Zoology. Ben Dolnick

touch his mouth, and now blood was all over his chin too and dripping on his bathing suit. This was very, very bad. “I’m going to go get someone,” I said, but before I could get up the girl came back, and that made him start howling louder.

      “What happened?” she said. “Oh, shit, what happened? What happened what happened what happened? Are you OK? Fuck. Are you OK? Is he OK?”

      I told her about the jump and the spin and the side of the pool, and she went over and looked in at the bloody water, and she just kept saying, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

      “Can you walk?” she said, but he just kept crying, rising and falling like a siren, so she scooped under his legs and under his neck like he was a baby, a baby with wet black hair and dark blood still pouring out of his mouth, and she carried him out fast through the girls’ locker room, flip-flops clacking.

      I was the only person in the entire pool area now. If part of the pool weren’t still dark, and if there weren’t a trail of bright drops leading to the locker room, it might never have happened.

      The strangest part of terrible things is how fast they’re over. For the first minute or two afterward, like when Tucker, my old golden retriever, got hit by a car, I always think about how simple it would be—we could just go back a few seconds, a time close enough to touch, and it would never have happened. My mind would rush to the thought—a happy, grasping feeling—then bump against common sense, then rush to it again, then bump.

      I didn’t know what to do, so I went over and looked down into the bloody part of the pool. There was a pink cloud now and a few darker drops floating up on top. For some reason I leaned down and with both hands scooped up some of the water and just looked at these drops of blood, a pair of dark little fish. My heart was pounding like someone was chasing me.

      * * *

      Sameer didn’t know about a little boy and a tall girl, so I came back again after the shift change and asked Richie. Richie was the oldest doorman, and he took the job more seriously than anyone else. If you walked in with a suitcase, he practically tackled you to get it out of your hands. Whenever he saw me he gave a hard, short nod and said, “Sir.”

      “Do you know if there’s a little black-haired boy who lives in the building with a tall girl with brown hair?”

      He nodded, not taking his hands from behind his back. “You’re looking for Matthew Marsen in twelve-F, I believe. And the young lady—whose name, unfortunately, slips my mind—is the Marsens’ goddaughter. Just here for the summer.”

      That night David and Lucy were out to dinner with friends, and when they came home David was a little drunk. He laughs a lot when he’s drunk, and his cheeks get splotchy. He sat down with me on the couch, smelling like alcohol and cologne.

      “How are you, buddy?”

      I heard Lucy get in the shower.

      “Something bad happened today,” I said, and I told him the whole story. Listening was such work for him right then that his mouth fell open.

      “This happened to you today?” he said. “What I’d do, I’d write up a nice note, something about how you’re so sorry and you think the kid’s so great, and I’d put it under their door. That’s rough.” And then he stood up to leave, probably to get in the shower with Lucy, but he got distracted by the Mets game and stood there behind the couch with his shirt unbuttoned. “They’ve been down the whole time?” he said. I nodded. “They really stink, don’t they?” Then he looked at me, and I thought he was going to add some warm, wise touch to his advice before he said, “They actually, totally stink.”

      In a drawer in the kitchen I found a card, still in its plastic sleeve, with a picture of a puppy running through a bed of sunflowers. Inside I wrote:

      Dear Matthew and family,

      I’m writing to tell you how bad I feel about what happened with Matthew at the pool, and I wanted to wish him the best of luck in feeling better. I also wanted to be sure you knew that everything that happened was my fault, and not at all your goddaughter’s. She seems to care about him very much, and I was the one watching when the accident happened—I should have been more careful.

      Again, I’m sorry, and if there’s anything I can do, whether it’s bringing ice cream or anything else, please let me know.

      Very sincerely, Henry Elinsky, 23B

      On the envelope I wrote again, Matthew and family, and before I sealed it I decided to add one of the hotel chocolates that David keeps next to the cereal. Before I went to bed, I took the elevator downstairs, my heart pounding like a thief, and slipped the envelope under the door at 12F.

      * * *

      The next night I was lying on David and Lucy’s bed watching Emeril make jambalaya when David came in and handed me an envelope with HENRY written in small capital letters. On a folded sheet of lined paper I read:

       Henry,

      I’m not going to show your letter to the Marsens. I’m sure you’d agree that it doesn’t add much to a babysitter’s credibility to have left a child in the care of a complete stranger—especially when the stranger let the child chip two teeth and split his lip.

      The chocolate was delicious.

      Yours, Margaret

      “Who’s writing you letters?” David said, and because he sounded a little insulting, I ignored him. I liked her handwriting, small and sharp. Yours. Mine. Delicious delicious delicious. In my memory she was suddenly beautiful. I imagined her eating the chocolate while she wrote. She must be lonely, I thought. She was probably desperate for someone to talk to other than this weird little kid.