How to Speak Dolphin Page 3

  “How much?”

  “None of your business.”

  I hate that he manages to find a shortcut when he expects other people to follow the rules. It’s like he’s always butting in line.

  He sticks his head around the door again. “He’ll need a swimsuit and so will you.”

  After Adam got away from us at Dolphin Inlet, Don went online and bought a Mommy’s Helper Kid Keeper harness and leash, which I wrestle Adam into like he’s our pet dog before I open the car door at the Largo Center.

  We take an elevator to the second floor. French doors along the back wall make the large room bright and sunny. A girl a couple years older than me sits at the table near the entrance to the gift shop. Her hair is wet.

  “I’m Dr. Moran,” Don says, clearly assuming she’s expecting us.

  She looks at him, then at Adam straining against his leash, trying to get to a fish tank in the center of the room, then at me. I stare at her so she’ll know I don’t care what she thinks of us.

  She stands up. “I’m just an intern. I’ll get someone to help you.”

  She crosses the room to a row of desks. From the other direction, a girl passes us, balancing two bowls of finger paints.

  Don’s expression as he watches the finger-paint girl disappear down the hall is the same as when the boys were making paper flowers.

  A thin, frazzled-looking woman comes out of a back office. Don’s attention is on Adam, who has his hands wrapped around the leash and is trying to yank it out of my fist. He doesn’t see the intern point to us, or see the woman’s face harden. Her resentment at being offered more money than she could afford to refuse, so his kid can bypass whatever he considers unnecessary, is clear on her face.

  “Dr. Moran.” She extends a wrinkled brown hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Debra.” Her voice is flat.

  Don hesitates, then shakes her hand. “That’s my son, Adam.” Adam is now on his hands and knees, squeaking at the pile of stuffed dolphin toys just like the ones Don bought him in the other gift shop. “And this is Lily.” Then he thinks to add, “My … daughter.”

  She nods to me. “So, Dr. Moran, I’m grateful for your generous donation, but I’m not sure what you hope to accomplish outside the parameters of the program.”

  “I’ve read some amazing claims about dolphin therapy, and he”—Don nods toward Adam—“seems to have some interest in dolphins, but I’d like to test the waters, so to speak.”

  “Do you think the claims seem too good to be true?”

  “Frankly, yes.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Don’s whole body tenses and I flinch, expecting him to explode like a grenade, but when he answers, his voice is totally calm. “Adam doesn’t speak. He doesn’t communicate at all. I’m hoping, if the claims are valid, for a breakthrough.”

  “I can tell you, Dr. Moran, that’s not going to happen. He’s an autistic child and he will grow up to be an autistic adult. With therapy—extensive therapy—he will eventually talk.” She looks at Adam. “In my twenty-five years of doing this, I’ve never seen a nonverbal kid speak because of dolphin therapy. And, by the way, he is communicating—in his own way. You have to know how to listen.”

  Don’s jawbones are practically poking through his cheeks. “Really?” His tone is patronizing.

  Debra hands attitude right back to him. “Certainly. If you ask him if he wants yellow, blue, or green and he selects blue, he’s communicating.”

  I duck my head to hide that I’m smiling. “Adam knows two signs,” I say.

  “What do you mean?” Don snaps, taking his anger at Debra out on me.

  “I taught him the sign for eat and for drink.”

  “What kind of sign?”

  “American Sign Language. This is eat.” I bring my clumped fingers to my lips. “And this is drink.” I make an imaginary glass, and tip it to my mouth.

  “What does he need sign language for? He’s not deaf.”

  “Anything that aids communication in autistic children is a good thing,” Debra says. “Sign language is very helpful.”

  Don hands me Adam’s swimsuit; Debra points to the bathroom on the other side of the room. I carry Adam in, screaming and kicking, and shut the door.

  Debra leads us through the French doors and out onto the balcony overlooking the dolphin enclosure, which has been dynamited out of the coral rock foundation. The water is dark green and empty-looking. It reminds me of the dolphin enclosure at Ocean Reef. And like Ocean Reef, a submerged fence keeps the dolphins from swimming out into the adjacent canal and escaping to the open ocean.

  A wooden dock runs the length of the fence. Anchored to the dock are three rafts, the first of which has a canopy for shade, a chair, a Hula-Hoop, a beach ball, and a bucket of fish. There’s a snorkel and mask, two black life jackets, one for me and one for Adam, and a selection of swim fins. I’m the one who is going into the water with Adam, and though I’d never admit it to Don, I’m so excited my heart is pounding. I’ve wanted to swim with dolphins for as long as I can remember.

  A flattened circle forms on the surface of the pond, then another. Paw prints, the Ocean Reef trainer told me once, made by dolphins traveling just beneath the surface. I tighten my grip on Adam’s leash, but the water bubbling out of a huge, coral rock fountain has his full attention.

  Debra leads the way down the flight of stairs to the dock. Don follows, and I try to take Adam’s hand, but he jerks it away and clamps it in his armpit. Don has stopped midway down and looks up at us.

  “He’s watching the fountain.” I kneel and turn Adam to face me. His body rotates, but his eyes stay on the fountain. “Adam, look at me. Do you want to see a dolphin?”

  His head turns, but his eyes search and find something to stare at over my left shoulder. If Adam was normal, I’d think it was because he can’t stand the sight of me, and I’d be hurt. Sometimes I feel like that anyway, even though I know, for whatever reason, eye contact is painful for him.

  “If you give me your hand, we’ll go see a real dolphin.”

  He pulls his right hand from under his left armpit and holds it up. It’s damp and hot when I take it.

  We’re halfway down when two dolphins pop up by the raft where Don and Debra wait for us. Adam squeals and tries to run. I jerk his arm. “Hold still. You’ll scare them away if you aren’t quiet.”

  With his other hand on the railing, he takes each step carefully, knees bent like he’s sneaking up on them, all the time doing his dolphin sound. I feel my heart break open like an egg. What is it about dolphins that can reach him when nothing else can?

  This is not the first time I’ve wondered what a four-and-a-half-year-old remembers about being one or two or three. Is he drawn to anything dolphin because he remembers Mom and the Ocean Reef dolphins? Does he remember not being autistic, and is that part of the frustration he lives with? When thoughts like this come to me, I remember Mom trying to keep my father alive in my memory, and I worry that over time I will forget her, too, like I have forgotten him. I guess that’s the reason I practice remembering her—like studying for a test. I do it for myself, but I’m also the keeper of her memory for Adam, in case he ever asks.

  At the bottom of the steps, I release his hand but hold on to the leash. If it weren’t for the waist-high chain-link fence running the length of the walkway, Adam would have launched himself into the water. His little legs churn as he runs toward the dock with me loping behind him. When he gets to the raft, Don throws an arm out to stop him from leaping into the water, but Adam ducks under it, flops on his belly, and pulls himself to the edge.

  Don drops his arm and looks at Debra, whose tough, thoroughly pissed-off exterior melts. “That’s exactly how my son was the first time he met a dolphin,” she says.

  Two fins cut the water, and both dolphins pop up in front of Adam. He laughs and holds his arms out. One of the dolphins comes right up and fits his snout against Adam’s left eye socket. Adam giggles and squeaks.


  The other dolphin bobs its head and squeezes a whistle out its blowhole.

  Don closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, making me wonder if he feels like crying, too.

  It’s hard to pry Adam’s hands loose from the edge of the raft and stand him up long enough to get him out of his Kid Keeper harness and into a life jacket. I let Don deal with it, pull on my own life jacket, adjust the dive mask, and slip into water as warm as a bath. Immediately, I feel the pressure of a dolphin passing and put my face in the water to look for it. I see one of the dolphins disappear into the dark water, but the other slides up beside me on the surface. I hesitate long enough to glance at Debra to see if I’m allowed to take the offered fin, but she’s checking the fit of Adam’s life jacket. I fold my hand around its dorsal fin and feel the force of its tail sweep down, then up, and the pressure of water against my chest. When I put my head back and laugh, the dolphin picks up speed until we are ripping through the water so fast my chin throws up a rooster tail. The dolphin drags me the entire length of the pool and back, then sinks out from beneath me when we’re an arm’s length from the raft.

  “Oh, my god.” I shake my hair out of my face and grin at Don. Finally, the word awesome means something really awesome. “That was so much fun.”

  Adam is trying to pull free of the hold Don has on his wrist. “This is supposed to be about your brother.”

  Debra looks startled.

  I feel punched. “When isn’t it?” I mumble.

  The dolphin Debra calls Squirt surfaces and upends beside me. I love the feeling of hanging in the water side by side, with an eight-foot-long bottlenose dolphin, watching the two big land mammals wrestle the little one. I lay my hand on Squirt’s cool gray skin. When he doesn’t move away, I lean and kiss his cheek.

  Adam wails and stamps his feet, then falls to his knees. “Why don’t you let him go?” I say.

  “I think the dolphins go too fast for him.” Don’s tone is softer, the only apology I’ll get.

  “Don’t worry,” Debra says. “The dolphins know exactly how to behave with each client. They’ll be gentle.”

  Don places his hands in those hot armpits and lowers Adam over the side. Adam puts his face in the water, kicks his feet, and propels himself toward me, blowing bubbles on the surface. When he reaches me, he turns and puts his back against my chest. I close my eyes against the pain of his trust in me.

  Squirt drifts over and places his snout against Adam’s cheek. Adam squeaks. Squirt bounces his head and answers him. They take turns making dolphin sounds, a conversation the rest of us can’t understand.

  Debra tells me to try sticking my legs out, toes turned up. I hold Adam, and Squirt, the more playful dolphin, pushes us around the pond with his snout pressed to the soles of my feet. When Debra tosses the beach ball into the pond, the other dolphin, Bella, goes after it and uses her snout to pitch it to us. Adam makes a fist and hits at it, but misses. Bella pushes it closer, and he connects the second time. On a sign from Debra, Bella dives, comes up under the ball, and whacks it back to us with her tail.

  Each time the dolphins interact with us, they go to the raft for a fish reward, then Debra signals them to return and play again.

  When Squirt snaps his jaws together, creating a jet of water, I realize where he got his name. It makes Adam giggle. At Debra’s signal, the dolphin rolls on his back for a belly rub. I reach to go first to show Adam it’s safe, but he beats me to it and places his small hand on the dolphin’s chest. Squirt lies still in the water, letting Adam stroke him until he has to breathe, then he upends and holds his flippers out like a pair of arms. Adam turns and backs up against the dolphin.

  I look at Don, but he doesn’t know how monumental this is. I’ve never told him it’s the only way Adam allows himself to be hugged, because Adam has never let his father hug him.

  “Are you ready for a ride, Adam?” Debra signals Bella, who comes up beside me to let me wrap Adam’s hands around her dorsal fin. When he’s got a firm grip, she drags him slowly across the pool, makes a wide turn, and brings him back to me.

  Adam splashes Squirt, and Squirt twirls, flippers held out so they throw arcs of water over both of us. Adam giggles, spreads his arms, and kicks his little legs awkwardly, trying to turn fast enough to splash Squirt in the same way.

  When they tire of that, Bella launches into a game of hide-and-seek, popping up behind Adam no matter which way he turns. He shrieks with laughter. The harder he laughs, the sadder I feel that I haven’t seen Adam this happy since he was a baby—before whatever happened to him happened.

  We’ve been in the water for the full hour. Adam’s lips are blue and he’s shivering. I’ve got chill bumps from head to toe, and the skin on my fingers is white and wrinkled. When Don signals me to bring Adam to the raft, I begin working us in that direction. Getting him out and away from the dolphins is going to be a nightmare. Squirt, the one who has played with us the most, puts his snout against the bottom of Adam’s foot and pushes us around in circles, all the while edging us toward the raft. Adam’s back is to Don when he reaches over and lifts him out of the water. Adam screams and kicks to get free.

  Debra signals the dolphins, and they disappear. She steps around the bucket of fish and catches Adam’s feet. She stops his head from shaking by holding his chin pinched between her thumb and forefinger. “Adam, look at me. You are scaring the dolphins.” She points to where they have surfaced at the far end of the pond. “They don’t like children who scream. If you and the dolphins are going to be friends, you have to be calm and quiet.”

  Adam doesn’t look at her, but he’s listening and stops screaming.

  “The last thing we do when we are done playing with the dolphins is give them the rest of their fish,” Debra says. “If you are quiet, you can feed them. Can you do that?”

  Adam brings a clump of fingers to his lips: the sign for eat. I’m amazed and look at Don. Debra—a stranger—asked Adam a question and for the first time ever, he answered. Even if Don doesn’t recognize that Adam signed an answer, he has to see this place is good for him—makes him happy.

  “Good boy.” Debra signals the dolphins. They dive and pop up a moment later beside the raft.

  Don puts Adam down, and Debra places the smelly bucket of dead fish beside his leg. “I’ll show you how to do it.” She lifts a fish by the tail and holds it over the water. Squirt opens his mouth in a wide, toothy smile, and she drops it down his pink throat.

  Adam squats, picks up a fish, holds it out to Bella, and lets it go when the dolphin opens her mouth.

  “Perfect,” Debra says.

  After the bucket is empty, Debra sends the dolphins away, and Adam lets me dry him off. He even holds his arms up so I can put on his T-shirt, and he lets me take his hand as we walk the dock. At the bottom of the staircase, he pulls free and runs to the fountain, stands on his tiptoes, and flicks the water with his finger. It’s then I notice a small pen around the corner. I walk over to look inside. It holds a lone sea lion. There’s a lot of algae growing on the netting that separates this pool from the dolphin pond, which is probably the reason I didn’t notice it when I was on the other side with the dolphins. The sea lion is swimming back and forth like a tiger pacing its cage. Her head turns so no matter which direction she’s swimming, she’s looking out at the larger body of water.

  “Adam, come look at the sea lion.”

  He leaves the fountain, comes to stand beside me, and curls his fingers through the chain-link fence. Adam doesn’t turn his head, and I don’t see his eyes track the sea lion’s back-and-forth pattern, but after a couple of minutes, he begins to rock from side to side. I watch my brother and the sea lion and am suddenly angry, but before I can think of why or at whom, Adam lets go of the fence and begins to shake his hands like he does when he can’t make us understand what he wants. I wonder if he’s feeling the sea lion’s distress, if he’s feeling empathy—an ability supposedly lost to autistic kids.

  When Ada
m and I come out of the bathroom in our dry clothes, Don is buying two Largo Center T-shirts—one for Adam and one for me.

  Debra is standing by the elevator with her arms crossed over her chest, clearly waiting for us to leave.

  Don hands me the T-shirts and says to Debra, “I think this looks very promising and Lily will be out of school in a couple of weeks, so I’d like to set up a schedule for the rest of the summer.”

  Before I can say wait a minute, do I have a say in this, Debra says, “For the full program?”

  “No. I’d prefer that you let Adam come down for private sessions with the dolphins.”

  Debra shakes her head. “I made an exception today because our five-day programs don’t start until next week. If Adam comes back, he needs to participate in the entire program with our trained therapists. Those sessions include classroom art projects, massage, music, and time in the water with the dolphins.”

  Don gets a smirky look on his face.

  Debra sees it, too. “We appreciate your donation, and I think our program would help Adam, but you only bought your way into one exception.”

  “I have a practice—patients with cancer. I can’t come down to the Keys for five days.”

  “I’m aware of your situation, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Most of the upcoming sessions are full anyway.”

  “We’ll come on Sundays, if that’s more convenient.”

  “Today was a one-time concession, Dr. Moran. Your son clearly has a connection to dolphins, but he also needs therapy to address his autism issues.”

  “How much do you want?”

  Debra’s jaws work beneath her sun-damaged skin. “Please leave, Dr. Moran. This is not the place for you.” She turns and walks away.

  I’m furious. He walked out of Cutler Academy and now, thanks to him acting like a pompous butthead, we can never come back here. And—not that it matters now—he didn’t ask me if I was willing to give up every Saturday for the rest of the summer—which I would have, to swim with the dolphins again.