The Cone Snail that Could

People connect like a moth to flame. Each has a role to play: the one who returns and the one who burns. Bit by bit, they will tear each other apart until both are less than rabid animals, with nothing more to give than snaps and snarls.

That was Helen’s thinking as a young twenty-something-year-old. It was her thinking as a young thirty-something-year-old. As a young forty-something-year-old, it is still her thinking. But Mort is a rare one—an outlier. And Helen knows those exist.

It is a bigger house than Helen ever expected to live in; her closest dream had been a one-room cabin nestled between ancient pines. This house has two stories, a tan stucco shell, and three air conditioners. The air conditioners are necessary in Phoenix on days like today when the outside thermometer reads one hundred and fourteen degrees Fahrenheit.

Palm trees grow in the backyard alongside a fenced swimming pool heated by the Arizona sun, a shed-turned-man-cave sits along the back fence, and a round fire pit made of interwoven bricks is tucked into the western corner by several saguaros. The firepit bricks were crafted with white sand, crushed shells, and a special ingredient known only to the maker. A top brick is missing.

Inside the house, the kitchen walls are a light and soft yellow. That’s where they are gathered: Helen’s little family of Mort, Kyle, and Carlie—another thing she never expected to have.

Several minutes before the bug incident, Mort and Helen were baking chocolate chip cookies alone. The timer ding-a-linged, and the two moved into action with a dancer’s choreography. Mort (wearing light blue oven mitts) removed the hot tray from the oven and wove around his wife. Helen (wearing no oven mitts) held a cold tray with one-inch globs of cookie dough as she twirled past her husband. Helen shut the oven door just as Mort set his sheet on the granite counter. Mort twisted the face of a white timer, and Helen picked up a plastic spatula.

“Mort?” Helen used the spatula to scrape a hot cookie off the tray and onto a cooling rack. She scraped a second cookie. The timer ticked and tacked.

“Yes?”

“I need to nag at you.”

“How lucky for you,” Mort said, “that I am unbothered by nagging.” He used a spoon to scoop cookie dough, rolled it into a ball, and set it on a clean cookie sheet. “But that is the wrong word.”

“What would the right word be?”

“Ten words: You are bringing up concerns so we can solve them.”

“How about five words? You are such a nerd.”

“As long as I am your nerd.” Mort washed his hands and dried them on a towel before taking the spatula from Helen and setting it on the counter. Mort drew her hands together, brought them up to his chest, and enfolded her long fingers in his own. “What is it?”

“It’s about the fire pit.”

“Yes.”

“It’s missing its last brick.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve made a brick for all our milestones together, Kyle and Carlie’s birthdays, every time I finish a book, every success you’ve had at the firm. I love that firepit; it’s a testament to our life. But I have this… wary feeling.”

Mort searched Helen’s face for several heartbeats before bending his head and kissing the tips of her fingers. “Go on.”

“I feel like it needs to be finished soon; otherwise, you will go missing, just like the last brick.” Helen smiled and cocked an eyebrow. “It’s silly, isn’t it? Stupid, even.”

“Far from stupid,” Mort squeezed her hands between his. “While I am pleased to know you fear my loss, I believe a more accurate label would be superstitious. All superstitions are born of something real, so the logical conclusion would be to listen to your instincts.”

Helen half smiled. “You’re chalking this up to womanly instincts?”

“They have never failed us before.” Mort brought Helen’s hands up to wrap around the back of his neck; his fingers slid down her arms and sides before settling on the tops of her hips. The couple swayed without moving their feet. “On a more practical note,” Mort leaned down to press his forehead to Helen’s, “leaving the pit incomplete is, for lack of a better word, sloppy. You will be happy to know we agree about that. I ordered more shells and sand this morning.”

“You’re right,” Helen said, a smile dancing around the edges of her mouth, “I am happy to know that.”

“I will finish the last brick soon,” Mort said.

Helen moved back to look up into Mort’s face. “The milestone?”

The timer ticked and tacked.

“A completed firepit,” Mort said, “and the wonderful life it stands for. That is something to celebrate.”

A slow smile spread across Helen’s face, growing as bright as the sun.

“I will have to start a new project to track our achievements,” Mort said. He turned to the cooling cookies, one hand lingering on Helen’s hip. “First taste goes to you.”

“Scared I added too much salt again?”

“That never crossed my mind.”

Helen picked up a still-warm cookie and bit into it, leaving a splotch of gooey chocolate on her upper lip. Mort wiped off her lip with his thumb, slow and gentle. Mort’s palms left warm lines along Helen’s face.

“There,” Mort said, wiping his fingers on a rag. “How was it?”

“Needs more salt.”

Mort’s lips twitched. He swept a curly strand of Helen’s hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “Helen, you are the cowfyne of my life.”

“Cow fiend?” Helen said, arching an eyebrow and shaking her hair until her curls were loose and wild again. “Is that because I’m making tacos for dinner again? You like tacos, remember?” Helen throws her hands into the air. “Everyone likes tacos. Besides, Adam grilled, like, fifty pounds of steak last week. Shouldn’t he be the cow fiend of your life?”

“Not fiend,” Mort emphasized the ‘duh’ sound. “Cowfyne,” Mort’s face turned sly. “It means—”

“Sweetheart,” Helen said, eyes twinkling. “I know.”

“Damnation,” Mort said, not trying to disguise the awe in his voice. “I thought I had you with that one. Are there any English words you do not know?”

“Of course,” Helen said, “but I don’t know what I don’t know, so I can’t tell you what they are.” Helen’s chin lifted. “Giving up?”

“The day I stop trying to teach you a new word is the day I am no longer here.”

Helen slipped her hand into Mort’s, fingers entwined. “Then never stop.”

Mort stroked Helen’s cheek, gazing into her eyes. “Your mind is mesmerizing.”

A light pinky blush crawled up Helen’s neck to settle in her cheeks. She looked down at Mort’s lips, then back to his eyes. “Say that again.”

“Your mind mesmerizes me. I am under your spell, totally and completely.”

The pink blush deepened and spread, and Mort leaned in and kissed Helen. “Twenty-four years, three months, and four days,” he checked his watch, paused momentarily, “and you still blush as deeply as the day I first met you.”

Mort would have listed the hours, minutes, and seconds, but Helen asked him not to pretty soon into their courtship. It was an information overload for most brains, and sometimes compromises must be made in marriage.

“Maybe not the first day we met,” Helen said, “but certainly within the first dozen.”

“The moment I laid eyes on you and you on me,” Mort said, “but then I was your knight in shining armor; it is understandable.”

“Is that so?” Helen smirked. “And here I thought you were a stargazing nerd who got lost.”

“Lost? Me? Never.” Mort grinned his special grin just for her.

“Here’s to twenty-four more years,” Helen said. “And three months and four days.”

“Amen.” Mort’s tone held a fervor never meant for a male god.

“Daddy, Daddy!” Carlie ran into the kitchen, her eyes wide and roving. “Kyle ate a bug!”

Mort gave Helen another one of his just-for-her smiles before pulling away. He crouched down and caught Carlie as she ran at him. One of Carlie’s pigtail bands was falling out, and her face was flushed and splotchy.

Kyle followed, slinking along the wall, eyes narrowed.

And just like that, Mort and Helen were no longer lovers.

Now they are parents.

“Come closer, Kyle,” Mort says, and Kyle slides along the wall until he is in a somewhat closer proximity.

Helen leans against the counter.

“He ate a bug!” Carlie wales and stuffs her face into her father’s neck.

“I sure did.” Kyle looks more like a cat who caught a canary than a dog who broke a lamp.

Mort rubs Carlie’s back. “There, there. People all around the world eat insects.”

“It was good,” Kyle says, throwing back his shoulders, sticking out his stomach, and rubbing it.

“Daaaaaad!”

Mort gently untangles Carlie’s little arms from his neck. “Tell me what happened.”

Kyle jumped from one foot to the next. “I found—”

“Kyle, you are excited,” Mort says. “ I will hear about it. But first, your sister is in distress. Let us ease that.”

Kyle pouts a little, shrugs one shoulder, and plops down on the tile, his legs crossed. He sticks a finger up his nose.

“Kyle,” Helen says in that mom’s tone that persuades the finger to stop digging, immediately.

Little Carlie has large tears trickling down her cheeks.

“You are crying,” Mort says.

“I know,” Carlie says. She gulps. “I can’t stop it, and I hate it.”

“Crying is something our bodies do, like laughing. You enjoy laughing.”

Carlie nods. “But not so much crying.”

Mort wipes a tear away. “I can understand that; I do not enjoy broccoli nearly as much as cauliflower.”

Kyle makes a face.

“Do you cry?” Carlie says.

“Sometimes, not very often.”

“Why not?”

“People cannot be and do everything. Just as you are attuned to feelings, I am attuned to machines. One requires a great deal of crying; the other requires… math. But they are both important skills.”

“Crying is a skill?” Carlie sniffs and rubbs at her nose.

“It most certainly is.”

“I don’t like math,” Carlie laughs a little, the tears slowing.

“That is perfectly fine,” Mort says. “I will do the math for you.”

“What do I do for you?”

“Nothing you do not want to.” Mort strokes her cheek. “Tell me about the bug.”

“It was a grasshopper,” Carlie says. “Big and green and alive, it was sitting there, under some shade. It wasn’t hurting anything or anybody.” She rubs her nose. “Kyle jumped at it and caught it. It was just red and black after that.”

“Red and black?”

“Red is being alive, but hugely alive, even bigger than this,” Carlie says, spreading her arms as wide as she can. After a beat, Carlie wraps her arms around her chest in a self-hug. “Sometimes red is mushy and warm.” The hug turns desperate, “but sometimes it’s angry and scary. This was the angry, scary one.”

“And the black?”

“Black holds you and keeps you safe like the night sky holds the stars. I like that black.” Carlie looks down, “But sometimes black is cold and empty. Kyle…,” The tears start again, “tore off each leg, one by one, and crunched them. Red, black, red. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.” Carlie shivers. “Then he bit off the tail part. The little antenna moved, and I think the grasshopper was screaming. My ears couldn’t hear it, but I could feel it.” Carlie hugs herself tighter. “Kyle chomped the rest, and then it was all black. Nothing but black.” Carlie’s head slumps forward, and for a moment, she looks ancient, like a knotted tree that has lived through countless cycles and seasons. “The empty, cold, dead kind of black.”

“Death is difficult,” Mort says, stroking her arm. “Nature can be cruel, but you are not.”

“I could never do that, not even to a worm.” Carlie shivers again.

“You are a part of nature, the sweet, gentle part, like your mother.”

“And Kyle?”

“He is more of… a natural disaster, like a hurricane, a forest fire, or a predator. Just as nature needs your gentleness, it also needs violence. That violence cleanses, allowing new, vulnerable life to grow.”

“What are you?” Carlie says.

“A predator,” Mort says, “like a cone snail.”

Helen hides her smile behind her hand.

“Your kind heart is special,” Mort says, placing his forehead on Carlie’s. “Now go sit with your mother; it is time to hear what Kyle has to say.”

Carlie runs to Helen, who bends down and scoops her daughter up. Helen sets Carlie on the counter edge and wraps her in a mother’s embrace.

“Is it finally my turn?” Kyle is on his feet again, bouncing from one foot to the other.

“Yes, son, tell me about the grasshopper.”

“I caught it and took it apart. I wanted to know what it would do if I broke its leg off, so I did. And I could, it was easy. It was so small and moved so much I could feel every twitch. I wanted to know how it tasted. So I ate it, it squirmed and squirmed, even in my mouth. It tickled. Now it’s dead because of me. I killed it.” Kyle’s words roll out of his mouth and over each other like the rush of water after a downpour, the kind that tears down trees and carries them over canyons and into ravines, crashing their wooden bodies to splinters against merciless, jagged boulders.

“And how did it taste?” Mort says.

“It tasted like those white crackers from that one restaurant, except you’d have to lick the salt off first.” Kyle smacks his lips and slurps. “I liked it.”

“Grasshoppers are full of protein and fiber,” Mort says, “things your body needs.”

“But why’d he have to hurt it first?” This from Carlie.

“That is a good question,” Mort says. “Did you know you were hurting it?”

Kyle looks down at his feet.

“Kyle?”

“Yes.” Kyle stands up straight, staring his father in the eyes without blinking. “I liked that, too.”

Helen hugs Carlie a little closer. This isn’t a side of Kyle that Helen likes to see. Is it typical ten-year-old boy behavior or something else? Will he grow out of it? For the most part, Kyle is rambunctious, curious, and perfectly pleasant, but once in a while, this sly coldness takes him over, and he does things that scare Helen, like hurting a grasshopper and enjoying it.

Kyle reminds Helen of Tyler and Joshua, her cousins. She loved her cousins and their summers on their grandparents’ farm as a child. When she was about Kyle’s age, Helen’s mother had taken her to the farm just like she had every other summer before. Tyler and Joshua were already there, and in her haste to find her cousins, Helen left the car door ajar. She ran to the tree house and then the pond, looking for them.

Helen found the boys in the barn. It was huge, rust-red with white trim, and looked like any of your run-of-the-mill horror film barns. Kyle stood on one end of a four-foot-long, splintery two-by-four, Joshua on the other. The center of the board was balanced on a couple of bricks, like a seesaw.

Kyle and Joshua always came up with the funnest games.

Helen stepped into the barn; frogs chirped and croaked.

“Heya Helen,” Kyle said. “You’re finally here.”

“We’re playing a fun game,” Joshua said. “Wanna join?”

Helen nodded eagerly, rushing into the barn and towards the boys. Her footsteps slowed as a movement caught her eye. She turned to see frogs tacked up on the barn wall. Their legs and arms were spasming, and their eyes were bulging. Helen remembered the feeling it was yesterday, like the drop when riding a rollercoaster, but cold and heavy and awful. The frogs were still alive, stuck up on the wall. They weren’t making any noise; they couldn’t because of how far their little bodies stretched between the nails.

Helen’s feet slowed, and her eyes took in more details. There was a bucket, and as she looked at it, she imagined the croaking frog sounds were billowing out of it like dark smoke. Her feet kept moving forward, but they dragged along the dusty floor.

Where the two-by-four rested on the two bricks, there was a frog—or what was left of a frog. Helen saw red and green and wet… slimy… squished… Was that a red bean? A balled-up ramen noodle? That didn’t make sense, but Helen didn’t know what else it could be. The frog’s eyes bulged out of its decapitated head.

Helen ran from the barn, tears streaming down her face.

After much crying and little explaining, Helen’s mother drove her home. Helen spent her summer reading at the library.

She never went back to the farm.

Adult Helen looks at Mort to see what he thinks about Kyle, but Mort’s back is to her, and his focus is on Kyle.

“I liked it,” Kyle says again, repeatedly stubbing his shoe on the tile floor.

“It felt powerful.” Mort’s voice is soft and neutral.

Kyle nods his head.

“Many predators play with the creatures they will eventually eat. Casper, for instance. You have seen her go after birds, and she is not gentle while she batters them around.”

Eight eyeballs swivel to the white cat sleeping on the window ledge

“She likes to go after grasshoppers, too,” Kyle says.

“What do you think? Does she know she is hurting the birds and the grasshoppers? Does she enjoy it?”

“I think she’s playing sometimes,” Kyle says. “But maybe she doesn’t understand that she’s bigger and stronger.”

“Were you playing?”

Kyle looks down. “It was fun.”

“The desire to understand is a noble emotion. We are all like machines, working in our unique ways, and being curious about those workings is a gift. However, the pain of innocent creatures is not the best way to find answers or enjoyment. I had to learn that on my own,” Mort says, placing his palm flat on Kyle’s chest, “but you have me, and I can teach you.”

“I want to be just like you,” Kyle says, eyes bright.

It isn’t until Helen’s shoulders relax that she realizes how tight she’s holding onto Carlie. Carlie’s face is pointed up at her mother, large brown eyes full of questions. Helen leans down and kisses Carlie’s forehead. “It’s alright,” she whispers.

It is alright because Mort is here, and Mort knows what to say. He knows not to get angry or make a big, dramatic show. He knows not to berate Kyle or destroy his curiosity and light. Mort knows to stay calm and quiet. He knows how to teach Kyle to be good.

As long as Kyle wants to be like his father, everything will turn out just fine.

“Hunting grasshoppers is a good start,” Mort says. “But there are better prey out there.”

“Ewww!” Carlie says. “Like centipedes?”

“Yuck is right,” Helen says, but she’s smiling.

“I am pleased you learned so much today, Kyle. And I am proud of you for not letting the grasshopper go to waste,” Mort says. Mort tousels Kyle’s hair before getting to his feet.

“Will the grasshopper make me as big as you?” Kyle says, looking up at his father.

Helen shudders. “That’s a lot of grasshoppers.”

Mort looks up at the ceiling, thinking. “You would need to eat—”

“Okay, okay,” Helen says. “We don’t need exact numbers.”

The timer dings.

Helen helps Carlie off the counter, and the kids crowd around the cooling cookies. Helen takes the hot sheet out of the oven. Mort picks up a spatula. Kyle watches, licking his lips. Carlie clutches the counter’s edge, standing on tiptoes, eyes big.

“Now,” Mort says, “I have an essential job for the two of you.” He has the children’s full attention. “I need each of you to taste a cookie to ensure it is good enough for my friends.” Mort hands a cookie to Carlie and then one to Kyle. Carlie nibbles and Kyle shoves the whole thing into his mouth.

Yes, most people are terrible.

Helen hasn’t changed her mind about that, but Mort is special. As Helen watches the little family she never expected to have, her hands cover her chest, holding herself together. Helen’s heart feels so warm and full that it might burst out of her ribcage.

That night, while Mort hosts his friends in the backyard, Helen tucks Carlie into bed.

“Sometimes when Daddy talks,” Carlie says, “I see black.”

Helen tucks the covers up to Carlie’s chin. “That makes sense; Daddy holds us and keeps us safe like the sky does for the stars.”

“No,” Carlie rolls on her side and closes her eyes. “The empty, death kind.”