Leonardo

About seven years ago, my brother and I finished tennis practice and went to the parking lot to find our mother. When she greeted us at the car, she told us she had a surprise. In a box, there were two tiny turtles -- a brother and a sister, each about the size of my palm. One with a red mark on his head, and one without. This red mark became his defining feature -- it was how we could tell them apart.

My mom had been hoping that the two turtles would be enough to dissuade the collective begging from my brother, my father, and me asking for a puppy. Unfortunately, the novelty in having a legitimate pet died away when it soon became clear that the turtles did very little but eat, sleep, and sunbathe. Within less than a year, Matisse came into our lives and promptly peed on our kitchen floor.

At the time, the turtles lived in a clear plastic box next to the dishwasher by the bay window. My mother would let them wander around the kitchen counter while she cleaned out their box, refilling it with clean water. As the years passed, they grew bigger and bigger. The plastic log/cave we'd bought from the pet store became too small, and we had to buy bigger and bigger logs until there were no more sizes left that could top the others. In the end, only one turtle could hide under the log or sunbathe on the top at a time. This would become important later.

For years, they had no name. We referred to them as "boy" and "girl" for the longest time, until one day, I arbitrarily decided to give them names. We still usually referred to them as "boy" and "girl", but officially their names were Leonardo and Mona Lisa. Nevertheless, the turtles drifted readily out of my consciousness -- they didn't do much, and it was typically my mother's job to change their water and feed them. Many times, I forgot they even existed.

Leonardo was always the more adventurous one. Whenever my mother let him out to explore, he would immediately scurry off across the kitchen counter, as far away from the box as he could get. We'd find him burrowed behind a vase near the toaster or beneath a stack of envelopes by the telephone. A couple of times, he even fell off the counter, to the great surprise of our dog. Mona Lisa, on the other hand, was much less aggressive. She tended to stay near the bay window and never wandered too far. Whereas Leonardo would aggressively fight his way for a bite of turtle food, she tended to get knocked aside.

Eventually, the clear box by the bay window was too small for the two of them. My mother bought one of those plastic tubs Chinese newborns are usually bathed in and placed the two turtles outside. At the time, the walls of the tub were high enough to keep them inside. They would take turns sunbathing on the log and sleeping underneath it. Then one day, my mother noticed that there were strange scars on Mona Lisa's skin. Thinking maybe it was too cold to leave them outside overnight, my mother would hoist the tub in and out of the house each night and morning.

The answer to the mystery of Mona Lisa's scars finally came months later. After my father bought her a new camcorder, my mother had the brief hobby of videotaping everything -- including what was going on in the backyard. By chance, she was filming the two turtles one morning -- Mona Lisa was sunbathing on the top of the log, when Leonardo suddenly popped his head out of the water, yanked her by the leg and threw her off of the log, and then situated himself where she had once been lounging. Yes, there was a case of domestic abuse happening right under our noses. From then on, the two siblings were kept in separate tubs outside, isolated from each other.

During November of last year, I called my mother while I was at school. We talked for a little bit about who-knows-what, and at some point she relayed to me that Leonardo had escaped. He had gotten big enough that at some point, he managed to climb out of the tub and had scurried off somewhere in the backyard. We were upset, but not distraught -- we hoped for the best, thinking that perhaps he'd be able to survive on his own. I discussed the news with my brother on Facebook, and my cousin cracked a light-hearted joke about Leonardo running off to join the Ninja Turtles.

As fate would have it, Leonardo appeared in our lives again. About two months ago, my mother was washing the dishes when she noticed something moving on the patio near the bushes. Leonardo had survived the winter and was alive. My mother recorded a short video and uploaded it on Facebook, and then she decided that, since he had managed to take care of himself for five months in our backyard, she would let him enjoy his freedom.

Then this morning happens.

We just finished watching the final of the French Open, when my father goes outside to get the Sunday newspaper. When he comes back in, he yells out, "Hey, it's the turtle!" Sure enough, we see Leonardo burrowed by the camellia plant right next to the black metal gate that leads to our house.

We are happy to see him. But the rejoicing begins to dissipate when my brother asks, "Is he dead?" My mother puts on a pair of rubber gloves and pokes him a little. He doesn't move. She picks him up. He does not squirm like he once did. We put him in one of the water-filled tubs my mom left out for him, in case he ever decided to come back. He floats.

My brother goes back into the house. My mother asks my father to get a shovel. My mother picks a spot behind the bushes where she saw him walk past just two months ago. At the same time, I walk over to the red tub where Leonardo floats and crouch down to look at him. I am still holding the camera my mom handed to me -- back when we treated the discovery like a family reunion. Whatever doubts I have about my mother's judgment that Leonardo is dead vanish when I see the way his closed eyes are sunken in.

I barely listen as I hear my mom say something out loud. She says something like, "Well, that's life." Then I hear these gasping noises, and for a second I think she's laughing but then I realize that my mother is crying.

By then, I can't even see anymore. The steam has fogged up my eyes, and I sense the way my body automatically shuts down to prevent my emotions from spilling over whenever I find myself getting emotional. It's how I have managed to almost never cry when I watch or read tragedies. Except this time, I let myself go.

One of our neighbors opens the gate. I don't know why he's here. I don't even know his name. My father and mother say some words to him. My head is locked in place. I can't see, it's all a blur, and yet I can't keep my eyes off of Leonardo. I vaguely sense my mother and the neighbor standing behind me. I don't turn around to look at them. I don't want them to see my telltale face. When the neighbor offers to say a prayer, I move out of the way for him and, ashamed of my tears, I run back into the house. I pass by my brother, who sits emotionlessly at the kitchen table.

Later my mother calls out that they are about to bury him. The four of us stand around the grave. My mother places him inside. We take turns filling the grave with the shovel. My mother pats the dirt and places a large stone next to it -- a marker of his grave. This time, my brother starts crying.

A melancholy permeates our house. The lingering question remains suspended in the air -- should we have captured him again when we saw him two months ago? Leonardo might still be alive if we had. But is that what he would have wanted? Or were those last seven months of freedom the most blissful months of his life?

Seeing him floating in that red tub made things so clear to me. I hardly cared about him when he was alive. Maybe when he was still a baby, and he would eagerly eat all the food I threw into the box. After Matisse entered our lives, the two turtles were mainly forgotten. They don't beg for attention like a dog. They cower inside their shells when you come close and startle them.

Leonardo won't be the last. From time to time, I am haunted by dreams of when Matisse's time will come. Mona Lisa's life expectancy is between 25-50 years, but look what happened to Leonardo. My parents are getting older too. My father has had more health problems in the last year than I can remember.

Someday, my time will come too.

My mother thinks Leonardo purposely chose to rest so conspicuously by the front gate, where anybody could see him. She thinks he knew.