Songs of the Humpback Whale Read online

“You have to go with them,” Hadley says. He lifts her chin with her finger. “Don’t you want to make me happy? Don’t you see?”

  I start to wonder if this is going to turn out all right. Oliver stands with his fists at his side, watching Rebecca as if there is a wall between them. I imagine it is next to impossible to see your child grow up; even harder when it comes in a matter of minutes.

  Rebecca and Hadley are struggling. She clutches him, and Hadley is trying to push her away. Watching them, I have started to believe. I think I am on their side, now. In spite of Oliver, in spite of Jane. For the last time, Hadley looks at me, and he’s begging for just five minutes. Five lousy minutes.

  Because I am looking into the sun to give them privacy, I don’t really know what happens next. All of a sudden, Rebecca and Hadley tear apart. In the effort to push her towards me, he falls. I see all this through blind orange sunspots, my own fault. And then Rebecca is in my arms, tiny and hot with sweat, reaching back towards the cliff as Hadley falls over the edge.

  I will remember many things about that day in years to come, but the thing that will stick with me most vividly is Rebecca. Just that second her eyes clear, and she begins to scream. It isn’t a scream, though, not really; it’s the howling of an animal. I recognize it as the sound of death, and it never surprises me that it comes from her throat instead of Hadley’s. I will remember that noise, and the way Rebecca looks over the edge of the cliff when none of us have the nerve. She rips the shirt she is wearing at the buttons and rakes her nails over her chest. All three of us-three men-just stand there, not doing anything; not knowing what we are supposed to do. We are speechless. She tears at her flesh, scoring her legs and her arms. We all watch the blood from the marks she’s made seep into the earth.

  67 J ANE

  They bring her back to me swathed in bandages. Her eyes are open but she isn’t looking at anything. Even when I stand right over her, she doesn’t see me. From time to time she says things about fire and lightning. She stood up during the second night, screamed at the top of her lungs, and got out of bed. She walked around the room, stepping over obstacles that were not there, touching her hand and shrieking from the burns. Then she sat on the floor, crouched, her head bent over her lap. When she looked up she was crying. She was calling for me.

  Sam and Oliver drift in and out of the room at different times. They have both tried to get me to leave her side, but how could I do that? What if she chose that minute to regain consciousness, and I weren’t there?

  When Sam comes in, he sits behind me and kneads my shoulders. We don’t say much to each other; he is just a presence for me, and that’s plenty. When Oliver comes in, he sits on the opposite side of the bed. He holds Rebecca’s other hand. As if she completes the circuit, when we are like this we can talk. I tell him what I feel for Sam, and it doesn’t hurt so much to reveal the truth. I tell him how it makes me feel to be in love like this. I do not apologize; it’s too late for that. And as for Oliver, I have to say he does not accuse. Instead he accepts what I have to say, and he weaves tales for me. He has become an expert storyteller. He reminds me of mishaps that occurred when we were dating; of escapades on our honeymoon to retrieve lost luggage, to find long-dormant hostels. He tells me together we can survive anything.

  Oliver is in the room when she comes to. I have been tracing the hand-painted design on the edge of the walls, wondering what Sam’s mother is like, when Rebecca’s fingers move in my hand. Oliver looks up at me; he has felt it too. Rebecca opens her eyes, bloodshot and crusted, and coughs violently. “What’s the matter with her?” Oliver says. Anxious to do something, I press a towel against Rebecca’s forehead. Oliver holds tissues against Rebecca’s chin, catching the phlegm.

  Finally, thankfully, Rebecca stops. She sighs-actually, it is more like she deflates. Oliver strokes her arm gently. “Baby,” he says, smiling down at her. “We’re going to go home. We’re getting out of here.” I do not say anything. I don’t care what he says. I will do anything-if Rebecca comes back whole.

  Rebecca makes a motion to sit up, and I quickly stuff a pillow behind her back for support. “Tell me this,” she says. “Hadley’s dead?”

  I don’t think Oliver has come to terms with this; with Rebecca’s ability to fall in love. I would not have believed it either, but I was there to witness it. Oliver looks at me, and then he gets up and leaves the room.

  I don’t know why she has asked. Does she know for sure? Is she just looking for a corroborating witness? “Yes,” I say, and just like that, all the light drains out of my daughter’s face. I am afraid I am going to lose her again. Once you make the decision you want to die, nothing can bring you back. I start to cry, and I apologize to her. I’m sorry for thinking she was too young. I’m sorry for sending Hadley away. I’m sorry, just sorry, that it had to come to this.

  I bury my face in the quilt on top of my daughter, thinking: this is not the way I wanted it to be. I was hoping to be the strong one, the one who would be there to help her stand again. But Rebecca holds her hand against my cheek. “Tell me everything you know,” she says.

  So I recount the horror of Hadley’s death, his broken neck, his bravery. I tell her he felt no pain. Not like you, I think. I do not tell her that under slightly different circumstances of fate, Hadley might have lived. The rangers said the drop was but one hundred feet- not far enough to ensure death. What killed Hadley was the spot where he happened to land, the rocks that severed his spine. I do not tell Rebecca that inches away was the forgiving cushion of water. I say that Hadley’s funeral is tomorrow. It took this long to raise his body from the narrow chasm.

  “This long?” Rebecca asks. I tell her three days have gone by. “What have I been doing for three days?”

  She has pneumonia and she has been sedated most of the time. “You were gone when your father first arrived here. He insisted on going with Sam to find you. He didn’t like the idea of Sam staying here with me.”

  I help her lie back down and tell her she ought to rest. She fights me, struggling to sit up. “What does he mean, ‘We’re going home’?”

  “Back to California. What did you think?”

  She blinks many times, as if she is trying to clear her mind, or remember, or possibly both. “What have we been doing here?”

  She catches me so off guard that I don’t stop her in time from pulling the quilt back from her chest. When she sees her sores on her chest, arms and legs, she gasps. Her hands, trembling, reach out for something. They find me. “When Hadley fell, you tried to climb down after him. You wouldn’t stop.” I take a deep breath, feeling my voice catch. “You kept saying you were trying to tear your heart out.”

  Rebecca turns her face so that she is looking out the window. It is dark now, and all she will see is the reflection of her own pain. “I don’t know why I bothered,” she whispers. “You’d already done that.”

  I used to think, before this whole incident, that parental love was supposed to be unconditional. I believed that Rebecca would naturally be tied to me because I had been the one to bring her into the world. I didn’t connect this with my own experience. When I could not love my father, I assumed there was something wrong with me. But when they carried Rebecca in here from the stretcher of the ambulance, I came to see things differently. If you want to love a parent you have to understand the incredible investment he or she has in you. If you are a parent, and you want to be loved, you have to deserve it.

  Suddenly I am dizzy with guilt. “What do you want me to say, Rebecca?”

  Rebecca will not look at me. “Why do you want me to forgive you? What do you get out of it?”

  Absolution, I think, the first word that comes to my mind. I get to protect you from what I went through. “Why do I want you to forgive me? Because I never forgave my father, and I know what it will do to you. When I was growing up my father would hit me. He hit me and he hit my mother and I tried to keep him from hitting Joley. He broke my heart, and eventually he broke me. I never believed I could be anything important. Why else would my father hurt me?” I smile, wringing her hand. “Then I forgot