Chapter 3 - Four Thousand Chances to FailFor six weeks, nothing went seriously wrong.
That became dangerous.
The fingerlings ate aggressively.
They grew.
The pond developed a healthy green tint from algae Maggie intentionally allowed as part of the food chain.
She tested water every morning.
Temperature.
pH.
Dissolved oxygen.
Twice a week she used a hand net to collect sample fish and record average weight.
The numbers looked good.
Every successful day made Maggie a little more confident.
Maybe too confident.
She repaired the shed roof.
Built a crude shelf for feed.
Bought two secondhand barrels with tight lids.
Three evenings each week she washed dishes at a roadside diner to slow the disappearance of her savings.
The storage shed gradually became home.
Her clothes hung from nails.
Her notebook rested on a wooden crate beside the cot.
Above it, she pinned an old photograph of her father laughing beside a tractor.
Sometimes she wondered whether Roy had been right about one thing.
Would her father have approved?
She could never know.
Eventually Maggie stopped inventing an answer for a dead man.
She concentrated on fish.
By June, neighbors began stopping.
They pretended they were there for other reasons.
Directions.
Fence posts.
Talking to Mrs. Bell.
Then they wandered toward the pond.
“How many died?”
“Very few.”
“How big?”
“Not big enough.”
“You counting every one?”
“Sampling.”
One farmer laughed.
“Sounds like counting with extra steps.”
Maggie showed him her notebook.
The laughter stopped.
Roy never came.
But Maggie knew information reached him.
At the feed store, men asked questions suspiciously similar to the ones he would ask.
“How much has she spent?”
“Water smell yet?”
“Fish growing?”
Maggie answered only when people asked respectfully.
By early July, she could throw pellets across the surface and watch hundreds of mouths appear.
The sight never became ordinary.
Four thousand invisible possibilities were becoming visible fish.
Mrs. Bell started bragging.
“My girl’s carp are coming along.”
Maggie corrected her.
“Your field. My carp.”
“Your shed too.”
“Temporarily.”
One evening they sat near the pond watching fish feed.
“You going back when Roy apologizes?” Mrs. Bell asked.
“He hasn’t.”
“I said when.”
Maggie considered.
“I don’t know.”
“You still angry?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Maggie laughed.
Mrs. Bell smiled.
“Anger is useful for a while. Just don’t make it your permanent address.”
The heat wave began the next day.
Ninety-four degrees.
Then ninety-six.
Then ninety-seven.
For more than a week, the county baked.
By the fifth day, Maggie noticed the water warming dramatically by afternoon.
She increased testing.
Oxygen remained acceptable.
Day six.
Acceptable.
Day seven.
Lower.
She called Denise.
“Test before sunrise,” Denise said. “That’s when dissolved oxygen will usually be lowest.”
“Why?”
“Algae and plants give you oxygen during daylight. At night, everything is consuming it.”
Maggie wrote it down.
On day eight, morning oxygen dropped again.
Still survivable.
Still enough to make Maggie uneasy.
She checked the old irrigation pump she had bought for emergencies.
Started it.
Stopped it.
Started it again.
It worked.
She told herself she was ready.
That evening the fish fed normally.
Mrs. Bell noticed Maggie watching them.
“You look like you’re waiting for a murder.”
“The numbers keep dropping.”
“The fish look fine.”
“That’s what bothers me.”
Maggie went to bed early.
At 4:50 the next morning, she woke suddenly.
No alarm.
No noise she could identify.
Only the feeling that something was wrong.
She pulled on her boots and walked through the dark field.
At first the pond appeared normal.
Then she heard something.
A soft repeated sound.
Like hundreds of tiny kisses against the surface.
A carp appeared.
Its mouth opened.
Closed.
Opened again.
Another surfaced beside it.
Then five.
Ten.
Twenty.
Maggie moved closer.
They were not feeding.
They were gasping.
She dropped to her knees and ran the oxygen test with trembling hands.
The reading appeared.
Just above 2 milligrams per liter.
Less than half what the fish needed to remain comfortable.
More carp crowded upward.
One rolled sideways.
Then another.
Maggie stared at the pond.
For the first time since leaving Roy’s house, she did not merely wonder whether she might fail.
May you like
She knew something much worse.
Her fish were dying right now.
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