A Fish Called Lazarus
by Laura DiSilverio
The Cat in the Hat visited my house while I was out.
My first inkling of his presence was a cell phone call from my fourteen-year-old babysitter. "Uh, Mrs. DiSilverio? We broke the aquarium?"
She phrased it as a question, as if the shards of glass and ten gallons of water soaking the stairs weren't sufficient proof. "We were cleaning it," she offered.
I wanted to ask why she and my five- and seven-year-old daughters were cleaning the aquarium, but I couldn't think of an answer I'd consider adequate. I asked instead, "The fish?"
"We put them in a bucket."
Well, that was something. I told her I'd buy a new tank on my way home.
Lugging the tank into the house an hour later, I heard my older daughter shout, "Marco, put the catfish back!"
Marco, the dog, zipped past me with my daughters in hot pursuit. They headed for the stairs. Was that a red-and-white-striped hat bobbing on the landing?
I trailed the parade to the stairs where the dog spit the catfish out. One look told me he was a goner. About to scoop him up, I smelled something burning. Sniffing, I followed my nose to the oak table that housed the aquarium. The aquarium heater, still turned on, was burning a hole through the tank lid. Unplugging the heater, I inspected the blob of black plastic welded to it. Re-establishing the aquarium was clearly going to cost more than the ten bucks I'd paid for the tank.
As I counted to three bazillion in an attempt to control my response, my five-year-old yelled, "He's alive!" She rushed to the open bucket on the floor (which Marco had mistaken for a fishing hole) and plopped the catfish in, for all the world like the Cat-in-the-Hat restoring the fish to his teapot. Sure enough, he swam to the bottom, trailing blood, raggedy fins and scraped scales, but alive. I covered the top of the bucket to prevent fish suicide or another attempt at bobbing-for-fishes by Marco.
That evening, seventy dollars poorer, the girls and I watched the fish swim around in their new home, serene and oblivious. I pondered life's blessings: the house hadn't burned down, no one had severed an artery on the broken aquarium glass, and I'd called up patience and reason for dealing with my babysitter and daughters. And, silly as it sounds, the catfish's remarkable resurrection made us appreciate both the fragility and resilience of life. It reminded us our actions have potentially tragic impacts on others, and that only grace — or a little girl's determination — restores us.
I swear the catfish winked at me as he settled onto the pink gravel at the bottom of the aquarium.