Dallon Robinson
One week left of summer and the turtles haven’t hatched. I encourage children to come back, but I know the signs. Each morning, I check the eggs, the nursery incubated in low light. I adjust the lamp, record the temperature of the sand. We’re the last stop of the aquarium tour: an outside pool where turtles rehabilitate before release and, inside, underneath turtle breed and recycling infographics, a tank of sand with a bundle of eggs. A boy says they look like ping pong balls. Another sways his hand over the edge, threatening the do not touch sign. They all stop to peer in, looking for a crack.
After they leave, I go to the bathroom to sneak more tests. The transfer was two days ago, the trigger shot positive almost faded. Or I think it’s the trigger, only a fingernail left of a line.
***
I teach children aquatic conservation, marine debris and how to recycle plastic. I explain the importance of sea turtles: green sea turtles maintain seagrass beds; leatherbacks control jellyfish populations; migrating turtles cycle nutrients across ocean, fertilising as they go. I don’t tell them about plastic lacerating necks or removing fish hooks from throats. I tell them not to disturb turtles hatching on the beach, to let them carry themselves to the water. I don’t discuss changing currents or dwindling populations. When I check the eggs, I wonder where their mother is. I think about how the water is magnificent and the ocean is horrific; like how my wife is Genny at home and Gen at work and Geneiveve as I’m in stirrups, as they discuss the state of my follicles.
***
After our first positive, Genny began painting our nursery a rainforest green. I was busy, I had a new patient: a green sea turtle caught in an oil spill that needed a year of treatment for chemical exposure. I named him Eugene and the pregnancy was chemical. With cramps quiet underneath my wetsuit, after spotting red into the toilet, I transferred Eugene into the pool, felt him squirm then slip out of my hands.
***
I’ve never had a trigger positive disappear before transfer. I test daily, multiple strips, watch them darken then fade and then, the transfer. Today, I don’t know if the line is from the trigger or transfer because for a blinking moment it could be both, like the moment the moon eclipses the sun, two hopes passing each other by.
***
I check the sand temperature, and then I stand looking at the poster of a turtle with plastic bottles and a toothbrush in its stomach, and I wait for a hot flash or a cramp or a nosebleed or a crack in the eggs or a metallic taste on my tongue.
***
Gen announces a work trip. I show her my strips—Genny, can you see a line? She twists them under the lamp, quiet, and Genevieve hands them back, says to keep her updated.
Eugene is the only turtle rehabilitating and, at home, the walls are still unfinished, green paint spread like algae.
***
We get a new patient: a female leatherback whose flipper got tangled in ghost gear and had to be amputated. She is endangered; her eggs are harvested from beaches. She is the largest of all living turtles, could be ninety years old, and I have a panged urgency to save her.
I check my morning tests, to see if anything dried into a line.
***
I’m asked how I name turtles and I say I evaluate personality, that Eugene reminded me of my cat. Genny is allergic to cats. I have a notes app name list but haven’t opened it. After my second chemical my intentions blurred and I don’t know if what I wrote was for baby or for turtle.
***
I name her Ramona, and I don’t know if there’s a line.
***
I send tests to Gen, who’s been too busy to call and says she needs better lighting to give an answer.
***
I reapply Ramona’s bandages, treat her with topical creams and manuka honey. I imagine her to be over ninety years old. I imagine her looking up at me.
***
Motherhood was never a strong pang, but shortly after meeting I took Genny to a nesting beach, to watch hatchlings swarm towards the sea. One was slower and so I stayed close – not touching, just making sure they got where they needed to be. As it dipped underneath Genny came behind me, and said I’d make a good mother.
***
I wait for the line to come back.
***
The boy who called my eggs ping pong balls is back with his mother. We’re almost closing, sunset hot against the clouds. I’m waiting for them to go so I can gather my eggs. The mother yells, and there’s sand on the floor; the boy is holding my egg up against the lamp bulb, peering from underneath for something pink and bulging and alive inside. I snatch him by the wrist and grip until he cries out, until he drops it. It doesn’t crack; it rolls over the tank edge, back into the sand and I notice the shell has softened, collapsed in on itself. Not viable. The mother says I’m hurting him and to let go, and then they are gone.
***
I gather the egg, and I go outside to the pool. I stroke my thumb over the dip in the shell, I press a hand to my belly, and I watch Ramona swim, I watch the scar where her fin should be.
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Dallon Robinson (they/them) works 15 hour shifts which at least gives them plenty of time to think. They are working on a novel about queer grief and Madonna. Their most recent publications appear or are forthcoming in Milk Candy Review and Flash Fiction Magazine. They are quietly online at @dallonwrites