Songs of the Humpback Whale Read online

5 J ANE

  “Okay,” I tell Rebecca. “I know what we’re doing.” Adjusting my side mirror, I pull out of the development and onto the freeway that leads to the beach at La Jolla. Rebecca, sensing that we are in for a long drive, rolls down her window and hangs her feet out the window. A million times I have told her that it is not safe for her to do that, but then again I don’t even know if it is safe for her to be with me anymore, so I pretend I don’t see her. Rebecca turns off the radio, and we listen to the hum and grind of the old car’s symphony, the salt air singing across the front seat.

  By the time we reach the public beach, the sun is pushing scarlet against the underedge of a cloud, stretching it like a hammock. I park the car along the span of sidewalk that lines the beach, diagonally across from a late-afternoon volleyball game. Seven young men-I wouldn’t place any of them past twenty-arch and dive against the backdrop of the ocean. Rebecca is watching them, smiling.

  “I’ll be back,” I say, and when Rebecca offers to go with me, I tell her no. I walk away from the game, down the beach, feeling the sand seep into the lace holes of my tennis shoes. It grits cool between my toes and forms a second sole beneath my foot. Standing straight, I shade my eyes and wonder how far out you have to be to see Hawaii. Or for that matter, how many miles off the California coast you must be before you can see land.

  Oliver said once that at certain places south of San Diego you can see whales from the coast, without binoculars. When I asked him where they were going, he laughed. Where would you go? he said, but I was afraid to tell him. In time, I learned. I discovered that Alaska to Hawaii and Nova Scotia to Bermuda were the parallel paths of two humpback whale stocks. I learned that the West Coast whales and the East Coast whales did not cross paths.

  Where would you go?

  At thirty-five, I still refer to Massachusetts as home. I always have. I tell colleagues I’m from Massachusetts, although I have been living in California for fifteen years. I watch for the regional weather in the Northeast when I watch the national news. I am jealous of my brother, who roamed the whole world and by divine providence was allowed to settle back home.

  But then again, things always come easily to Joley.

  A seagull comes to a screeching hover above me. Batting its wings, it seems enormous, unnatural. Then it dives into the water and, having caught carrion, it surfaces and flies away. How amazing, I think, that it can move so effortlessly between air and sea and land.

  There was one summer when we were kids that my parents rented a house on Plum Island, on the north shore of Massachusetts. From the outside it seemed pregnant, a tiny turret on top that seemed to distend into a bulbous lower level. It was red and needed a paint job, and contained framed posters of tabby kittens and nautical trivia. Its icebox was a relic from the turn of the century, with a fan and a motor. Joley and I spent very little time in the house, being seven and eleven, respectively. We would be outside before breakfast and come in only when the night seemed to blend into the line of the ocean that we considered our backyard.

  Late in the summer, there were rumors of a hurricane, and like all the other kids on the beach we insisted on swimming in the tenfoot waves. Joley and I stood at the shore and watched columns of water rising like icons from the ocean. The waves taunted: Come here, come here, we wouldn’t hurt you. When we got up enough courage, Joley and I swam out beyond the waves and rode them in on our bellies, getting pounded into the beach so forcefully that handfuls of sand got trapped in the pockets of our bathing suits. At one point, Joley couldn’t seem to catch a wave. Floating several hundred yards out in the ocean, he tried and swam as hard as he could, but at seven he didn’t have the strength. He got tired quickly, and there I was, my feet buried by the undertow, watching monstrous swells form a fence that kept us apart.

  It was so quick that no one noticed, no other kids and no parents, but as soon as Joley began to cry, I dove under the water and frogkicked until I was well behind him; I burst to the surface, wrapped my arms around him and swam with all my power into the next wave. Joley swallowed some sand, landing face down on the rocky beach. Daddy came out to get us, asking what the hell were we doing out here in this weather. Joley and I dried off and watched the hurricane through the cross-taped windows of the cottage. The next day, which was bright and sunny, and every day after that, I did not go into the water. At least not past my chest, which is what I will only do now. My parents assumed it was the hurricane that had scared me, but that wasn’t it at all. I didn’t want to offer myself so easily to the entity which had almost taken away the only family member I loved.

  I inch towards the water, trying not to get wet, but my sneakers get soaked when I hold my wrists into the water. For July it is fairly cool, and it feels good where my skin is still burning. If I swam far out, over my head, would I soothe the part of me that hates? The part that hits?

  I cannot remember the first time it happened to me, but Joley can.

  Rebecca’s voice pulls me. “Mom,” she says. “Tell me what happened.”

  I would like to tell her everything, beginning at the very beginning, but there are some things that are better left unsaid. So I tell her about the shoe boxes and Oliver’s records, about the broken carton, about the shattered baleen samples, the ruined files. I tell her that I hit her father, but I do not tell her what Oliver said to me.

  Rebecca’s face falls, and I can tell she is trying to decide whether or not to believe me. Then she smiles. “Is that all? I was expecting something really big.” She reaches into the sand, shyly, and winds a piece of dried seaweed around her fingers. “He deserved it.”

  “Rebecca, this is my problem, not yours-”

  “Well it’s true,” she insists.

  I can’t really disagree with her. “Anyway.”

  Rebecca sits on the sand and crosses her legs Indian-style. “Are you going to go back?”

  I sigh. How do you explain marriage to a fifteen-year-old? “You don’t jut pack up and run away, Rebecca. Your father and I have a commitment. Besides, I have a job.”

  “You’ll take me, won’t you?”

  I shake my head. “Rebecca.”

  “It’s obvious, Mom. You need space-” here Rebecca makes a sweeping gesture with her arms. “You need room to reconsider. And don’t worry about me. Everyone’s parents are doing it. Reconsidering. It’s the age of separation.”

  “That’s ludicrous. And I wouldn’t take you even if I were leaving. You’re his daughter too. Answer me this,” I say, looking hard at her. “What did your father ever do to you to deserve you leaving?”

  Rebecca picks up a rock, a perfect stone for skimming, and bounces it across the ocean six, no, seven times. “What did he ever do to deserve me staying?” She looks at me and jumps to her feet. “Let’s go now,” she says, “while we can still outsmart him. He’s a scientist and he tracks things for a living, so we need as much of a head start as we can get. We can go anywhere-anywhere!” Rebecca points towards the parking lot. “We only have a limited supply of money, so we’ll have to budget, and I can call up Mrs. Nulty at the pool and tell her I have mono or something, and you can call up the superintendent and tell him you caught mono from me. And I’m up for anything, as long as we drive. I have this thing about air travel . . .” She lets her voice trail off, giggling, and then she scrambles towards me, falling on her knees. “How does that sound, Mom?”

  “I want you to listen to me, and listen carefully. Do you understand what happened this afternoon? I . . . hit . . . your . . . father. I don’t know where that came from, or why I did it. I just snapped. I could do it again-”

  “No you won’t.”

  I begin to walk down the beach. “I don’t know what happened, Rebecca, but I got angry enough and they say these things happen over and over; they say it’s a cycle and it’s passed down, do you follow? What if I hit you by mistake?” The words cough out of my mouth like stones. “What if I hit my baby?”

  Rebecca throws her arms around me, burying her face in my chest. I can tell that she is crying too. Someone near the volleyball net shouts, “Yeah, man, that’s g