I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. Mom had been listening to Dr. Shrink too much. And what was the deal with Stephanie?
Suddenly, a police car and an old white truck appeared down the beach. They got closer and closer and stopped a few yards away from Nick. Three men and a woman, all wearing bright-orange weatherproof suits, jumped out of the back of the truck and headed toward us. One of the guys looked around our age. Both cab doors slammed as a man and a woman climbed out. That man, who had a gray beard, gave a whistle as he approached Nick.
Nick moved his head slightly, then whistled faintly back.
“That’s encouraging. The animal is responsive,” said the man.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, anxious for them to know what good shape Nick was in. “He’s been breathing and whistling and moving his tail and everything. We’ve been keeping him wet, like we were told.”
“Great,” said the man. “Thanks for calling us, and thanks for doing such a good job keeping the whale wet with the towels. I’m Dr. Eric Leland from the Marine Mammal Stranding Network.” He held out his hand, and Mom and Stephanie and I all shook it. Then he introduced the others who were there. “Most of us are marine mammal researchers, and we volunteer for the network. And this is Dr. Bob Cohn, our veterinarian.” He pointed to a stocky guy with a beard and mustache, who nodded and said, “Hi.”
Dr. Leland turned to his colleagues. “Looks like a short-finned pilot, a year or two old. The whale is breathing, making echolocations, and moving his flukes. But the animal is in poor body condition. It looks emaciated.”
“This is the second time Nick’s stranded himself,” I said. “We already pushed him back in the water once today.”
“Really?” Dr. Leland said, giving me a closer look.
“Yes,” said Mom. “It was about a quarter of a mile that way down the beach. My daughter and some surfers were able to push it back out to sea. Why would it strand itself a second time?”
“We don’t know for sure,” Dr. Leland said. “We do know that animals sometimes strand themselves when they are sick or injured.”
“He has a nick on his top fin,” I said. “That’s why I named him Nick.”
“When we study wildlife, we don’t normally give animals names,” said Dr. Leland. “Anyway, that’s an old injury to the dorsal fin. It has nothing to do with what’s happening today. It could mean this guy survived a shark attack or something.”
“Really?” I said. Surviving a shark attack! Imagine!
Dr. Leland shrugged. “Maybe.” The group gathered around the whale’s head, discussing the breathing sounds and the whistling. A cold afternoon wind picked up, and a cloud moved in front of the sun.
“It’s going to be dark in a couple of hours,” Dr. Leland told the others.
“Let’s go ahead and get some blood,” said Dr. Cohn. He went to the truck and came back with a syringe, and some test tubes. He and one of the volunteers went to Nick’s tail. He felt around on the tail fin until he found a spot that satisfied him, then he inserted the needle. Soon dark blood snaked up the plastic tubing, and Dr. Cohn began filling the test tubes with it.
The boy our age came and stood beside us. He was thin, with pale, freckled skin, expressive greenish eyes, and red hair.
“Why do they take blood?” I asked him.
“They’ll use that iSTAT machine to analyze it.” The boy pointed to a machine that Dr. Cohn was holding. It looked like a large white television remote with a small screen at the top and a panel of buttons down below. “They’ll be able to tell the condition of the whale, like if it’s sick. I’m Jeremy, by the way. I’m a volunteer.”
“Hey. I’m Diana.” Then, I asked, “How long will that take?”
“Just a coupla minutes,” said Jeremy. “It’ll show if there are really bad health problems.”
My heart leaped to my throat. “What do you mean, ‘really bad health problems’? You guys are going to save Nick, aren’t you?”
“Sure, if we can,” Jeremy said. “It’s just that usually whales don’t beach themselves unless there’s something really wrong.” He and the others headed back toward the truck, where they unloaded a large blue stretcher and brought it over beside Nick. All working together, the group rolled Nick to the right and slid the stretcher underneath him. Then they walked to the other side, rolled Nick to the left, and pulled the stretcher the rest of the way under so that he was completely restrained on the stretcher. He blew out breath and flicked his tail weakly.
I got as close as I could to Nick’s head. I watched his big, sad eye. Some grains of sand were stuck on his eye, and I reached over to brush them away.
“Diana, come wait over here with me,” Mom said.
“But he has sand in his eye!” I said. “I want to get it out!”
I took a few reluctant steps away from Nick. “Do you need me to pour more water on him?” I asked Dr. Leland.
“Sure, but just stay near the head. Don’t get too close to the flukes,” Dr. Leland said. “You never know what can happen with those.”
I grabbed the bucket and raced down toward the water. The tide had gone out, and it was a long walk. Just seeing all these people surrounding Nick was upsetting me. I had a terrible feeling.
While I was getting the water, I looked out to sea, again searching for a group of fins, weaving back and forth out in the water. Was Nick’s family out there waiting for him? My heart started to beat faster, and I raced back with the bucket of water. Nick was suspended on the stretcher, his fins wrapped close to his body. The stranding crew stood watching Nick now, their arms crossed over their chests, talking in low voices. His blowhole opened, and he blew a rapid breath, and then gave a thin bird-like call.
I darted forward and gently poured a stream of water over Nick’s head, then sat down near Jeremy, watching Nick’s eye.
Meanwhile, Dr. Cohn was looking at the screen of the iSTAT machine. Dr. Leland joined him, looking over his shoulder.
“There are electrolyte changes and indications of shock,” Dr. Cohn said. “This animal is in acidosis. It’s also dehydrated.”
Why weren’t they in more of a hurry to get Nick back in the water? I couldn’t understand what was going on. Were they planning to send Nick to a rehabilitation facility? Some of the nature shows I’d seen had dolphins that had been saved and sent to places like that.
Just then, Mom came up and knelt beside me. “Diana, Stephanie and I are going to go back to the apartment. We need to be home in time for hospital visiting hours.”
“No, I can’t leave! I have to stay here!” I turned away from Mom and again looked into Nick’s watery eye.
“Is it all right if she stays?” Mom asked Dr. Leland.
“It’s fine,” he said.
Mom squeezed my shoulder and looked at her watch. “All right. You need to head home in about thirty more minutes. You can find your way back?”
I nodded, and a minute or so later I heard the golf cart drive away.
Dr. Leland came and sat beside me by Nick’s head with a clipboard. Every time Nick took a breath, he’d check the second hand on his watch and make a note. “Shallow breathing,” he said to Dr. Cohn.
“Why aren’t you putting Nick back into the water?” I asked.
“Several reasons,” Dr. Leland said. “First of all, this is a short-finned pilot whale. This species lives fifty miles offshore. Also, they’re a social species, they live in matriarchal groups. Just pushing a pilot whale back into the water here isn’t going to do it any good. Here it would be out of its habitat, away from its pod.”
“So it can’t live away from its family?”
“No, not alone like this,” Dr. Leland said. “We’ve also gotten a lot of signs that this animal isn’t in good condition. It’s emaciated; it’s not very active. And look, we’re able to touch and stroke it. Any time you can touch a wild animal, something is terribly wrong.”
My heart squeezed. I blinked.
Nick took another breath, and Dr.
Leland looked at his watch and made another notation.
“Its breaths are shallow. Not deep the way we’d like it. Every minute that goes by, the whale’s systems are breaking down.”
I could hardly talk. I felt rising panic. “But what can we do? We have to do something! We have to save him!”
“Sometimes you can’t save them,” Dr. Leland said, looking at me kindly. “We’ll stay here with it. We’ll try and keep the scene very quiet and stress free for it. You’re welcome to stay here with us.”
Nick took another breath, Dr. Leland checked his watch and made a note. I realized it had been awhile since Nick had moved his tail. I looked at his wrinkled eye again.
He blinked slowly. Dr. Leland sighed. A lump formed in my throat.
“Why don’t you name animals?” I asked him, starting to understand.
“Because we want to try to remain objective,” he said, clearing his throat. “Wild animals aren’t pets. We can’t protect animals from what happens in the wild. We don’t want to interfere. We just want to respect and learn about them.”
“But I’m not sorry I pushed him back in the water today. I thought I was doing the right thing,” I whispered.
“Pushing him back in the water was like someone coming to an emergency room and the doctors sending them away, saying, ‘Heal thyself.’ But it’s okay. You didn’t know. If we’d been here, we would have told you not to do it,” Dr. Leland said.
Nick drew a shallow breath. He gave a faint cry that made my throat ache. His tail twitched. Dr. Leland made a note of it.
Members of the stranding crew sat quietly around Nick now. No one was talking. Jeremy, sitting next to me, ran his hand down Nick’s side gently.
The pounding of the surf behind me was harsh and endless, unstopping, and the wind buffeted my ears. Tears swelled in my eyes, streamed down my cheeks.
Nick drew one last breath.
A white bird flew over us.
And Nick stopped moving.
12
STEPHANIE
When Lynn and I got back to Grammy’s apartment, Jelly came bounding on his fat, little legs to the door, barking, but then, when he saw it was us, he moped back to Grammy’s room. Then he crawled under Grammy’s bed.
“Just look at that poor dog,” Lynn said.
Daddy sat at the kitchen counter, on the computer, catching up with work and listening to Jackson Browne on his iPod. As we were taking off our coats and gloves, Jackson sang about being out walking and not doing much talking these days.
For some reason, those words made me think about how Daddy must feel with his mother sick. Lynn went and wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss on the forehead. He looked up. “Well?” he said. “Where’s Diana? She knows we need to go to the hospital later.”
“I give you a kiss, and that’s all you have to say?” said Lynn.
Daddy had been more impatient with all of us, especially Diana, since Grammy had gotten sick. But I was more impatient with her too.
“We still have plenty of time before visiting hours start,” Lynn said. “Diana was captivated by the situation with the whale, and I thought it was all right to let her stay.”
“I wish you had made her come back,” Daddy said. “I don’t want her holding us up.”
“Norm, I’ll make sure she doesn’t,” Lynn said shortly, and then headed into the kitchen. Dishes clattered as she began to unload the dishwasher.
Daddy got up from the computer and started helping her, putting away the silverware. “We need to remember Grammy is the reason we’re here.”
“I do! But we can’t spend every minute at the hospital. They have visiting hours for a reason.”
“My family never paid attention to visiting hours,” Daddy said, shutting the silverware drawer. “We go there and we stay.”
“It’s families like yours that drive the medical staff nuts.” Lynn slammed a cabinet door. “Your mother will get worn out with us sitting there 24/7.”
“How do you know how my mother feels?”
My heart started pounding. Was a fight starting? Daddy and Lynn didn’t usually fight the way Daddy and Mama had. Memories of Daddy and Mama fighting started racing through my head. Blocking out the rise of their voices, I went back to my bedroom, shut the door, and found my sketchpad. I tried to work on my drawing of the conch shell arrangement. The light had changed since this morning, and the shadow beside the shells had grown and deepened. My mind kept jumping to different memories, and I couldn’t concentrate.
It had been sad and scary out there watching the crew with the whale. I didn’t know why they hadn’t tried to push the whale back into the water. The longer I’d stayed, the harder it was to listen to the whale’s breathing as it got shallower and shallower. I was glad we’d left. But why had the whale stranded itself? I still didn’t understand.
I checked my phone. Colleen had texted to tell me that Andy (“Panda Eyes”) had texted her. When I read that, in the middle of all that was happening with my family, I felt like texting back, “Who cares?” But I didn’t. I knew she was excited, so I texted back, “Great!” And Noah had texted me again. He had started telling me that he understood about having a sick grandparent and about what happened when he’d gone to Richmond for his grandfather’s heart bypass surgery. He said his whole family had slept in the waiting room, because his grandfather wasn’t allowed to have visitors the first day.
Daddy and Lynn’s voices had stopped. Light was starting to fade now. I hoped Diana got back soon.
Lynn had actually just put on her coat to go look for Diana when she walked in the door. The minute I saw Diana’s face I knew.
“Did it …?”
She sat down on the couch and began to bawl. Big, heaving, heartbreaking sobs. I couldn’t help it. I started to cry too.
“I’m sorry, Diana.” Lynn went over and rubbed her shaking shoulders. Her coat was halfway wet again and her jeans were covered with wet sand.
“Sometimes those things just happen, sweetie,” Lynn said. “Nature can be harsh.”
“Jeremy said we helped him have a good death,” Diana cried. “They’re going to examine the body to see if they can find out what was wrong. Dr. Leland said I can call tomorrow to find out.”
Diana curled in her mother’s arms, crying. I wiped tears from my own cheeks. I thought about the meaning of those words, “a good death.” I didn’t know what that meant.
On the way over to the hospital, we were quiet. A pall hung over us. When we got into Grammy’s room and gathered around her bed, she immediately asked what was wrong.
“You girls look like you’ve been crying,” she said. I thought she was sitting up a little straighter and had a bit more color in her face. We told her what had happened to the whale.
“I kept wondering why they didn’t put Nick back in the water,” Diana said.
“I’m so sorry that happened,” Grammy said. “We really become so attached to animals, don’t we? I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to Jelly. I just wish I could see him,” she said. “I worry about him. He’s used to being with me.”
“He’s doing fine, Mom,” Daddy assured her.
“He doesn’t like me,” Diana told Grammy. “I’ve never had a dog not like me. It hurts my feelings. I know you said for me to take care of him, but I can’t, because he won’t have anything to do with me.”
“Isn’t that the funniest thing?” Grammy said. “I would have never guessed that.”
“I’m taking care of him for you, Angela,” Lynn said. “We took him out on the beach today. But he does miss you. Every time someone comes to the door, Jelly runs to greet them, thinking it’s you. Then he’s so disappointed that it’s not.”
“I talk to him all the time,” said Grammy. She pulled the covers up around her tighter. “He’s a good listener.”
An attendant passed in the hallway, pushing a cart stacked with trays of food. The smell of turkey and yeast rolls floated into the room.
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“I wish I could have something to eat,” said Grammy.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait on that,” Daddy said. “It shouldn’t be too much longer.”
Dr. Claiborne stopped in. She looked at Grammy’s chart, then looked at Grammy and smiled. “Good news!” she said. “The pancreatitis is clearing up.”
“Yay!” Lynn and Daddy said.
I felt relief wash over me like a shower of warm water. “So Grammy is going to be okay?” I blurted out.
Dr. Claiborne grinned. “You’ve been pretty anxious, haven’t you? Well, we’re encouraged by your grandmother’s progress.” She turned toward Grammy. “What I’d like to do is schedule you for gallbladder surgery three days from now.”
“Three days?”
“While the pancreas is quiet, yes. To get it over with. We have a window of opportunity we should take advantage of.”
“What does the surgery involve?” Daddy asked.
Dr. Claiborne described the way the surgeon would make three small incisions in Grammy’s abdomen and insert a surgical device that would extract the gallbladder.
“The surgeon will come by tomorrow morning to talk with you about it.”
Lynn patted Grammy’s arm. “I had a patient who had that done just a few weeks ago. She went home from the hospital the next day,” she assured Grammy.
Before we left, I gave Grammy a big hug. Her arms, wrapped around me, felt light but substantial. I skipped across the room and did a twirl on the way out the door.
Everything was going to be okay!
While we were in the elevator I suddenly remembered my prayer, asking God please not to let Grammy die. Now she was better. Had God answered my prayer? Goosebumps prickled the back of my neck. Maybe God had. I felt a lightness, like warm sun shining on my face, and a sense of peace traveled through my whole body.
“How about we go out to eat?” Daddy said as we climbed into the car. “To celebrate Grammy’s progress.”
“Yay!” I said.
“Great idea,” said Lynn.
Diana didn’t say anything.
We went to one of Grammy’s favorite fish restaurants in Morehead City, a place Daddy and I almost always went when we were here with Grammy, but Diana and Lynn hadn’t ever been to.
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