It is during the fourth month of rain that the axolotl arrives. It is not ordinary. An ordinary axolotl will have black pinhead eyes, unblinking, ringed with a nuclear neon glow. This axolotl’s eyes are blue, gray-flecked, framed by a fringe of lashes. They blink: seeing, unseeing; seeing, unseeing. 

I recognize my daughter immediately. 

She is present in the smile, too: that slim, eerily stoic grin; mirth in mouth alone.