What the Fish Know

When I am three years old, my older brother gets a goldfish he names Bar-Mitzvah. 

          Being three, I don’t know exactly what a Bar-Mitzvah is, but I know it’s something important; some hallmark of the identity I am in the earliest stages of discovering. 

          I understand that my older brother is brilliant. He can name all the elements in the periodic table. Everything he says is a marvel. And so his goldfish, Bar-Mitzvah, is imbued with a mystical quality. 

          My mother has one of those custom books made for my brother, and Bar-Mitzvah is the main attraction of the story. Floating around in a neon-green fishbowl, he is an alien sent to lead my brother on a mission to save the galaxy. They travel to multiple planets on their quest, magical goldfish and wonder boy saving humanity from certain apocalypse. I appear almost as an afterthought at the end of the book: faceless, in a white bonnet and dress. I greet the heroes wordlessly upon their return.

          At three, I am as the book portrays me, two dimensional and unremarkable. I am afraid of everyday things, like the vacuum cleaner, and fireworks, and toilets overflowing. I forget my father’s face on a daily basis. I understand that my parents live in the same house but are somehow apart, moving in separate lives. I consult Bar-Mitzvah. He moves languidly in his small, glass fishbowl, like a serene, orange Buddha. Each day, I tap on the glass, staring into his vacant eyes, hoping he will do something remarkable. He never says anything, just stares past me, unblinking. I always leave feeling peaceful; my mind blank. 

          Then comes the inevitable. “Bar-Mitzvah died!” My brother wails one day from his blue-carpeted bedroom. 

          “Oh, no,” I murmur, my hollow remorse floating up to the ceiling. I hide my dolls underneath the bed in some semblance of mourning. I know Death is important, like a Bar-Mitzvah, another rite of passage. But unlike the Jewish ceremony celebrating a young person’s entrance into adulthood, this is final. Bar-Mitzvah isn’t coming back. But then neither do most things.

          My parents eventually divorce. We grow up and move on. When I have children of my own, a well-meaning relative buys them each a betta fish. These fish are tiny and quick, not like the carroty behemoth that was the almighty Bar-Mitzvah. Their lives are predictably fleeting. Emily Charlotte, my daughter’s fish, goes first; a window is left open in winter, and she freezes. My son’s fish, Monster Truck, circles his tank frantically, as though he senses the end is near. One day, he is simply gone.

          A year later my son becomes a vegetarian. He is barely five when he watches me cut into the grilled salmon I’ve made for dinner, looking at me with reproachful eyes. I tell my son that it’s okay, fish don’t have feelings. Between bites, I tell him they can’t feel pain. I tell him they are stupid, and their memory span lasts only three seconds. I tell him these things as though they will absolve me of my hungry indifference. My son narrows his eyes at me. He is staring the way that only young children stare—piercing and without remorse. Something shifts then. I am no longer The Infallible Mother and we both know it. He tells me I’m wrong about everything I just said. I immediately Google it all—turns out he is right. How do I rationalize this; how do I explain?

          I want to say: fish die, even the wise ones. No one knows everything. Sometimes we pretend. People grow up and get divorced and move on, or they don’t. Instead, I open and close my mouth, unable to answer. My son continues to stare at me without blinking. We are both wishing for the same thing: to undo this moment and simply float, comfortably, each in our own sea of fragile belief.