Dahlia says.
“Probably not,” Madison says.
Dahlia wonders which of them is correct. Does everyone have their own Squid Days? Their own Mr. Stills? Something from their past that seems so crucial and so integral to their very being, forgotten then remembered, then fractured and fissured through the maddening tricks of the human mind. And if so, what might that be for Madison? Anything at all—a particular dessert at a particular diner, a conversation with a neighbor, a broken plate or lost piece of silverware—could do the trick. There is no way to guess or to predict.
“Well, it’s not a bad thing,” Dahlia says, and hopes that it’s true. “Just so you know. In case it does happen.”
At the harbor, Madison helps Dahlia from the car and into her chair and then tells her she’s going to go find a parking spot.
“Try not to get murdered before I get back,” she says.
Dahlia spots Cyril nearby. He’s leaning against a railing at the edge of the parking lot, looking out at the bay. Dahlia studies the back of him for a moment. He is a bit of an odd duck, she concedes. Odd, but more than that, simply different from the way Dahlia had first perceived him—from the way she first wanted to perceive him.
He’s certainly picked a nice day for a boat ride though, warm with high, wispy clouds. The wheels of Dahlia’s chair clatter against the rutted asphalt and Cyril turns at the sound. He greets her with a wide, genuine smile—more at ease than in her house, and more welcoming than in the lab—and begins to tell her about his plan for the afternoon, the route they will take across the bay and what he’s hoping to observe from his squid once they’re tagged. Dahlia nods politely.
“Well, thank you again for inviting me. And for letting Madison tag along,” she says. “This is really very kind.”
“I’m glad you two could come. I’m just happy to be able to help out with your Squid Days search,” he says. “I really am.”
Dahlia senses that is the crux of the issue for the young man. Cyril’s not a “creeper” as Madison fears. And he’s also not a modern-day Mr. Stills as Dahlia had first hoped. He’s a lonely young man, looking for someone for whom he can be a hero. Or, if not a hero, a good helper. Dahlia remembers what Cyril said about his own grandmother. How he doesn’t have anyone to help anymore. It’s so strange, she thinks, the sorts of things we need from other people. Sometimes one of those needs is to be needed.
Madison appears by Dahlia’s side. She announces that she’s found a parking spot nearby. “So I guess we’re all ready to go, or whatever,” she says, kind of looking at Cyril, but not really.
Cyril nods. “There’s our ride,” he says.
He points to a white motorboat tied to the end of the dock. The dock is connected to the parking lot by a set of meandering wooden stairs. Dahlia knows there must be a ramp somewhere she can use—it’s city property, after all—but she can’t see it. She notices Madison turning her head, trying to answer the same question.
“How will I get there?” Dahlia asks.
Cyril shrugs. His big hands are wedged into the pockets of his jeans. He rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet.
“Well, I just figured...” he starts, and Dahlia knows right away what he’s going to say.
It’s a silly gesture, really. And an unnecessary one. Truly, there must be another way down to the dock. This isn’t some action movie where Dahlia is the damsel in distress, waiting desperately to be rescued. In fact, Cyril will probably feel a little awkward about the whole thing while it’s happening.
But then, Dahlia thinks, maybe in the future, when Cyril’s old, his mind will flip and fracture this scene in his dreams and in his memories. And then it won’t be awkward or silly or unnecessary. He’ll get to play the part of the hero when he needs it. Just like Dahlia gets to be scooped up by Mr. Stills, picked out as special, shown something fantastical and wonderful in her dreams now that she needs it.
Dahlia wonders, if she could pick one part of Squid Days to make real again, what would it be? The squid? But she has seen them in Cyril’s video and they meant nothing. The food and the music? It may never have existed in the first place. The companionship of her brother and parents? Who knows if they were even there, and if they were, what they thought of it. Maybe it was, to them, totally forgettable, as Isaac suggested.
No, if she could pick just one thing, it would be Mr. Stills’ arms. The feeling of being held by someone strong, by someone who cared greatly for her, whatever his reason.
This is something Cyril can do for her. This is something Cyril wants to do for her. He can be those arms.
Poor Cyril, he’s stammering a little now, as if he’s lost his nerve. Behind him, Madison shakes her head, draws her hand in front of her neck, the universal sign for don’t encourage him. But Dahlia wants this. She smiles up at the young man, nods her head to show her support. Go ahead, Dahlia thinks, willing him to stand up straight with his strong shoulders pushed back so he looks the part, so he looks more like Mr. Stills, more like Terry. Then he does, and the image is complete, and Dahlia notices how warm the sun feels on her face and how everything smells like the ocean. Go ahead.
“I just figured I’d carry you,” Cyril says, finally. “If that’s all right.”