It almost looked like my aquarium down there, fifteen feet below the surface. Only, everything was much bigger and you could see much farther, you could see as far as you wanted to. As I swam around, I started naming the fish in my head. “Hey, you, little zebrafish, I see you darting away, but I see you! You I’ll call Hank. Oh, and you, parrotfish, nibbling on the coral over there, your name is Rembrandt.”
I had gone scuba diving every day since I’d been there. I’d stay under until the diving instructor ticked on his watch, telling me that our time was up and we had to swim back up to the surface.
Then I saw her. A beautiful queen angelfish colored the brightest of blues and the yellowest of yellows with a lovely crown-shaped spot on her forehead. “You, I will name Rosita.” I thought about the letter Dr. Römerman had told me to write. I had never been able to, but sitting by the ocean I knew exactly what I wanted to say. It wasn’t much. But I felt it was true.
I never meant for anything bad to happen to you and Anna. I will always love you.
I didn’t mind having to go back to the shore. I knew Iris and Mo and Aaron were waiting for me at the dive shop. Then the four of us would walk to the beach, and Aaron and I would build castles together, just like I used to do with Anna, except that these were made of sand instead of Legos. Then I’d play paddleball with Mo or go for a swim with Iris Kastelein who was definitely my sister over to the raft out in the middle of the bay.
We’d sit there for a while, dangling our legs in the water, our faces turned to the setting sun. Soon the sun would disappear into the water. Iris said this time of day was called “the magic hour.”
I had to ask. “So are we a family now?”
She looked at me with those clear blue eyes edged in black, just like Mother’s, only much kinder.
“I think a family is more like—a father and a mother and their kids. So that’s not really what we are. But we are related. We’re kin.”
I stared at my feet.
Then Iris said, “Hey, why am I making it so complicated? Of course we’re a family. Maybe not your average family, but we definitely belong together. What do you think?”
I cleared my throat. “I always wanted to belong to a family.”
“Me too,” she said. “Me too.”