People say I’m married to my work. My wife Linda, especially, says it. She’s been complaining recently about my late homecomings. What can I say? Does she want the car, the three-bedroom house, the life she lives? It’s not much, I tell her, it’s not exactly what we wanted. But it’s not like I make that much money.

"I’m sorry I couldn’t be a doctor for you, or a lawyer," I tell her.

"That’s not it at all—"

"Maybe you’d be happier if you didn’t have to work as well. Is that it? I’m doing my best, and I don’t want to hold you captive in this house—"

"Steven," she says to me finally, "are you cheating on me?"

I look at her, standing slightly pigeon-toed, helpless, her shirt, a white oxford from my closet, hanging about her creamy, lithe frame. The shirt is missing a button, and I never wear it. Her eyes are shaking, and her question hangs like static electricity between us, the ends of her chestnut hair rising to meet it. Her breath is quick and light, and she has her left pinky nail poised between her shell-like teeth, in the cove of her tiny mouth. God, I love her.

"Honey," I split into what I hope is a winning smile, "who would I be seeing? My secretary? A client? I work with marine mammals all day. I thought you were happy."

"I was. I am. But what do you do at the aquarium until nine at night?"

When the last dolphin show is over at six p.m., it is part of my duties to return the animals to their places. Some of them go out into a section of bay, blocked off by walls, where they swim fairly freely. Usually these dolphins have been injured or sickened by something manmade. We care for them and return them eventually to open water.

Others, like Piccolo, like Mariana, will never return. These were brought to us too young, and would die in the wild. We keep them in large habitats, and train them to play for paying customers.

Beneath glittering San Diego sunsets, at 6:15 six days a week, I guide Mariana from the showplace back to her simulated home. I know she has been working hard all day so I pamper her. All day I’ve led her to jump and fly in a streaming arc, to dance on her tail fin, to suffer her smooth, shiny skin to be rubbed by the small and sticky hands of soda-sipping, popsicle-eating children.

At the end of the day, I hate myself, but Mariana smiles at me. Did I do well today? her clicks and happy squeaks seem to say. Did I please you? I give her fish, not throwing it for her to catch in mid-air, but feeding it into her graceful, long mouth by hand. I touch her magnificent head, beaten all day by the hot sun and careless hands. I stroke her gently, and I speak to her.

"You understand me, don’t you, Mariana. You know I don’t do these things to hurt you." Mariana smiles, nods her head, butts me playfully. Then she swiftly turns away, leaps and dives, her tail a streaking, silver pendant suspended for one moment from a chain of shimmering gold beads, droplets catching the last violent orange rays from the west. She does it for me, without a command.

I slip into the water with her and she comes to me, placing her face beside mine. I rest my head on her smooth side, hook my arm up and grasp her softly curving fin. There is a moment of absolute stillness. I hear the hum of the machinery beneath the water. I feel the thrum and pulse of Mariana’s warm heart. Then I turn and float parallel to her, still holding her fin as she swims us, so slowly, through the circle of the tank.

How can I explain it? All grief, all pain, all sluices away and dissolves, salt of my eyes one with the salt of this imprisoned sea. And the next day, Mariana, faithful, throws my grief in splashing arcs, through the dusty, sunlit air, out, and away.

I walk in at night, my hair still damp, my gym bag on my shoulder. I glance in the mirror just inside the door. I look relaxed, tired, and relieved. I look guilty.

Then my wife, my tiny, luminous wife, glides over to me, her skin smooth and gleaming like a newly polished stone, her hair draped in wet tendrils around her face, her warm, steaming body ensconced in a clean white terry robe. She smells like the sea. But accusation darts, like flashing fish, in her bright, suspicious eyes.

"Are you seeing someone else?" Linda asks me again.

I don’t know how to answer.