Songs of the Humpback Whale Read online

I would have given anything then to tear her away from that TV. Give her a sedative, a stiff drink, I don’t know what. Maybe I could just hold her. But seeing her like that knotted up my gut. I had to do something. And I couldn’t very well just kneel down next to her, with her goddamned husband larger than life, swollen in technicolor. So I chickened out. I left; said I had something to do in the field. Instead, I’m taking a walk through the woods that border the orchard.

  The mosquitoes are awful this time of year, and the land is swampy. Part of the woods has become a makeshift dump, even for neighboring farmers. There’s an old enamel bathtub and a few dead washing machines at a certain point on the trail. But it’s quiet, so quiet you can hear your mind snapping as it jumps from one idea to another.

  I walk for quite a distance, because I come to the foundation of a house that must have burned to the ground. It’s a small ring of stones with a crumbling fireplace at one end. My father used to say it dated to the 1700s.

  When Hadley and me were kids we’d come out here a lot. When we were about nine, we made this our secret clubhouse, and we lugged beams and old boards from the barn all the way here, trying to hammer together some kind of enclosure. We had a password: Yaz, after our favorite player on the Red Sox. We’d meet every day at sunset, just so we could hear our mothers hollering from different edges of the woods, calling us to supper.

  I’ve been hanging around with Hadley since we were seven. That’s eighteen years. That’s longer than Rebecca’s even been alive. Under any other circumstance, I’d stand behind him. He’s my best friend. He knows what he’s doing; he wouldn’t take a fifteen-year-old on a joy ride. But I know as sure as I know the boundaries of my orchard, what is happening to me now comes once in a lifetime. I can’t stand to see Jane upset, and for selfish reasons: it hurts me to see her like that.

  By the time I get back to the Big House, I’ve missed dinner. Joley’s doing the dishes; he tells me Jane’s upstairs. “Where’s Hadley? I’ve got to talk to him.”

  “I think he went out on the back porch with Rebecca. Why?”

  But I don’t have time to answer him. I stroll out the back door, immediately feeling that I have interrupted something. Rebecca and Hadley are on the swinging bench, and when the door creaks open they fly to opposite ends. “Hey,” I say, noncommittally. “You busy?”

  They shake their heads. Rebecca’s making me uncomfortable. I can feel her stare burning into the collar of my shirt. I pull at it, trying to let in some air. “What’s up?” Hadley says. He’s bolder now. He’s got his arm around Rebecca, on the back of the bench.

  “I kind of need to talk to you.” I turn to Rebecca. “Alone.” I open the screen door. “I’ll just wait in here.” I walk inside and let the door slam behind me. Hadley asks how long this is going to take. “I was figuring we’d go grab a beer, if that’s okay with you.”

  I hear Rebecca say, “Do you have to?” but I can’t tell what Hadley says in return. He walks into the house, that wide smile on his face, and slaps me on the back. “Let’s roll. You paying?”

  We go to Adam’s Rib, a restaurant with a big bar section frequented mostly by motorcycle gangs. We don’t go there much, but I don’t want to have this conversation in a place I go to often, so that every time I walk in the door in the future I’ll have a memory of the time I let down my best friend. Hadley and I take a table near the door, one that is really a Pac-Man game dotted with two napkins and an ashtray. A waitress with very high teased red hair asks us what we’re drinking. “Glenfiddich,” I say. “Two.”

  Hadley lifts his eyebrows. “You getting married or having a baby or something? What’s the occasion?”

  I lean my elbows on the table. “I got to ask you something. What’s going on between you and Rebecca?”

  Hadley grins. “What’s going on between you and Jane?”

  “Come on,” I say, “that’s not the question here.”

  “Sam, I don’t mess in your business; you don’t mess in mine.” The drinks come, and Hadley lifts his glass and toasts me. “Cheers.”

  “She’s really young. You’ve got Jane all upset.”

  Hadley scowls. “Rebecca’s got a more grown-up head on her shoulders-than either one of us. I wouldn’t fuck around with a kid, Sam, if I didn’t think it was right.”

  I take a long, deep drink of the whiskey. It burns the back of my throat, which makes me think the words may come easier. “I wouldn’t fuck around, either, if I didn’t know it was right.” I swirl the liquid in the glass. “I think you’d better go away for a little while.”

  Hadley stares at me “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m saying I think you should take a vacation. Get away from the orchard. Go visit your mom,” I say. “She hasn’t seen you since Christmas.”

  “You’re doing this because of her fucking mother.”

  “I’m doing it because of me. And you. I’m doing what I think is right.”

  “She told you to do it, didn’t she? She’s making you do this. You’ve known me all your life. You’ve known her for five days. I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

  “Leave Jane out of this,” I say, floundering. “This is between you and me.”

  “Like hell it is. Jesus!” He kicks the table again, and then takes a deep breath and eases himself into his chair. “Okay,” he says. “I want to know one thing. I want to know why nobody asked me or Rebecca what we think. I want to know why the whole goddamned world is voting on our future, everyone but us.”

  “It’s not for long. A week, maybe two. I just want to give Jane a little time to herself. You don’t know her, Hadley. She’s not just some rich bitch. She’s had a really rough life.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t know Rebecca,” Hadley says. “Do you know what it’s like when I’m with her? She believes in me more than my own folks ever did. Shit, I’ve told her things I’ve never even told you. No matter what I’m doing or where I am, she’s in my head.”

  Hadley flattens his palms against the game table. “Have you ever even talked to her, Sam? She’s lived through a plane crash. She takes better care of her mother than the other way around. She knows about you two, that’s for sure. You think Jane’s had a rough life? You should see the trip she’s laid on her own kid.”

  Hadley drains his glass, and then reaches for mine. “So if you want to know, Am I in love with her, the answer’s yes. If you want to know, Am I going to take care of her, I will. No one else seems to be doing a bangup job of it.” When Hadley looks at me, there’s a purpose in his eyes I’ve never seen before. “Don’t think about what I’m doing to Rebecca, Sam. Think about what Jane’s doing to her.”

  “Look,” I say. “I need you to do this for me. I’ll make it up to you. I swear it.”

  Hadley swallows hard and blinks. He’s looking for more to drink, but there’s nothing left between us. “Yeah, right.”

  “Hadley-”

  He holds his hands up to stop me. “I don’t want your explanations. I don’t want to hear about it at all, okay? And I want my back pay.” I nod. “You listen to me, Sam. You’d better work this out good. Because you’re making me leave behind someone I care about a lot. I’m going to come after her, sooner or later, no matter how long you keep me away. I’ll find her. Tell Jane that, straight from my lips. I’m going to be with Rebecca no matter what.”

  For what seems like minutes, we sit facing each other, absolutely silent. Finally I break the tension. “You’ll go in the morning.”

  “Fuck that,” Hadley says, snorting. “I’m out of here tonight.”

  We leave just after that. We ride home in the pickup and I swear I notice every bump and grit in the road. I notice the way both of our bodies bounce up and down at the same time. It’s gravity; we both weigh about the same. We pull into the driveway, and most of the lights downstairs in the house have been turned off.

  Neither Hadley nor I make a motion to get out of the truck. The crickets slide the bows of their wings back and forth. “Who gets to tell her?” Hadley asks.

  “Rebecca? You do. You should tell her.” Hadley looks at me, waiting for me to say more. “Go ahead. Go on up there. Stay as long as you want. I won’t tell Jane.”

  He opens the truck door, and it buzzes the way it does when the seat b