“Any customers?”
“Not a lot. I think folks were a little put out by my refusal to rent on weekends.” He grabs two mugs and pours in hot water. “So be it.” He smiles. “I took a short tour of the inlet myself though, just to see what was up. Kept running into whales here and there … never more than a couple in any one spot.” He sits down at the counter and sighs. “They were scattered all over the place.”
A memory triggers inside me. What was it Naomi said? If the pod is scattered around over a large area, something’s usually up.
I take a seat across from Dad, dunking the tea bag up and down in the steaming liquid.
“Lena was wondering if I could spend the night with her at Grace’s. They’re working on a social studies assignment together … some kind of oral history thing, and they want to interview me.” I try to keep my voice nonchalant, but it feels weird to be outright lying. “It’s due Monday, but this weekend’s going to be so busy.…”
“Grace’s?” Dad raises his eyebrows at me from over his tea mug. “You two have gotten friendlier, haven’t you?”
I shrug. “I guess. I think we just got tired of being mad at each other.” The minute the words are out of my mouth, I know it’s the truth. “So … is it okay? I can bike over.”
“Sure. I’ll miss you, of course.” He stands up, leans over to kiss the top of my head, and then stretches, yawning. “I need a shower.”
“Dad?”
He’s halfway to the bathroom, and stops, waiting.
“What if Mom left … to try to find someone? Somebody important from a long time ago.”
Dad makes a full turn. I can tell he’s checking that he heard me right.
“I mean, if you knew that was why, would you have tried to stop her?”
Dad crosses his arms and leans back against the wall. “How do you know I didn’t try?”
I blush, embarrassed to admit that, for all this time, I’d just assumed he hadn’t. Then I remember that night … hearing Dad crying.
“Marisa, I’ve known your mother for a long time,” he says. “But there’s nothing she could have told me about her past, short of saying she was a murderer, that would make me turn away.” A slight smile lightens his face. “She’s family.”
“But what if … I … I’m just so worried about.…” My voice cracks and I stop.
Dad walks slowly back into the tiny kitchen and settles himself onto the stool opposite me at the counter.
“Listen to me.” He reaches across and places both of his hands over mine, encircling the tea mug. “It’s been hard for me to watch you in so much pain. But no one has forgotten you. No one.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s not what I mean.”
Dad thinks I’m talking about what’s happening with Mom, and I am, but—it’s more complicated. It’s about belonging. It’s about Mom and the orcas. Both have been connected from the very first moment these crazy whales entered the inlet.
“It’s not about me anymore, Dad,” I whisper. “There’s more that.…”
Dad waits for me to go on, but I can’t tell him. Not yet. I know for sure now that he has no clue Mom had a baby before she met him, a baby she gave up when she probably wasn’t much older than Carol Ann Reese.
How can I tell him that that baby’s now grown up and found Mom, and she’s gone to meet him? Because what if it doesn’t work out? What if, after becoming a nurse and working with kids in those same kinds of situations, what if after all those years of trying to forget the hurt, she gets hurt even more? He sounded nice in his letter, but what if he really hates Mom for what she did? What if he only wanted to meet her to blame her?
What will happen then?
Dad still has his hands covering mine. We keep them entwined around my tea mug for a long time, holding on as if both of our lives depend on it.
––––
Grace’s house is bigger and fancier than I ever imagined, but there’s no time now for a tour. Lena arrives and we order pizza, then hole up in Grace’s room and set to work.
“There … that explains it really well,” Lena says, holding up a legal size sheet of paper and admiring it. Harris’s pictures of the orcas stare out at us above a paragraph I’ve written explaining the danger they’re facing.
Grace leans over Lena’s shoulder, and reads aloud: “We’ve all loved having the orcas here in the inlet, but now—for their own good—it’s time for them to go home.” That’s cool. Now all we need to do is copy them.
We tramp single file down the hall of Grace’s massive house and upstairs to her father’s office. “The copy machine is in here,” she whispers, opening the door. “Daddy lets me make copies when I need to, so this part is easy.”
“Somehow,” Lena says, “I don’t think he was thinking you’d be making two hundred copies.” But Grace just laughs.
“Oh well, whatever,” she shrugs, smiling. “It’s for a good cause.”
––––
That night, none of us can sleep, and it’s a relief when the alarm buzzes just before four in the morning. We dress quickly and tiptoe around in the dark, gathering our supplies, then sneak out of Grace’s house as quietly as we can, making our way down the long, winding path to the main road.
Harris is there waiting, just as we planned. “Hey, right on time,” he says. “Thought maybe you’d change your mind.…” I hand him three of the nine grocery bags we’ve filled with the stacks of our flyers. “Okay, we’ve probably got three hours max to get these plastered all around the inlet. Let’s go.”
We set out first for Phinney Bay Marina, where Grace’s father moors his boats. The road is deserted and we walk in silence. A thin drizzle is falling and the cold makes me shiver, but I’m grateful it’s not pouring down rain.
“C’mon,” Grace says as she pushes open the wooden gate and beckons for us to follow. Harris looks around the quiet marina. “No night guard?”
“Not in the winter. But maybe I shouldn’t be telling you that,” Grace whispers, but when I look at them, they’re both laughing.
Working quickly, we load five of the bags of flyers into an old pickup truck that Grace’s father keeps at the marina for dump runs. Then Grace leads us to the dock where her dad keeps an old motor-boat moored and we stow the remaining four bags into the hull. Grace tosses a set of car keys to Harris, and she and Lena squeeze into what space is left in the motorboat.
“Okay,” I say, “you guys head out and we’ll follow in the truck. We’ll meet at the bridge. Be careful. You’re sure you’re okay driving the boat?”
Grace waves me off. “Oh sure. I’ve made this run with Daddy so many times I could do it with my eyes closed. Hey, I am kind of doing it in the dark!” She giggles. “You’re the one taking your life in your hands, riding in a truck with him driving!”
Grace starts the engine and the little motorboat rumbles to life. Harris and I wait until they’re well out into the inlet. I check my watch. Almost five o’clock.
“Man, this is something,” Harris whispers, as we walk back toward the marina in the dark. “We’re really taking action.” His words echo exactly what I’ve been feeling and reassure me that we’re doing the right thing. The only sound is the gravel crunching under our feet.
“You think it’s really gonna work?”
I turn away, not willing to tell him how nervous I am that what we’re doing absolutely might not work, or might not matter in the end.
“It has to,” I answer.
We climb into the truck. I wait, nervously drumming my hands on my knees, while Harris fiddles with the keys. “You sure you know how to do this?” I ask, rethinking the wisdom of this part of the plan.
“Yeah, yeah, no problem. Got a permit and everything.”
He pats his wallet, but we both know he’s not supposed to be driving alone, without an adult supervising. He turns the ignition again and a screeching metal sound erupts in the still air.
“Just not used to these trucks,”
he grins, nervous, and releases the clutch. I grip the door handle as the truck lurches out toward the shoreline road.
The eastern entrance to the bridge is busiest in the mornings, with workers commuting west, but at this hour on a Saturday, there’s no one around. We stop every 100 feet, plastering every vertical pole we can find with our flyers, working as fast as we can. A thin fog is slowly rolling in from the mountains to the east. As we circle the inlet, I think about all the possible ways today can end.
Tal says what I say to the council members matters. Dad agrees. But what will possibly make a difference? What can even come close to what I’m feeling in my heart?
When I was little, Mom and I had this game that we made up together that we called “What if …” We’d be out walking and we’d see a rabbit or a squirrel and one of us would ask the other, “What if the squirrel could talk? What if you could touch the clouds?” We could make up what if stories from any one tiny thing we saw.
Now my head is swirling with “What ifs?”
What if nobody reads our fliers?
What if all the whales die in the inlet?
Driving the dark inlet roads with Harris, tonight’s speech on my mind, I play the “What if” game again and again.
What if things don’t work out for Mom?
What if they do and she decides not to come back?
I lean back in the dark cab of the truck and sigh. Definitely not how the game was meant to be played.
CHAPTER 23
Orca Day 26
Five-thirty in the afternoon, a horn beeps sharply outside. It’s Tal, come to pick me up for the meeting.
“You’ll do fine,” Dad says, giving me a hug. “I’ll see you there.”
When I open the door of Tal’s truck, sitting in the backseat is Grace.
“Marisa,” Tal greets me, “Grace will be joining us tonight.” He glances at us, unsure how we’ll react. “Her father’s marina got hit pretty hard. I thought this might be something you two gals could see eye to eye on.”
I climb in and nod. As we drive off, Grace and I share a secret smile.
––––
Tal needs to circle the streets around the County Annex Building three times before he can find a parking spot. With six blocks to walk, I take deep breaths of the cool night air, trying to calm down. We’re just about to enter the building when Tal stops me with a look.
“You, my dear …” he says, then glances at Grace, smiling, “and your friends … you make me very proud of young people today. You give me hope. Don’t worry, you’ll do just fine.” He turns to walk up the steps.
Now, I decide. Now is the time to ask him.
“I know about your daughter,” I call out. Tal turns and looks at me sideways.
“Yes, I know you know,” he says softly. Behind us, a car honks past.
“I wanted to ask.…” Tal waits, and I swallow. “After she left … did you ever wish you’d done anything differently? I … I’m not saying you did anything wrong, but still, there must have been something—” I stop, embarrassed.
Tal takes off his cap, scratches his head, and says one word: “Mut.”
“I … I don’t understand.…” Is he telling me I should get a dog?
“Mut,” he repeats. “It’s the German word for ‘courage.’ The thing is, Marisa … it’s very easy to blame ourselves, for all kinds of things that are out of our control.” He exhales and I know he’s trying to decide how to explain. “I’m not denying I was partly to blame. But blame only leads to anger, and anger takes an awful lot of energy. It will eat you up inside if you let it.”
He pauses and I wait for more. At my side, Grace doesn’t say a word, but I feel her arm slide around my waist.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t look up and expect to see her. Every day. And maybe I will someday. So better to forgive. Forgiveness is a choice too, Marisa. But forgiveness takes courage. Because it’s not just the person who hurt you that you’re forgiving, you also need to forgive yourself. The change needs to be inside you. And the only way that can happen is if you grow in courage. And that can take a very long time. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I nod and look down at my feet. “I think so.”
“Giving Mut his name was one more way for me to sustain my courage,” Tal tells me. “You have that courage, Marisa, I can see it in you. The courage to handle whatever happens with your mother. To handle what you’re about to do now.”
It’s strange. I thought my questions were just about me. But listening to Tal, maybe I was asking about Mom, too. Maybe she needed this time, just like Tal, to work up the courage to forgive herself.
I’m trying to make sense of it all, when Tal reaches into his pocket and holds out his hand to me. Lying there in his palm is Carol Ann’s shiny charm bracelet. The blue glass eyes of the leaping orca sparkle under the streetlights.
“Bette asked me to give it to you when the time seemed right. I’d say that would be just about now. She says you and your mother are both made of the same mettle. Mettle: courage, and strength of character,” Tal says, giving me the answer this time.
My eyes are stinging and I don’t dare look at Tal or I’m afraid I’ll burst into tears.
“Thanks,” I whisper. “You can always ask for it back.” Grace gives me a little squeeze and I slip the bracelet on my wrist.
“Now …” Tal says, giving me a smile, “show your mettle. Go get ’em!”
––––
Inside, the meeting has already started. As we hurry in, a fresh wave of anxiety rises inside me when I look around the packed room. I was expecting a small-town gathering like the ones at the Sons of Norway. This is different … bigger … way more official.
“Hey!” Grace nudges me, “the flyers worked!”
There must be hundreds of people here, with more streaming in behind us. There are no open seats anywhere. We worm our way into an open spot at the side, maneuvering as close to the front as we can. Up on the stage, the county representatives—six men and two women—are seated at two long tables facing the audience. Each has a nameplate placard and microphone in front of them. Two whiteboards stand behind the table—one lists the meeting’s agenda, the other, the order of speakers.
There it is, third from last, my name—Marisa Gage.
A woman dressed in a dull blue business suit stands speaking at the podium.
“Who’s that?” Grace whispers.
“County commissioner,” Tal answers, “one of them anyway.”
Clustered near us are news reporters and photographers. I hear the whirring click of expensive cameras.
The county commissioner continues, “You can be assured that both city and county officials are working together closely on this matter.”
“I don’t think they expected this much of a turnout,” Tal says, looking around.
“We did it!” Grace leans over and whispers.
I nod numbly, shifting my weight uneasily back and forth from one foot to the other. My mind just keeps replaying what I need to say when it’s my turn.
For close to an hour we listen, as one speaker after another drones on. One man talks about all the extra business the whale watchers are bringing to the area. A woman who lives near the ferry terminal is all worked up about the long lines of cars backed up into her neighborhood. All the while, more people stream into the room until the guards stop them at the door and those who are turned away have to spill out into the hallway.
Dad must be here somewhere but I don’t see him. I fidget with my notes. The sheet of paper is nearly in shreds. I try to concentrate on what the speakers are saying but it’s useless.
Finally, it’s time.
––––
“Our next speaker is Marisa Gage.” My name echoes out over the crowd. “Will you come forward, please?”
I feel a pat on my back from Tal as I squeeze past him. “Good luck!” Grace whispers. My legs wobble slightly as I climb the steps and walk across the stage.
I reach the podium and turn to face the crowd.
“Hello,” I speak into the microphone, “Tal Reese asked me to talk to you tonight.” My voice is carried, amplified, out over the audience, and I’m reminded again of the underwater vocalizations of the whales. “I live on a houseboat that was nearly wrecked by the fast wakes of the big vessels that have been speeding into the inlet to see the whales.”
Errrrrreeeee—
A screech of feedback erupts from the microphone, making me jump. A second later, the noise fades, and it takes something else along with it. Maybe it’s because the lights trained on the stage are so bright I can’t see anyone’s face, or maybe my adrenaline kicks in like Mr. O’Connor says it will when we give our science reports.
For whatever reason, I stare into the shadowy shape of the audience spread out before me and lose all my fear. I’m still me, standing there in front of all these people—scientists, reporters, officials, and my neighbors—but now I know exactly what I want to say. I don’t even bother looking down at the crumpled paper in my hand. All that matters now is that I tell my story. When the feedback fades, I begin.
“I was going to tell you the story of how the wakes damaged my houseboat. But I’ve changed my mind. That’s not really important.” I can feel the audience’s attention sharpen. “If that’s all we try to fix, maybe the boats will slow down, but that won’t solve the real problem, which is figuring out how to get our whales back home where they belong.”
And from that beginning, I speak with quiet confidence, telling the audience how the whales are in grave danger. I tell the story of Barnes Lake and how some of the whales there died of starvation. I explain how Muncher and some of the other young whales are beginning to show signs of malnutrition.
At some point, I realize I’m not talking to the crowd anymore. I’m telling my story of the last three weeks to someone else, someone much more important than anyone out there in the dark hall. Someone I desperately want to know what’s happening.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the bright lights, and imagine …
There! I can see her clearly now in my mind, as if she really were here. She’s sitting a few rows back, hands crossed in her lap, smiling. And she’s listening. She can hear me.
Chasing at the Surface Page 16
