Whale Song: A Novel

by Cheryl Kaye Tardif

  “We’re only prolonging the inevitable,” my mother said with a sob. “I can’t bear for you or Sarah to see me lying there―like a vegetable. If the doctors won’t take me off life support, then you have to. Promise me…”

  I crept up the last two steps and ran back to my room, the glass of milk and my nightmare forgotten. As I drifted into a troubled sleep, I had one last thought.

  I hadn’t heard my father’s answer.

  The next morning, I hurried off to school, carrying the Romeo and Juliet poster I had designed for Mrs. Makowski. When I gave it to her, she praised me for my effort. Years later, I thought of that poster and how ironic it was that our school had chosen a play about tragic love, betrayal, suicide and death.

  “I really like your poster,” Adam told me at lunch.

  My fourteenth birthday was half a year away and my hormones raced every time I saw him. In the two and a half years since I first met him, we had become good friends. I still had a massive crush on him, but we never crossed the boundaries of our friendship. I’ll admit I was a bit disappointed.

  “Mrs. Makowski is making copies to put up all over town,” he added. “Me and Bobbie are delivering them after school.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said.

  Annie and Goldie joined us and we shared our lunches while I told them about my mother. No one knew what to say to me, but that was okay. I had my friends. The Three Warriors…and Adam.

  After school, he called me away from the bus stop and motioned me to follow him behind a spruce tree.

  “I, uh…have something for you,” he stammered as he stared at the light covering of snow on the ground. “Call it an early Christmas present.” He awkwardly pushed a box into my hands.

  It was wrapped with birthday paper and I let out a giggle.

  His face went red. “Sorry about the wrapping. It’s all my mom had.”

  I opened the box, self-conscious and excited. Inside was a beautiful crystal sculpture of a mother whale and her baby riding the crest of a wave.

  I was speechless.

  “I thought it would help you remember your mom,” he said.

  My eyes watered. I stared at him, not knowing what to say.

  He looked over his shoulder, then leaned forward. Before I could utter a word, his lips grazed mine in a sweet first kiss. I closed my eyes―savoring the moment―and when I opened them again…he was gone. I stood there, dazed and confused, my fingertips pressed lightly to my mouth.

  A million thoughts assaulted me all at once.

  Adam kissed me―my first kiss. Should I feel outraged or happy? I’m not even fourteen yet. My father will kill him.

  I heard the urgent blast of a horn and picked up my backpack, placing Adam’s gift carefully inside. Then I ran to the bus stop.

  “What took you so long?” Goldie demanded.

  “Forgot something,” I lied.

  She pushed me up the stairs ahead of her and we huddled in our usual seats.

  “What’s that?” she asked, eyeing my backpack.

  I looked down.

  A piece of wrapping paper was stuck in the zipper.

  “Just some paper.”

  I felt guilty that I had lied to my best friend. Twice. But I wasn’t ready to tell her about Adam’s gift. It belonged only to me―like his kiss―and I wanted to keep it that way. For a while anyway.

  I peeked at Adam. He was talking to Bobbie at the back of the bus. He must have felt eyes on him because his head jerked up and he stared at me. Then he grinned at me and resumed his conversation with Bobbie.

  Flushed, I slunk low in my seat and faced the window, my fingers pressed to my lips, remembering his kiss. Then I smiled and let out a long dreamy sigh.

  Luckily, Goldie wasn’t in the mood to talk.

  The bus rumbled down the road and lurched to a stop in the slushy snow in front of my driveway. With a quick wave to everyone, I jumped off and ran to my house.

  My mother was curled up on the couch, fast asleep.

  I tiptoed past her and crept upstairs to my room. After I shut my door, I carefully removed the sculpture from my backpack and placed it on the bedside table. Then I scrambled onto the window seat and stared at the whales for a long time.

  I thought about Adam. I thought about his kiss. My kiss. I turned my head, pursed my lips and pressed them against the icy window. Adam…

  “Sarah, what on earth are you doing?”

  Guiltily, I jerked myself away from the glass and whirled around to face my mother. She was leaning against the frame of my door, a look of amusement on her face. Her gaze rested on the ornament. “What’s that?”

  “Uh…a friend gave it to me. For Christmas.”

  Her eyes found mine and she smiled knowingly. “But Christmas is over a month away.”

  I wanted to tell her about Adam and about the kiss, but I was confused and unsure. I thought she’d be angry with me. Or maybe ashamed. So I decided to tell her later―when the time was right.

  I shouldn’t have waited.

  Two weeks later, my mother was rushed to the hospital after collapsing on our driveway. An ambulance carried her away to Bamfield General where she was immediately transported by helicopter to the Royal Jubilee in Victoria. She had suffered right ventricular failure and both of her lungs had partially collapsed. By the time my father, grandparents and I reached Victoria, she was fading in and out of consciousness.

  Dr. Michaels warned us that my mother was stabilized but in critical condition. She took my father aside and whispered something to him. Whatever she said, I knew it wasn’t good.

  We were allowed to visit my mother, but all I saw were massive machines and endless wires hooked up to every part of her body. An oxygen mask covered her mouth. Her eyes were closed and we heard the soft puffing of the respirator and the unsteady beating of her heart on the monitor.

  Puff…puff…

  My father stepped toward the bed. He lifted one of my mother’s hands and rubbed his thumb along the side of her wrist, barely grazing the intravenous tube that was injected under her skin.

  “What did Dr. Michaels say?” I asked fearfully.

  “She’s worried Mom may become…comatose.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A coma is like…a very deep sleep.”

  I nodded robotically, my emotions shifting into neutral. This had to be a dream. None of this was real. It couldn’t be. Maybe if I pinched myself hard enough I’d wake up.

  I pinched my arm. Hard. It stung and I stared at the red mark left behind, realizing that I was trapped in my own deep sleep, in a horrific nightmare from which I’d never wake up.

  We remained at my mother’s bedside for hours, waiting for her to open her eyes. Dr. Michaels and a handful of nurses checked on her constantly, but we barely noticed them.

  Nothing existed―except my mother.

  We stayed at a motel, leaving early each morning and returning late every night. Dr. Michaels encouraged us to talk to my mother every time we visited, regardless if she was awake or not. I often saw Nonna Sofia hovering over her and whispering in her ear.

  On the fourth afternoon, I sat on the other bed and stared out the window, lost in my own little world, while my father and grandparents reminisced about my mother. When I overheard some of their comments, I silently fumed. They were acting as if she were already dead and buried.

  “I’m going to grab a coffee and talk to the doctor,” my father said, stretching his long, cramped legs. “Do you want anything, Sarah?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “We’ll go with you,” Nonno Rocco said, motioning Nonna Sofia to follow him.

  The second they left, I opened my backpack and took out the package Goldie had mailed me. Adam’s gift. Scooting off the bed, I placed it on the table by the window. Sunlight reflected off the sculpture’s crystal surface and in the dazzling light, the mother whale glowed as her baby cuddled close to her side.

  Suddenly, I sensed a shift of energy in the air―a movemen
t.

  Something.

  I turned.

  My mother’s eyes were open. She stared at the sculpture, then her gaze drifted toward me, her lashes fluttering helplessly.

  “Mom?” My voice sounded like it was a million miles away.

  I moved to her side and saw her hand twitch.

  She pointed to the ornament.

  I leaned down, inches from her face. “Adam gave it to me.”

  I’m positive she smiled and a hesitant smile lit my own face.

  “When he gave it to me,” I whispered. “He…kissed me.”

  I studied her carefully, memorizing every line and angle of her beautiful face. Her brown eyes drifted shut and her mouth moved. Leaning over her, I thought I heard her say something. I hugged her fiercely, rested my head on her chest and listened to the faint beating of her heart. Puh-pum, puh-pum…

  I dozed.

  Puh-pum…puh…

  Pummmm―

  I was woken abruptly by an alarm shrieking in my head. A flurry of activity surrounded me as the doctor and two nurses flew into the room.

  “Take Sarah outside,” Dr. Michaels ordered. “Now.”

  A large-framed nurse peeled me away from my mother and I was escorted to the hallway. I stood outside the door and waited alone, trembling with apprehension. When I heard something crash to the floor, I jumped.

  “Sarah!”

  My father ran down the hall toward me, my grandparents not far behind. An attendant blocked the doorway to my mother’s room. She told my father that he couldn’t go inside. I saw the torment and terror in his eyes. Then he crumpled into a chair, helpless and afraid.

  “Mom woke up,” I said woodenly.

  He didn’t answer.

  Frantic with fear, I strained to hear what was going on inside the room. The alarm had stopped screaming and I heard Dr. Michaels issuing abrupt commands. Twenty minutes later, she walked out of the room. Her expression was bleak.

  “Daniella is in a coma.”

  My grandparents sat stone still. My father too.

  The door to my mother’s room opened. I saw a nurse leaning down to pick something up off the floor. The woman glanced at me, a sad look on her face. Then she frowned at the floor and my eyes followed.

  I sucked in a breath and jumped to my feet. “No…”

  My beautiful crystal ornament was in pieces―destroyed.

  Dr. Michaels touched my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Sarah. We accidentally knocked it off the table in all the confusion.”

  I rushed toward the door, but my father grabbed me.

  “It’s broken,” I wailed. “You have to fix it.”

  The nurse carefully collected the shards of glass and wrapped them in a white cloth. Placing it on the table beside me, she crouched by my chair. “All it needs is a little glue, honey, and it’ll be right as rain.”

  I knew the woman was trying to be kind, but all I thought of was how awful my life was.

  “Nothing will ever be right,” I said with a sob.

  Devastated, my father and I returned to our motel room. I crawled into bed and fell asleep while he sat hunched over the desk with a bottle of glue in one hand and the shards from the shattered sculpture in the other. He painstakingly glued every broken piece back together again. Then he set the ornament on the nightstand so that it was the first thing I saw the next morning.

  All it needs is a little glue…

  Years later, my father told me how he had crept outside the motel room and collapsed―sobbing―against the door.

  Nana showed up at the hospital the next day and she wisely took me away from all the machines and chaos. We bundled up warmly, strolled across the street to a park and sat at a picnic table under the trees near a small fountain. Seagulls squawked nearby, fighting greedily over scraps of food someone had left behind.

  “Mom’s not going to wake up, Nana,” I said anxiously.

  She nodded. “Yes, Hai Nai Yu. The Great Spirit is ready to take her home.” She took both my hands in hers. “It is time, little one. Time to let her go so that her spirit can fly free. You have to be willing to release her. Or she’ll be trapped between both worlds.”

  “But, Nana,” I moaned. “I don’t want her to go.”

  I lowered my head to the table and tears began to flow. I was lost in a world of pain and suffering, yet all around me was life. I heard children laughing, birds singing and the fountain bubbling.

  And I resented them all.

  “Have I told you about Seagull and the Coming of Light?” Nana asked, her frail hand stroking my hair.

  I shook my head against the table.

  “The Great Spirit gave the First People small, carved cedar boxes,” she began. “One filled with water that rose to the sky and formed clouds. The clouds emptied onto the ground and created streams and rivers. Another box held all the mountains and another held the seeds of every growing thing. The next box held the wind, which blew the seeds and scattered them throughout the Earth. They all opened their boxes. Everyone, that is, except Seagull.”

  I raised my head slowly. “How come he didn’t open his?”

  “Seagull wasn’t ready to give up his box. He wanted to keep it all to himself. He held his box tightly, refusing to open it. And in his box, he held all the light of the world. And that is why, in the beginning, there was only darkness.”

  She paused and we watched a lone seagull cautiously waddle toward us. It stopped from time to time and cocked its head to one side, staring at us.

  “So what happened, Nana?” I asked, eyeing the bird.

  “Well, the First People asked Raven to talk to Seagull. But when Seagull still refused, Raven wished that a thorn would pierce Seagull’s foot. And because whatever Raven wished came true, Seagull found a thorn in his foot. Raven offered to help him, to pull out the thorn, but instead of pulling it out Raven pushed the thorn in farther. Then he said, ‘If only I had some light to see.’ And do you know what Seagull did?”

  “He opened his box.”

  “Yes, Hai Nai Yu. He opened his box just a bit and the Stars fell out and lit up the sky. Then Raven pushed the thorn in even farther and told Seagull there still wasn’t enough light. And Seagull opened his box some more and the Moon floated up to the sky. One last time Raven pushed in the thorn and Seagull cried out, dropping his box, which opened and released the Sun. And so it came to pass that there was light.” She paused when the seagull near our table let out a shrill cry and flew away. Then she added, “Seagull learned a valuable lesson that day.”

  “What?”

  “He learned that sometimes holding onto things only brought suffering.” Her eyes fixed on mine and I shivered.

  I thought about Seagull all day.

  When my father and I returned to the motel, I shared Nana’s story with him. Afterward, he tucked me in, kissed my forehead and wearily climbed into his bed.

  “Goodnight, Sarah,” he called from the dark.

  I stared up at the ceiling and listened to the unfamiliar sounds around me. I heard rowdy voices outside, followed by thunderous footsteps that clanged up the iron staircase. A car drove past―squealing its tires―and its headlights illuminated our room for a moment.

  I held my breath, my pulse quickening.

  As I clutched my pillow, darkness engulfed me and I slept. I dreamt of Seagull and Raven. And my mother. I walked with her and held her hand. Even in my dream, I understood that I must find the courage to let go.

  Release her or she will be trapped between both worlds…

  PART TWO

  Trail of the Wolves

  fourteen

  My mother passed away peacefully on November 29, 1979, less than four weeks from Christmas. But it was the way that she died that permanently altered my life.

  Nonno Rocco and Nonna Sofia had gone for a walk outside, leaving my father and me to visit with my mother. When Dr. Michaels arrived, my father asked her to step into the hall.

  Overwhelmed by curiosity, I pressed my ear aga
inst the door.

  “We have to leave her on life support,” I heard Dr. Michaels say. “I know that’s not what she wanted, but as long as there’s brain activity, it’s my obligation to keep her alive. I hope you understand that. You can go to the courthouse and file a petition to have her removed―”

  “But that could take months,” my father argued. “Years.”

  He grew more insistent and I heard Dr. Michaels ask him to lower his voice. Their indistinct whispers frustrated me. Then I heard them moving closer and I backed away from the door. When they entered the room, my father looked very upset.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Richardson,” Dr. Michaels said, checking the monitors. “But I have no other choice.” She left the room.

  My father heaved a sigh of frustration. The respirator that breathed for my mother imitated him. Puff…puff.

  “Dad?” I said, shifting in the chair. “I, uh…overheard you talking to Mom the other night.”

  His brow furrowed in confusion. “What about?”

  “I know what she asked you to do.”

  I saw his face crumble before me, shocked. His head dropped into his hands and a shudder moved up his spine. Slowly, he raised his eyes and studied my mother’s immobile body as the machines pumped life into her.

  “Sarah,” he sighed, shaking his head sluggishly.

  I remembered my mother’s words to him. Sometimes you have to do what’s wrong…to make things right…I can’t bear for you or Sarah to see me lying there―like a vegetable.

  I glared at him, angry and betrayed.

  Time stood still. Frozen.

  Fear held us captive. We were caught in an emotional tug-of-war. My father battled with his conscience while I fought to convince him to set her free.

  This is where my world collides―where my memory ends.

  I vaguely recall the sound of a door slamming. I must have left the room. The next thing I remember is seeing my father by my mother’s bed, holding her hand. In the other, he firmly gripped the unplugged end of the respirator. The monitors were silent, their buttons turned off.