Robin is beginning to talk more, and we are checking in with one another two or three times a week on the iPhone, or sometimes, on Facetime. We now have things to discuss and we and discuss them.

She asked me for a fish tank on the phone, and I shipped her a toy fish tank with three lifelike plastic goldfish swimming around in the water.

We chat more easily now, we talked last night about Red’s death, about the next puppy, about how long her dog Sandy will probably live, and she always asks about the fish and the snails.

I didn’t tell her that Maria’s favorite snail Socrates climbed out of the fish tank the other day and we discovered this because Bud was chewing on his shell in my study. Socrates must have crawled out of the tank and fallen onto the floor.

He’d probably been dead quite a while before Bud sniffed him out.

All of our Mystery snails are named Socrates, and I ordered several more, they are on the way.

Emma has not ruled out my buying her a regular fish tank on my next visit and setting it up. I was a total fish geek when I was a kid. I’m liking this relationship more and more now that we can speak to one another and I don’t just have to babble at her like a chimpanzee on uppers.

It’s interesting to see how similar Robin is to Emma, and also how different. Emma was always quiet, she loved nothing more than to read or play games quietly. She did not live in a world of Facetime, videos and messaging.

Robin seems quite comfortable around a camera, and she is videod regularly. Kids like her grow up on cameras and videos, I think. She is not shy about climbing up on a statue and shouting out to the world.

I can’t imagine Emma every doing that.