What the Waves Know

by Tamara Valentine

  I would be starting school after the Christmas holiday with real teachers and real kids, including Lindsey and Carly. It was hard to guess how things might have changed between us, but every time I saw Lindsey around town, I was reminded of Mary’s sad eyes staring down at me in the church back in Tuckertown. How nobody should have her mother yanked from her world midstream. How we all fall differently when the world drops out from under us. Anger is a silence all its own, and I knew a thing or two about that.

  October 26 was cold; cold enough to cover the wheat tips with frost, making them look like tiny paintbrushes dipped in glitter. I pulled my sweatshirt tight and headed down the narrow path toward the ridge. I’d been spending a lot of time there catching up with my dad, and every once in a while I caught Riley there visiting his grandmother. I had pretty much gotten my father up to speed with my life—my first period, Remy and how good she was for my mom. I’d even confessed to smoking every now and then. Now we mostly sat listening to the gulls together in silence.

  And since Riley had stopped diving over the edge when he saw me, sometimes we just sat together saying nothing. Sometimes I just sat and pretended not to notice him watching me. But today it wasn’t Riley I was searching for; there was something else I had to do. The bulge in my pocket was forcing a chilly dent into my thigh.

  It was the day of the Great Feast, so I knew every single person on Tillings would be going into the village. But I knew where to find Yemaya, knew she would want what I had more than any old fish bones. I stood there for a long time watching the break wall crush waves into a thousand pearls. It’s funny how one thing can smash into another until it becomes something else altogether. Secrets are dark scary rooms, but sometimes that is just the type of place a person needs to hide.

  And here is a truth: letting those secrets go can be scary, too. But, I knew that was what she was waiting for.

  Some things just make sense, and that it was Remy who first interrupted my silence is one of them.

  “You’re not planning on jumping, are you? Because I have had about all the losses I am willing to tolerate from this damn ridge.”

  “Not today.” I laughed.

  “That’s good. Then I guess I’ll join you. My feet are swollen up into watermelons. Would you believe I’m wearing Mr. O’Malley’s slippers?” She sat down next to me and stuck her feet into the air over the ledge. “All that running back and forth from the ferry to the hospital. Thank God that old goat’s coming home today.”

  “He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”

  “Just as long as he doesn’t ask me one time more for that hell pipe of his, giving me no option but to strangle him right there in his hospital bed. I have already told that man that I will not face the world as the only person with two parents fool enough to die hovering over salt licks. If he intends to die, he will not do so giving the deer of Tillings high blood pressure.” Remy shook her head, letting her eyes drift for a moment to another place and time.

  “Mr. O’Malley had a heart attack after my mother passed away, too. His doctor has been telling him to quit smoking ever since, but he won’t. First damn time I ever knew a doctor to be right.”

  “I’m sorry about Mrs. O’Malley. Maybe—”

  “Good Lord, child! Why don’t you just jump off this cliff and save the world from yourself? Maybe if the fool of a man I’d married had not pushed me into a wall one night, Mr. O’Malley wouldn’t have felt the need to come break his nose and move me home the night my mother died. Maybe a million things would have been different. But if you hadn’t come back here, Mr. O’Malley would have died. And that’s a fact.”

  I was still thinking about that when Grandma Jo came trundling down the path holding out a big white ball with great pride. My mother was behind her, looking tortured.

  “Look! Look what I found! Puffballs, a whole bunch of them, enough for all of us.” The three of us stared at the mushroom in her hand curling up our noses.

  “Nonsense! They’re delectable; just wait until you taste them with tofu and soy sauce. The first time I had puffballs I was—” She was brought up short by the sound of an engine purring up Knockberry Lane.

  We all watched in silence as Riley and his father helped Mr. O’Malley out of the patrol car. There was a short bout of bickering that we could not hear before they walked him out to where we stood beside the ridge.

  “What in blazes do you think you’re doing?” Remy’s eyes flashed at her brother, who shrugged helplessly, then at her father. “You can turn yourself right back around and get those tired lungs into bed just like the doctor ordered.”

  “Hush now.” Mr. O’Malley swatted a hand softly at his daughter, then laid it on my back. “I’ve got a thank-you that needs saying.” Riley’s dad nodded over Mr. O’Malley’s shoulder. Riley stood still as the break wall, but his emerald eyes had settled on me. I gave Mr. O’Malley a kiss on the cheek, then stepped back to stand beside Riley.

  “There, it’s been said. Now get your old bones straight into bed. I set up the spare so I can stay with you for a few days,” Remy snapped.

  “That’s not what the doctor said,” Mr. O’Malley corrected. “He said no stress, and right now you’re stressing me.” Remy hit Mr. O’Malley with the sleeve of her shirt. “Anyway, I brought a batch of maple leaves for your mum—all marbled up with orange and red just the way she likes ’em. I got them from the sugar maple beside the hospital—you know, sort of an ‘I’m sorry’ for making her wait for me again.”

  “Mom does not want you to die. You go rest; I’ll throw them down for you.” Remy reached for the leaves, but Mr. O’Malley pulled them away.

  “Just like you used to do at Christmas? Putting your name on other people’s gifts! Get your own darn leaves; these are from me to your mother.”

  “Fine. I’ll walk with you, then.” Remy seemed to have cooled down a notch and took Mr. O’Malley’s arm.

  “You want to come?” He looked at my mother and held out a leaf for her to take.

  “Thank you, Tom.” Her eyes were watery as she took hold of his other arm and they made their way to Witch’s Peak.

  “How come she gets a leaf?” Remy grumbled.

  “Because she’s nice to me.” He tightened his grip on his daughter.

  “Well, there you go.” Riley chuckled. “Five crazy people standing on a cliff throwing dead leaves down to dead people. And all to apologize for not dying.”

  I laughed aloud and when I looked up, he was staring right at me with something deep and unspoken in his eyes.

  “I guess that makes you the only smart lunatic in the family,” I said. “I thought you were in a million pieces down there after you climbed down the edge.”

  “I don’t know why you’d care about a thing like that,” he said lightly.

  “Well, I wouldn’t, except who would boss me around on the ferry?” I teased.

  “Remy.” We laughed in unison.

  “You ought to do that more often.” He pushed the hair from my face and let his fingers brush down my cheek.

  “What, wear my hair behind my ear?”

  “Laugh.” His eyes softened.

  “Hey, are you guys coming?” Remy called from the ledge. Riley laid his hand on the small of my back and led me to where they were standing. It occurred to me that sometimes families are created by death just as surely as they are by birth, and I knew that was just what had happened with us.

  One by one, we turned our eyes to the waves below, crashing over a beach the hue of chestnut skins, the color of slivered ships and wrecked lives. It was an eighty-foot drop down a sheer face of granite. I remembered the day my father had watched the gull diving and climbing off the cliffs of Anawan. Someday I’m going to fly like that. This ridge had ripped each of us apart and then put us back together. I remembered, too, what Grandma Jo used to say: Izabella Rae, every great story begins in its weakest form and builds upward from there. It was a story we did not choose, but we were all a part of it.

&nb
sp; In the end, that’s all any of us are—just a great caboodle of stories. They start when you’re born and tell the world you were here when you’re gone. And those stories are the realest thing about any of us, the stiff ribs of the life we have lived. They were all a part of mine: Remy, Riley, Grandma Jo, my mother, Mr. O’Malley, Telly, Lindsey and Carly, Mr. Herman, Libby, the salmon, the seagulls—even Mrs. O’Malley, whom I’d never met.

  The gentle shush, shush of waves below filled the air, and the smell of sea salt wrapped around all of us, holding us together somehow. Here is a final truth: in the end, we are left standing not with those we choose but those we need in our lives. It was October 26, the Great Feast in honor of Yemaya, and I remembered exactly what Chief Tankin had said about this day: She will gather her children back together beside the sea.

  Mr. O’Malley mouthed something I couldn’t make out and tossed his fistful of leaves into the waves below, watching them churn in the froth.

  “Do you want one?” My mother held a leaf out in my direction.

  “No, thanks,” I said, shaking my head. “I brought something else.”

  She looked at me with an air of curiosity but didn’t ask what it was. When she turned to toss her leaves to the waves, I wriggled the small velvet satchel from my pocket, slipping the stone my father had given me that day at Potter’s Creek free. Tucking it tightly in my palm the way my father had taught me to pitch a baseball, I walked out onto the overhang and threw it into the wind, watching it turn over and over, tumbling toward the sea. I let it fly with so much force that I could not even hear myself saying, “I’m sorry I told you to go. I never meant it, not for one second.” But, I’m pretty sure he heard me.

  For the first time in my life, I was standing on the edge of a cliff, standing on the edge of my life, completely unafraid of the fall. The stone disappeared with a soft plop into the water, sending up little frothy fingers to catch it, splashing a dozen creamy pearls skipping into the air, and I imagined Yemaya’s hand reaching up to snatch it before diving into the depths of the sea and washing all the hurt clean, restoring it into a tiny pearl of luck in that way mothers do.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are no adequate words to express thanks for those who helped encourage, shape, and refine this work. My deepest gratitude goes out to my family for their consistent support, love, and patience as I drifted in and out of long periods of writing and revising that stole me away from kicking soccer balls and play dates. I’d like to thank my children, Alexandra, Dante, and Kian, who inspire me every second of every day and remind me that a lifetime is that block of hours built for catching dreams by the tail and bringing them home to live. My undying gratitude goes out to my amazing husband, Jorge, who is the embodiment of patience, love, and persistence and has spent many days running interference to carve out space for me to work. Stories always crackle to life long before they take proper shape, and I want to thank my parents, Ron and Heather, for giving me the opportunity and courage to tell my own and for surrounding me with magic and stories my entire life. Finally, thanks to my closest confidant and partner in crime through the years, my sister, Laurie Van Hout whose sense of adventure and zest always result in mischief, memories, and material.

  I have been blessed and humbled to have worked with a team of brilliance throughout this process, without whom this work would have disappeared into a dusty cabinet. Immeasurable thanks to my amazing agent, Jill Marsal, who has believed in my writing for nearly a decade and, as fate would have it, reentered my world years later to take charge of it with enormous tenacity and intelligence. Behind every strong book is the sharp savvy skill of an awesome editor with the inspiring ability to step inside the brain of an author and clearly see her vision. My endless appreciation goes out to the wonderful Chelsey Emmelhainz for her faith and steely determination to fully actualize the vision of this work and Karen Richardson for her razor sharp focus and attention to detail. I also want to thank Kristine Serio for her sharp eye and early enthusiasm for this story.

  While there is neither enough space nor ink to list everyone in my life who has inspired, supported, or otherwise influenced my work, I am both thankful and privileged to be surrounded by amazing friends and storytellers from whom I learn something new every day.

  P.S.Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the author

  * * *

  Meet Tamara Valentine

  About the Book

  * * *

  Questions for Discussion

  The Story Behind the Story

  A Conversation with Tamara Valentine

  About the author

  Meet Tamara Valentine

  TAMARA VALENTINE obtained an MA with distinction from Middlebury College’s esteemed Bread Loaf School of English in 2000 and has spent the past fourteen years as a professor in the English Department at Johnson & Wales University. Presently, she lives in Kingston, Rhode Island, with her husband and three children.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  About the book

  Questions for Discussion

  1. What the Waves Know is told from the first-person point of view of Izabella, who hasn’t spoken in eight years. The concept of stories and secrets rests at the heart of this piece. How does Izabella become the keeper of both through her silence?

  2. How does the title What the Waves Know represent these elements of the work?

  3. In what ways do religion and mythology make sense of the world for Izabella? What myths, specifically, does she embrace? Are there similarities between them even though they are drawn from different cultures?

  4. Do you think it is true that Izabella cannot speak initially, or is she choosing her own silence?

  5. Izabella not only accompanies her father on his adventures, she follows him into the stories that slowly take over reality for him. Is there a point when she makes a conscious decision to stop? If so, when?

  6. The characters all represent different interpretations of what defines mental illness, as well as dramatically different responses to trauma and loss. How do they each reframe their lives in the face of devastation? How does each hold on to the past and let go of it?

  7. The title plays not only on the theme of mental illness, but a person’s culpability, or lack of it, in the face of mental illness. In what passages do we see this?

  8. Throughout the story, Izabella both wants to hear the Nikommo and is afraid of them. Why? How do they speak to the issues with her father? Why might it be important that they are tied to her father’s heredity? Is this potentially defining to Izabella?

  9. Izabella is afraid that she is insane. Why? What does this reveal about her actual breadth of understanding about what happened with her father?

  10. One of the elements of the story is that the past and present continuously weave and bob around one another. Why has the author created a storyline in which you are constantly being pulled from one point in time to another?

  11. Not only is the reader being torn between the past and present, she is also being thrust in and out of stories and mythologies. Why? Is there a clear truth behind the fiction?

  12. While in many ways Zorrie’s character is struggling to get Izabella to fall into societal norms, Remy’s character is intent on ignoring societal rules and norms. How are the two characters different? What role does Remy play in healing both Izabella and Zorrie?

  13. Why does Remy become so entwined in Zorrie and Izabella’s life? How do the different members of the O’Malley family respond to Zorrie and Izabella returning to Tillings Island? How do the vastly different reactions represent the human experience of loss and grief?

  14. Both of Izabella’s parents impart aspects of their philosophies about life to her, and both visions of the world become equally important in her recovery. What does each parent give Izabella and how does it become integral to her survival?

  15. Competing images of light and darkness are used symbolically throughout t
he story. What do they represent in the struggle for Izabella to reclaim and make sense of what has happened? One of the issues central to her struggle is weighing what is real against what is fiction, from religion to perception. How does she resolve this?

  16. Izabella says she first came to know what it meant to be God standing in the waters of Potter’s Creek. What do you think she means by this and how does it become a critical framework for the story?

  17. Although the impetus of the story revolves around Ansel Haywood’s disappearance, the author has included repeating images and references to the Divine Feminine in Yemaya, the moon, the Virgin Mary, and Venus. Why does this become inherently important to the story?

  18. In ancient times, the moon was the sign of the “Triple Goddess,” representing maiden, mother, and crone. How is this interpretation realized in the text?

  19. The salmon in Potter’s Creek becomes an important symbol for Izabella’s story. How does it foreshadow what is to come in the story?

  20. In many ways, each of the characters has a separate understanding and interpretation of the past. How does this speak to the idea of stories defining our realities?

  21. Does Izabella become the healed or the healer in the story?

  22. Why might the author have chosen a stone to represent the process of carrying secrets? How does this come to represent both the interconnectivity and independence of our own existence and reality?

  The Story Behind the Story

  WITHOUT A DOUBT the most common question I am asked when I write anything is, “What is the story about?” It seems like a simple question, but it is not. How do you compress a group of complex characters and situations down to a four- or five-sentence answer? What the Waves Know is a story about voice, and silence. Memory, and the lack of it. Destruction, and creation. Mistakes, and redemption. It is all of those things, but the soul of the story is about stories themselves, those that are real and the ones we tell ourselves—both individually and collectively.