I did not know, then, that their body was the source of their pain.
At first Kellen won’t reveal to me what they are doing, syringe held over a water-filled mason jar that sits on their bedroom shelf. My 16-year-old child often withholds, so I don’t push. I don’t enter their bedroom, instead remain, as I so often do these days, on the edge. Maybe it is my second glance at the bottle or the smile on my lips or the fact that today has been slightly less hard for Kellen, the halls at school slightly less toxic, the slurs slightly less pointed, but they offer: “I stole them.”
“Stole what?”
“The scuds.”
“Scuds?”
“Macroinvertebrates.”
“Okay.” I remain even and quiet in my response, modulating both body and tone.
Kellen brings the jar to me, holds it close to my face. A small green plant floats above some white flecked stones Kellen must have recovered from an old aquarium. Two snails the size of peppercorns adhere to the glass.
“It’s hard to see them,” Kellen adds. “They’re shy and like to hide.”
Eventually, I learn that Kellen stole the scuds days ago from AP Environmental Science, along with the plant and snails. Somehow Kellen transported the tiny creatures home and built them a habitat.
“They’ve already had babies,” Kellen tells me and then smiles, an occurrence as rare as the sun’s appearance this winter.
In the late winter of eighth grade Kellen disappeared. We lost them to their laptop, their bedroom, the pandemic, Reddit. They kept the curtains drawn, lived in darkness. Only the cats were allowed to curve themselves around the child who once told me, at the age of four, when I was tucking them in, “I’m sad no one will carry me when I get bigger.”
That winter we did all the things anxious parents do: medication, therapists, hobbies, rewards, followed by rules, threats, and bargains.
Kellen did not retreat into themselves; they removed themselves. I did not know, then, that their body was the source of their pain.
As a child, Kellen wanted to build a submarine and live by themselves at the bottom of the sea. They drew blueprints, developed complicated systems to keep the air oxygenated, studied how to grow food under lights. From the local library, Kellen brought home books about the fish that swam the midnight zone, the depth at which few things live. Many of the creatures terrified Kellen, gave them nightmares: the anglerfish dangling its Charon-like lantern, the blood-red vampire squid, the black dragon fish with lights for eyes, and the mega mouth shark. Kellen looked at the pictures in the daylight hours, amassed tolerance for their fears, and made plans for their benthic life. When the oceanographer, Sylvia Earle, sent Kellen a signed photo of her in mask and wetsuit, we framed it and placed it on the shelves where the scuds would appear ten years later. Kellen drew and re-drew the steel hull of home.
In the winter of ninth grade, Kellen told us that, while the world sees them as a six-foot male, they experience themselves as a diminutive woman.
Because they do not migrate, macroinvertebrates allow researchers to study the health of an ecosystem. Many aquatic macroinvertebrates serve as indicator species, alerting scientists when toxicity levels have become inhospitable for life. While some macroinvertebrates prefer pristine water, a large number of these creatures are able to live, even thrive in, polluted water laced with chemicals and pesticides. Scuds, though, are especially sensitive to poison. They dwell at the bottom of lakes, rivers, and ponds, where they clean organic decay. In AP Environmental Science that day, the students had been studying the amount of antifreeze necessary to kill the scuds. Each vial contained less and less toxin, yet more than enough to suffocate the tiny creatures.
Since Kellen wears pocketless skater skirts to school, I have no idea how they carried home the scuds they saved that day.
Each night I ask Kellen how the scuds are doing. I don’t want them to die.
Jennifer Sinor is the author of several books, including, most recently, The Yogic Writer: Uniting Breath, Body, and Page. The recipient of the Stipend in American Modernism, her work has appeared in Best American Essays and The Norton Reader. Jennifer teaches creative writing at Utah State University, where she is a professor of English.
Read other Letters to America online or in Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy, published in partnership with Trinity University Press.
Header photo by Photofenik, courtesy Shutterstock.
