Tova Sullivan, the seventy-year-old night cleaner at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, wages war on a stubborn wad of chewing gum, reflecting on people’s carelessness and a memory of her son, Erik. She works her route with vinegar and lemon oil, greeting each exhibit as she goes, and pauses at the sea lion statue that recalls Erik’s boyhood.

Circling the tanks, Tova acknowledges the wolf eels and lingers at her favorite—the giant Pacific octopus—who hides behind a rock. She imagines impatient visitors missing him and continues cleaning.

In the break room, after tidying a mess of takeout cartons and a shifted trash can, Tova notices a clump beneath a table that moves: the octopus, pale and tangled in a phone-charger cord. She calmly unplugs the cord, and the octopus responds by wrapping an arm around her arm, its suckers gripping like a playful test, before releasing and slipping away. Shaken, Tova finishes her rounds, the sucker marks visible on her skin.

On her final pass, she finds the octopus back in his tank, still paler than usual, and calls him a troublemaker. The mystery of how he escaped lingers.

Leaving for the night, Tova sits on her usual bench on the old ferry pier, tracing the largest sucker mark—the size of a silver dollar—and imagines it as a lasting scar. Watching moonlight on the water, she thinks of her late husband, Will, and pictures her only child, Erik, beneath the surface, holding the light for her.