Marlin isn't just a kind of fish, it's also my brother's name. Which, if you knew my brother, is kind of funny. He never finished college,a nd it was a said miracle that he graduated from highschool.

I was only in fourth grade when he made his way into the world. He was the independant one, the brave one. Also the stupid one, but nobody would say that until I was fourteen. They also called me stupid, but said I was more excused. He was twenty four, he should have been responsible. We didn't know...

I graduated from highschool at seventeen. Unlike Marlin, I knew exactly what I was going to do with my life. I was going to do somethng that society could use. But naturally I was going to take the easy route.

Law seemed a bit too hard. I wanted to help the world without having to learn legal jargon, and stay up studying all night. Medicne was fairly easy. It was just memorizing facts and symptoms, then using them in real situations. It reminded me of algebra in middle school, learn and project. Learn and repeat. Don't make mistakes, and no one will die. But I've made mistakes before, I've killed people before.

The only thing different about Mrs. Stein was that hte family was morally opposed to me killing her. And because they had to go and throw a hissy fit, I lost my job. There was a whole artical in the paper about hte scandal. Oh, for shame, I had helped someone who wasn't over 80 die.

So what? What those reporters left out was that Mrs. Stein's mortal injuries had been inflicted by her alchoholic husband. And they yelled at me for taking her off life support! She would have died anyway. After 22 years, people got sick of me.

I dont' remember much about the week after I got fired. All of the phonecalls were co-workers saying htey were sorry,and Mom telling me to call her. I don't know if I was drinking or just in shock. Probably both...

When I got a call from Marlin, I was just getting our of shock, or recovering from my hangover, I can't remember.

"Theo?"

"Yeah?"

"I'ts Marlin. You know, your-"

"Half brother. Yeah. What do you want?" I was being rude and cold, but I let myself continue. We hadn't talked for about twenty-three years, with good reason. After what had happened...

"I heard from Ma what happened..."

"Thanks for your sympathy." I hung up. Marlin had done nothing for my mood. He only made me angrier. What right did he have to call me after what happened? The phone rang again. "Hello?"

"You didn't even let me finish. Ma said that you should come down and see us."

"I'll call Mom. Now piss off."

"Don't hang up."

"What now?"

"I think it would ve a good idea for you to come, too. I mean, we've never talked about what happened with-"

"I'll think about it." But I really wouldn't. I didn't want to think about anything but the TV program. It was something about Ireland. I had always wanted to go to Ireland. I still sort of do. I dont' remember doing any thinking, but the next thing I was aware of was stepping off hte plaine in San Juan, Puerto Rico, getting smothered by unwanted love from Mom and Marlin.

"Mi vida!" Mom liked to think she could speak Spanish because her first husband, Marling's father, ahd been Mexican. Marling looked more like the natives of Puerto Rico, more like Bernardo from West Side Story.

I never looked like Mom or Marlin. I have my father's, god rest his soul, features. Mother has a large, round face and is short and stout. I am her son, yet her opposite. People keep telling me I need to eat something. It used to be a running joke in the hospital that I just drank from the blood bank. I sort of hated them for that joke.

Marlin had a low voice, he was nervous, I could tell. "Hey..." His voice was that of someone who had walked strait out of the sixties.

"Hello."

"Ah, Theo, you're so thin," Mom was still smushing me with her chubby little body, "Are you healthy?"

"I'm fine." And considering the situation, I was. I hadn't killed myself, I wasn't watching soap operas, and I wasn't eating chocolate covered cherries by the box. Truth be told, I wasn't eating much of anything, but that was probably better than chocolate covered cherries. "I've been holding up pretty well."

Mom didn't listen to me, "No, mi vida. You're just like your fadda..." she pronounced father oddly, reminicent of her childhood in New York. "And you remember what your fadda did after he lost his job..."

Yes, I remembered. I remember it all to clearly because I was the one who found his hanging body. I was the one who called the police, and sat in the bathroom, puking from sorry and anger and fear.

"So, do you have any more luggage?" Marlin asked, tapping his foot, annoying me.

"No," I shook my head, "Just my backpack and carry-on."

"Mi vida, let me take that," Mom took my backpack and suitcase. Subsiquently, Marlin took the suitcase from her.

"You really don't..." I began, but she stopped me.

"No, mi vida, you look too weak to carry bags. Now, let's go!"

The next week passed in a blur. I remember Mom tried to make me eat, but i mostly neglected foot, prefering to wander. The people were dirty, the battlements always smelt like urine. Forts, I suppose, not battlements. Spanish forts.

"Theodore..." Mom pleaded with me, "Please eat the rest of your dinner."

I shook my head. I wasn't five, and her constnat nagging was pissing me off. "Thanks for the thought, Mom." I stood up and wantered to the guist bedroom where I had taken up residence. Puerto Rico isn't hte house of my childhood. I wouldn't go back there. I was sick, dizzy, tired, and I fell onto the bed, my weariness consuming me.

The next think I knew, I was rocking back and forth gently. Marlin was wiping my forehead with a damp rang and looking concerned.

"What..." I tried tp ush him off me,s itting up and slamming my head into something hard, "Oh shit..."

"You're on my fishing boat," he informed me.

"The hell..." I groaned.

Marlin continued, "You know, you need to eat something, or you'll keep faining, and then have a heart attack."

I scowled. He was trying to be smarter than me. "And when did you get a med degree, bastard?"

"I don't have a med degree, but here." He handed me a bag of chips and smiled nervously. "Eat, you look like shit."

"Thanks for your honest opinion." I started into the chips, more thirsty than hungry.

Marlin was holding his breath as he asked, "Are they okay?"

I nodded, "They're fine." They didn't really taste like anything, but I guess there were nutrients in it. "I really want something to drink. Something alchoholic."

He nodded. "we can get some in St. Thomas. You just stay here, sleep some more. Ma was freaking out when you fainted. Kept saying thinks about Jacob..."

"I'm not Jacob." I was angry. Just because I look like my father gave marlin to right to bring him up. "I really want something to drink."

"Yeah..." Marlin looked down, "Listen. I think we should talk about Anne."

I suddenly felt sick and overheated. I rolled out of the bunk bed and staggered out onto the deck of Marlin's boat. I was terrified, but I didn't know why. I hadn't been sleeping well, or eating at all, but that wasn't supposed to make me scared... I couldn't grasp what was going on. I fell to my knees. It was bright out, the sunlight reflecting off the water. I felt myself go a bit blind.

Marlin was there, his strong arms around my bony shoulder. I had forgotten that Marlin had really been doing things since he left. He wasnt a pothead, he was a fisherman. "We'll talk later. Just go back to bed."

I began to obey, sad and full of chips. I had, and still, always hated boats. With a violet shudder, I threw up over the side. The clear blue water was polluted, and I was to blame. But Marlin didn't say anything. He just held the door for me as I staggered back inside, feeling worse than I had ever felt in my life.

I was asleep until Marlin woke up up and handed me a bottle of wine. Alright, it wasn't something hard, but I could deal with wine. We drank for a bit, be he stopped. I kept drinking. I would regret it later, but that was later. Too bad for me that later came pretty quickly.

"I'm going to be sick again..."

"You shouldn't have drank so much."

"Well, what hte hell else do I have to do?" I was angry again. An angry drunk. Our conversation probably sounded really nice to the tourists, but I didn't care.

He glanced at me with boredom, "You were alwaysthe smart one. Go read oen of hte books you brought with you."

"How on Earth do you live like this. Fishing 'nd shit all day."

"You wouldn't git it."

"Come on," I sat up, my eyes focused on Marlin's tan and weathered face, "Enlighten me."

"Alright. You need all the ennlightenment you can get. I do this because the ocean moves me. There is more saltwater in my veins than blood. I do it in memory of her."

My sruprise quickly turned to sickness, and again, I hurled over the side of the boat. "You're crazy," I finally muttered, "Do you want to be a fish in your next life or something?"

"Of course. What about you? Got any big karma plans?"

"My next life will be spent as someone who didn't loose his job, and didn't have to go live with his crazy fisherman brother."

Marlin grinned, "You're jealous of me."

"I always have been."

He looked at me sadly, "I know. After Anne..."

"After Anne died, you just... vanished," my voice was strained with anger and sadness, "You left me there with the blame."

"You were only fourteen. They hated me more."

"Yes, but you left. You weren't there to get called names, to listen to Mom cry everynight and curse our births. Our births, Marlin! Like we should have died in Anne's place."

"Itwasn't our fault. She was't a strong swimmer and we couldn't fight a riptide."

"You weren't at her funeral. Her face was blue and grey. Everyone gave me flowers but they just smelt like her. We let her die."

"It was out of our control," Marling's voice was sad and tired, he was just as scared as I was about speaking of the past. Of Anne.

"We let our sister die," I was close to screaming, tears filling my eyes. "Like she was a victim of poor sorting. It's not like there were others we were supposed to be attending to."

Marlin put his arms around my shoulders. He was still alive, I was still alive. Why did they blame us? I had lost sleep over the question. "She died instantly, I read the reports."

"What?"

"It wasn't going underwater that killed her. She smashed her head on one of the rocks, remember?"

I nodded. She had been swimming and blood had come out of her head. She had dismissed it as 'nothing much' and twenty minutes later, while Marlin and I were eating lunch, she had died. "What about it?"

"Well, she got caught in the riptide, and smashed agains that same rock, and her rib popped her heart."

It made sense, in a strange cosmic way. The only part of the coffin that had been open was the part that showed her face. Her face had beengrey and still. I began to cry and pushed Marlin away from me, "Why did they blame us?"

"Who else could they blame?"

Clarity. In that instant, I felt clarity. Everything was suddenly put in perspective. Humans, life, death, people and their natures... I began to laugh, but calmed myself. "Thank you, Marlin. Why did we put this off for twenty years?"

He smiled at me and shook his head sadly, "We just had to wait for the right time."

"I'm going to bed," I said. And I sletp well, because a weight had been lifted, and it was safe to sleep.

Three years past. I moved from Chicago to L.A. and got hired right away. I cried when Mom called to say that Marlin's boat had been lost at sea, and they couldn't find his body. I cried, but I wasn't surprised. The ocean was part of Marlin.

He owed to to our sister Anne, and to me.