by Adrianna Sanchez-Lopez

Most of the time, my daughter’s a fish. A rainbow trout: turns of silver-red-blue spinnering translucent depths. She’s an elusive spotted-belly freshwater chameleon. I call her my Daughter Fish, prone to slipping from my hands.

During the day, she sometimes wears her human skin. With lanky limbs and knotted brown hair she refuses to comb. Her fever spikes and her body trembles and she begs me not to leave her side. I coax her head onto my lap. I finger-comb. And then I really comb. I croon Cher: If I could turn back time. I section hair and braid. When she’s asleep, I ease her onto the couch; scoot away. I fumble through my medicine cabinet until I reach the Vicks. Prescription bottles and decaying tampons tumble to the counter.

I ignore the mess and return to my daughter. I roll down her socks and massage the menthol balm into the callused soles of her feet. Always running around barefoot, my girl. Her breathing heavies and I know she’ll be herself again tomorrow.

I carry her to my bed. Ease her down on lake-blue sheets. I climb in next to my sleeping daughter. I kiss her forehead. She’s already cooling down. It’s always a relief when a mother doesn’t have to resort to ice baths and ipecac and doctors.

I close my eyes. My Daughter Fish tugs at ribbons of consciousness. I reach for her human body, but she’s missing. I’m floating and so is she. I open my eyes, distracted by bubbles suspending from my mouth, each one a silver minnow so quick I’m afraid to blink. I want to ask them if they know my Daughter Fish. But they’re zooming in such a hurry.

My fingers comb through a prism of water. A rainbow just like my Daughter Fish. These colors are how she communicates with me. The refracted light fades into my fingertips; I glow like a rainbow too.

But it occurs to my dream-self that I’d rather not glow. Daughter Fish, come back to me, I beg. I try to remember how it felt to hold her human body, but all I can seem to envision is my daughter fish writhing and slipping away. Her scales must have felt rough between my cupped palms. Yet mothers are supposed to be gentle; I couldn’t squeeze.

I open my mouth again. Inhale moss, taste its grassy slime heavy in my throat. I cough and realize I may never wake. I want to shout, Beware of worms! I fear some fisherman will hook her lip and her fish body will know violence. I cough until my ribs ache and my lungs are waterlogged.

In the morning, I stare at the empty space on the bed beside me. Perhaps it’d be better if I’d drowned in my sleep. I try to remember my Daughter Fish. I try to remember my human daughter, still inside me. She had another name before I called her Daughter Fish: Last Chance. It wasn’t the name I gave her, but she took it with her when she slipped away.

I drape my body in the green, mossy remains of memory and rip the blankets from the mirrors. I see ribbons then ripples then a pool of blue. I press my palms together above my head and dive.

Adrianna Sanchez-Lopez is a Southern Colorado inhabitant, community college professor, and writer. Her recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Pinch, Indiana Review, Portland Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in fiction from Antioch University Los Angeles and is currently working on her first short story collection.