by Karen Hesse
I say, Does Shay have another family?
Doctor Beck says, Yes. But her family cannot see her anymore.
I say, Why can the family of Shay not see her? Is there a problem with the eyes?
Doctor Beck says, No. Not their eyes. They cannot see Shay because they do not know a good way to love and care for her.
I have another family too. Dolphin family. The ones who love and care for me. The ones I love and care for. Can they see me again?
I say, Sandy, can the dolphins see me again?
Sandy is looking at Doctor Beck.
Doctor Beck says, Perhaps. Perhaps they can see you again, Mila.
Doctor Beck says, Come, Mila. While Sandy is away, you can be the teacher. Tell me which fish to point to.
I say, I am not listening, Doctor Beck.
Doctor Beck says, Of course you are listening, Mila.
I say, If Sandy is going, I am alone. In the day and in the night, I am alone.
Doctor Beck says, Sandy has gone to her father. She will come back.
I say, You can stay with me until Sandy comes back.
Doctor Beck says, No, Mila. I must go home each night to Justin.
I think of Doctor Beck and Justin. Like dolphin mother and dolphin baby. I am understanding.
I say, Did Sandy take the whale song to her father?
Doctor Beck says, No. I took the whale song, Mila.
I am looking at the hands of Doctor Beck. I am looking in the pockets of Doctor Beck. I say, Where is the whale song? I can hear the whale song?
Doctor Beck says, No. When you hear the whale song, you don’t pay attention to your work.
I say, If I am doing good work, can the whale song come back?
Doctor Beck says, Yes. The whale song can come back.
I say, If I am doing good work, can Sandy come back?
Doctor Beck says, Yes. Sandy will come back.
I say, When? When does Sandy come back?
Doctor Beck says, Soon.
I say, When is soon?
Doctor Beck makes her hand over her hair.
Doctor Beck says, Come, Mila. Do you want to visit Shay?
I say, Yes!
I am happy to visit Shay.
In the room of Shay, Doctor Troy is frowning.
Shay is sitting on the floor. She is rocking and rocking. Shay is not listening to Doctor Troy.
Shay sees me. She hops to me.
I touch the soft hair of Shay. I make a gentle hand on the little face of Shay. It is good, so good, to be with Shay.
In the quiet night, I go to the room of Shay. I make a warm nest on the floor by her bed. I can sleep in the room with Shay with one ear open to listen and one eye open to watch.
Doctor Beck is giving work to Shay and to me.
Doctor Beck says, If you are waiting seven days for Sandy to come back and five days are finished, how many more days do you have left to wait? Doctor Beck shows with her fingers.
I say, Two.
I like to play these games.
Doctor Beck says, Good. Very good, Mila.
Doctor Beck says, Who can find the swimmer?
I can make the computer show a swimmer, easy.
Doctor Beck says, Good, Mila. Can you help Shay find the swimmer?
Shay looks all the time to me. She is all the time touching me. I am happy, so happy for the touch of Shay.
Justin comes. He watches me play the computer. He tells Doctor Beck to get me a better game.
Doctor Beck and Justin make the laugh.
I come over and make the laugh too, but Justin goes away.
Doctor Beck says, Today is an important day. Today we move to our new house. You will like the house, Mila. All the doctors will live there with you. We will eat and sleep all in the same house. No more doctors going away at the end of the day.
I say, Is Sandy coming?
Doctor Beck says, Yes, of course.
Sandy is coming. She is waiting for us at the house right now.
We go in a car to the new house.
The sun is hot and good. I am happy to be outside. But I have a worry.
I say, Doctor Beck, how can Sandy find the new house? There are many houses. How can Sandy know the house where we are going?
Doctor Beck says, Don’t worry, Mila. I told you. Sandy is there.
Listen. Let me tell you about the house. You have your own bedroom! Your window looks out over the Charles River. Justin thought you would like that. I will come and get you every morning. We will all eat breakfast together in the big dining room. The house has a classroom for you and Shay to work together all the time. Look, you can see the back of the house from here. That’s your window, right up there.
I am not listening. I see water.
Water! It is not big like the ocean, but it is not little like the pool.
I am out of the car running to the water.
I go over the road and into the water, swimming and swimming in my clothes, going with the good tide. I dive in the water. The water is not good to see in. It is all clouds. But it is much water.
I call my dolphin name. I call again and wait. First there is no answer.
Then I hear.
But what I hear is not dolphin. What I hear is human.
Sandy! Sandy is calling me.
I swim to the shore fast. I am happy, happy to see Sandy.
Sandy is smiling for me. But I feel another thing in Sandy.
I say, I am so good to see you. Why are you sad?
Sandy makes a gentle hand on my face.
Sandy says, My father died, Mila.
I understand to die. I understand from the dolphin days.
Sandy and Doctor Beck take me to the new house.
The new house is good brown sand outside. Inside, the house has a room with a very big table. The house has a room with many soft chairs. The house has a big room with computers and many games. The house has a room with good little caves filled with food smells.
I see a room for Shay to sleep and Doctor Beck and Sandy and Doctor Troy.
Doctor Beck says, This room is for my son, Justin. And this room, Mila, is for you.
The room has a little window in the door. Shay has a little window in her door. No one else has windows in their doors.
Doctor Beck says, Welcome home, Mila.
A man comes. He is from the government.
Doctor Beck says the government is made of men and women who listen and talk about ideas and give money.
This man gives the money for us to live in the house. The man from the government watches me play with Doctor Beck. He watches me play with Sandy. He reads what I write on the special computer. He says, Can she operate this thing without help?
Doctor Beck says, Yes. She can.
The man of the government is watching me. He says, Mila is making good progress.
Making progress is when I talk words. Making progress is when I write on the computer. Making progress is when I wear clothes. Making progress is when I sleep in a bed and eat the dead fish.
Shay wears clothes. She sleeps in a bed and eats the dead fish. But Shay does not like the computer. Shay says only little words. One word. Then one word. Shay talks in a little voice not easy to hear.
Doctor Beck asks me to try the computer without help.
I can do it!
My name is Mila. Mila is the name the others give me. The ones who found me. Mila is miracle.
Miracle is when something is very, very difficult, but it happens.
Sandy says if I live in the sea for thirteen years, I am a miracle.
I am Mila.
Sandy gives a miracle to me today. The miracle is music.
Music is many things to hear, like in the sea.
The music is made by a man named Winter.
I listen to the music. It is little sounds and little sounds together to make something so big. It is a bird singing and a whale singing and a people singing. It is so many sounds I cannot name. To hear it, it makes a l
ittle crying in my eyes.
I love the music.
I listen and listen. My legs and arms swim in the music.
My dolphin boots squeak in the music.
Doctor Beck says, You are dancing, Mila.
Dancing is very good. My inside hums, like with dolphin questions.
I say, Can we give music to Shay?
Doctor Troy brings Shay to the classroom.
I say, Listen, Shay. I make the music begin.
Shay is looking in my eyes. I am moving Shay in a circle. But Shay is not hearing the music.
Shay is not feeling the music. The music is in her ears, it is in her bones, but Shay cannot feel it.
How can Shay not feel the music?
Doctor Beck says, Mila, you need sleep.
She says, You listen to music all the night when you should sleep. The others in the house hear the music also. We need sleep.
I know Justin hears the music. Sometimes he comes in and sits in the corner of my room and listens with me. His hair is in his face and his skin is creased like the new dolphin just born and his chin falls down, but the music is inside him.
Doctor Beck says if I do not stop playing the music all night, she must take the music to another place where I cannot have it.
I remember she took the whale song from me.
I hold the tape in my hands.
My music, I tell Doctor Beck. My music.
In the tried eyes of Doctor Beck I see something danger.
Sandy says, Mila is learning.
Doctor Beck makes a hard face.
Sandy says, We can give Mila something to hear the music in her ears only.
Doctor Beck says, Perhaps. But she still needs to sleep.
I go to the window. Sandy comes to the window with me. Outside the trees have new colors and the wind blows a leaf up and up over the water.
Sandy asks, Does it make you sad to see the river, Mila?
I remember a warm sea. With many dolphins. I have a hunger to eat the good fish, to swim with the fast dolphins. I cannot forget my dolphin mother. The good strong touch of her. I cannot forget my dolphin cousins.
But I love this life too. I love the life with so many things to do with hands and eyes and nose and mouth and ears. We make food in the big kitchen. We wash the dishes. We go to the store and the bank. We write words and draw pictures. We walk and ride and swim and play.
Doctor Beck says, Do you remember a time before the dolphins, Mila?
There is no time before the dolphins.
Doctor Beck says, There is something you need to know. Many years ago a mother and two children were sent from a place called Cuba. They went on a small plane, the mother, a little girl, and a baby boy. The plane was lost at sea. We think the little girl on that plane was you.
Doctor Beck says, If this is true, your real name is Olivia. Your mother was American; your father is Cuban. The man we think is your father sent you a letter. Would you like me to read it to you?
I stand at the window and listen.
My dear Olivia,
There is so much to tell you. I don’t know how to begin. I have a new family. We live in a small apartment in Havana.
Sadly, I am not free to come to the States to visit you. Nor, I’m afraid, are you permitted to come back to me. I am sorry. I must wait to hear from your American doctors and the American and Cuban governments about what I am to do next.
Until then I will look forward to the time when I see my little dolphin girl.
Yours sincerely,
Papi
Inside, I am shaking.
Sandy says, Mila, if you are this girl, you have a father, you have family.
I don’t remember this Papi.
I know only that family is people you love and care for, people who love and care for you.
Who is this man who lives in a place where he cannot leave and I cannot come?
Sandy stands so close. I can smell her good smell. It is a smell of salt and sweet fruit.
I say, Sandy is family. Doctor Beck is family.
Shay is family. Who is this Papi? I don’t know.
I only know I want to stay here with you.
Doctor Beck plays new music today. Not just the music of the man named Winter. Doctor Beck has different music. The music is of a man named Mozart. The music of Mozart is great, so great like the sea. It is everywhere with many voices all at once. It is a long story and many stories. It changes as it goes. More and more is in the music. It is not simple like the Winter music. It is big.
I listen to the music of Mozart. I feel in every little place inside me the music of Mozart.
I say, How can anyone make such music?
Is it that I can know Mozart and he can show me how he makes this music?
Doctor Beck says, Mozart is dead.
I am confused. I can hear this music so alive, but Mozart is dead?
Doctor Beck says, Mozart wrote the music a very long time ago. Mila, a writer writes a book, an artist paints a picture, a person makes a thing and sometimes, if the thing is very special, it is saved. It lasts. It lasts longer than the person who made the thing. It is kept alive by others even after the person who made it is dead.
That is what we’re doing here, Mila. You and me. We are making something that will last beyond us. What we are doing will not fade like a sunset. It will not wash away like the waves on the sand.
I remember the sunset. I remember the waves on the sand. This remembering makes a feeling so big inside me.
I say, Each sunset, each wave is something to see once and never again. Is that not special too?
Doctor Beck looks at me, and I think I am saying something wrong. I want only to say right things. I want Doctor Beck to be happy.
Doctor Beck says, Yes, the sunset is important too.
Doctor Beck looks at me. I see excitement in her. I feel excitement in her.
She says, Mila, would you like to learn music like the music of Mozart? It is just another language. Like the language of English.
Sandy is watching Doctor Beck.
Doctor Beck says, We can teach you the language of music, Mila.
I take the hand of Doctor Beck. I like learning language very much. I want to learn everything Doctor Beck wants to show me.
Doctor Beck says, Sometimes human language and music language come together to make a song.
I know songs. I sing for Doctor Beck and Sandy a little song from the Winter tape.
Doctor Beck asks, Who taught you to sing like that, Mila?
I say, I teach me. The little song is so good in my ears, I listen again and again until I know it.
My singing makes Doctor Beck happy. Sandy is happy too. They are happy in different ways.
They want to hear the song again, and I sing for them.
Then they teach me a song. A lullaby. A lullaby is a song for the baby to hear when it goes to sleep. The lullaby they teach me is about a baby all alone in a meadow. It makes me sad. The baby is all alone.
But the song is very pretty. I sing with Sandy and Doctor Beck. When all three, we, sing together, I feel good.
When I go to the sea, I will take this music with me.
The dolphins can like human music, I think.
Doctor Beck brings a present. It is hiding inside pretty paper. I take the paper off. Inside is an instrument for making music. Doctor Beck calls it a recorder, but it is different from the recorder that plays the tapes.
Sandy has a tight voice. She asks if I am learning too much at once. Sandy says maybe I can learn the music language after I learn better the English language.
But Doctor Beck says I need good work with my hands.
Doctor Beck says this is a right time to give different language.
Doctor Beck shows me how to take the recorder in my hands. She shows me where to blow.
I blow the recorder. I make a sound. EEEE! EEEE! EEEE! A bad sound comes, like angry birds.
Doctor Beck says not to worry. She says Doctor P
each can help me to learn.
The recorder is so pretty. Like the sea when it is white with foam. I touch the recorder with my human fingers. I take it along with my dolphin boots in my bed to sleep. Its skin is smooth. I stroke it and remember the inside of a shell.
Everyone is sleeping. I stand at the window.
The light of the moon touches the river. I put my ear to the cold glass and I listen to the music of the water.
I am alone.
I am alone like the baby in the lullaby with the birds and the butterflies around him.
The wind makes the trees to sing. The wind makes the river to sing.
I sing too. I sing a gray song. A little, little Mila song. Not big, not many voices. Only one voice. A song of alone.
I think Justin hears my song. His bed squeaks and squeaks again and then one more time. I wait for his footsteps in the hallway. I wait for him to come and sit in the corner of my room.
He does not come.
It is late. Too late even for the man who comes to clean at night.
I open the door and go from my bedroom, down the stairs. I shut off the switches and turn the locks the way Sandy does when we go out.
I go from the house and cross the big street to the river. I am afraid to go in the dark water, but I sense not danger there.
The water sings in my ears. I feel the pull of the sea. I swim a long time. I swim very far. The cold water empties the strength from my bones.
Again and again I make my dolphin name in my nose, but there is no answer.
I cannot find the warm sea where the dolphins wait. It is too far, and I am too alone.
It is hard to swim back. So hard. I am tired.
I am very sick. My breathing is not good.
I am taken to a hospital. All white. All the people in white. They give me medicine. I sleep and sleep.
They make something to help me breathe.
In my head I hear music. It is soft and good, like a mother singing. She is singing a lullaby.
Her voice is high and sweet. I am searching for her.
I climb out of the sea, sand sticks to my legs.
