“I’ve gone diving with humpbacks before,” Sam told me. “You can feel the vibration of their song all the way to your bones.”
“That must be amazing,” I said.
“Oh man,” she said. “It’s like your whole body turns into an electric toothbrush or something.”
Quinn giggled.
“Only males sing, though,” said Sam. “We’re pretty sure these are females.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.” I wished I could give our whales a voice, help them tell us who they were, what they wanted.
“But the females make pink milk!” she said. “I haven’t tried it myself, of course, but I like to think it tastes like Strawberry Quick.” She smiled and I remembered all the shirts I had stained yellow when I was nursing Quinn. Work shirts that were hard to wash thoroughly in a bathroom sink. Bras that never fully came clean. I wondered if it would have been better or worse to have pink stains instead of yellow. Then her smile brought me back to the moment, so inviting I wanted to climb inside it and take a nap.
THE RECORDINGS SEEMED to work a bit, at first—the whales trailed the Coast Guard cutter and we lost sight of them for a while, but they quickly circled back to Comice, this time followed by the boat. I was happy to see them return—both the whales and Sam, her hair waving like a flag.
Mrs. Vieira brought trays of snacks out to the rescue workers—dried pears, slices of pear tart, hunks of pear bread. All eagerly consumed. Sam especially seemed to love the tart—I saw her polish off two and a half wedges of it. I found myself looking for her almost the way I had looked for Ben—not that I wanted to throw myself at her, at least not that I could tell; more that I wanted her as a friend. Quinn had been the only person I had needed for so long; I felt a bit disloyal that part of me longed to connect with someone else.
“The recordings aren’t going to work,” I heard one of the blue-windbreakered men say, his beard full of crumbs. “The tapes are Alaskan whales. It’s like a person talking in Russian to someone from Jamaica. They’re both humans, but they’re not going to understand each other’s language.”
“Maybe they’ll understand poetry,” said Abcde. She convinced Sam to ferry her over to the Coast Guard boat, where she read a motivational whale poem over a megaphone:
“A baleen can do everything faster,” she said in an encouraging voice. “Go home. It’s just kicking, little motions, nothing objectionable. Pretty quick results. See, take ur vacation westward. X-it your zoo.”
I hadn’t thought of the river as a zoo, but it probably did feel like a cage of sorts. The whales were so used to so much space around them; they probably didn’t realize how big they were until they were hemmed in by the levees, large blood cells thudding through a small vein.
Abcde got a polite smattering of applause on the cutter, a few snickers. Sam clapped heartily, which sent a surprising pang of jealousy through my chest. You’re my friend, I wanted to say, not hers, but I wasn’t sure if Sam thought of me that way. Maybe she was just friendly to everyone. Abcde gave a little curtsy and blew a kiss to the whales before Sam ferried her back to the pier.
I watched them get out of the small inflatable boat. Abcde walked up the metal steps like a queen, obviously pleased by her performance. As Sam came toward the houseboat, my palms went clammy.
“So,” she said as she stepped onto the deck. “You asked about the whales, but you never told me what brought you here.” Something a friend would say.
“Pears,” I said.
“You run the orchard?” she asked.
“No.” I blushed. “I just pick. I’ve only been here a couple of weeks.”
“Wow. You’re a migrant worker?” Her face clouded, and I thought, Oh no, I’ve lost her.
“I guess so,” I said. I hadn’t used that term to describe myself before. “Migrant worker” made me think of that iconic Dust Bowl photo by Dorothea Lange: the woman with tired eyes gazing off into the distance as two of her children rested their heads on her shoulders, her face so consumed with worry, she almost looked serene. Maybe I could relate to her, after all. “Quinn and I follow what’s ripe.”
I could see Sam gather herself together. “That’s cool,” she said, and a cautious trickle of relief slid down my back. “Actually, that makes you like the whales.”
“How?” I asked.
“‘Migrant,’ ‘migrate,’ same root,” she said. “Migrare, to move from one place to another. It’s what ‘immigrate’ comes from, too.” The teacherly, slightly patronizing tone that crept into her voice made me wince.
“To move toward,” Quinn said without looking up from her book.
Sam nodded, smiling. “And ‘emigrate.’”
“To move away from,” Quinn said, still reading.
I was never able to remember the difference between those two words; I was suitably impressed. Sam seemed to be, too.
“So which are you doing?” Sam plunked into the chair next to Quinn’s, her voice more friendly again, although a hint of condescension remained. “Moving from or moving toward?”
“Just moving.” I leaned against the rail, hoping she wouldn’t press further.
Quinn asked, “Why do whales migrate?” and I wanted to kiss her for changing the subject. We had both been wondering—the library books weren’t clear about that.
“To feed and to breed,” said Sam. “They breed near the equator in the winter, feed near the poles in the summer.”
“So they’re way off track,” I said, and she nodded.
“We don’t usually see them around here this time of year.”
“And they need to eat,” said Quinn, her book now on her lap.
“The baby is nursing, so she should be fine.”
“Pink milk,” said Quinn.
“Strawberry Quick,” I said, and Sam gave me a thumbs-up.
“So why picking?” Sam asked; it sounded like she was asking why I ate garbage or something equally distasteful. I still couldn’t tell if she wanted to be my friend, or we had become another research subject for her now. Migrant mother and child in their natural habitat.
“It keeps our heads above water,” I said.
“I always wanted to keep my head below water, personally.” She laughed. “I’ve known I wanted to work with whales since I was a little girl.”
“You’re lucky to be able to do what you want,” I said.
“If you could have any job in the world …” She leaned forward in her chair, her eyes full of mischief, maybe a slight glint of superiority. “What would you want to do?”
Sure, lady, I thought. Toy with the poor migrant mother when you have a chance. Fool her into thinking anything is possible.
Before I could answer, the baby whale nosed up near Sam’s inflatable boat, popping it briefly out of the water. Quinn gasped, delighted and a little wary as our houseboat rocked.
“Sam!” someone yelled on the megaphone from the Coast Guard boat. “Get your ass back here!”
“That’s my cue,” said Sam. “I better go.”
We watched her head back to the cutter in her inflatable boat, using paddles instead of the small propeller, the baby whale following her like a puppy, the mother whale tagging behind, keeping a watchful eye. There was something magnetic about Sam—even the whales felt it. I hope I hadn’t repelled her completely; I hoped she’d see there was more to me than my migrant status and give me another chance.
ON OUR WAY to raid the Vieiras’ pantry again, Quinn and I came upon Abcde sitting on the ground outside her tent, furiously scribbling in her notebook.
“Can I do one of your alphabet poems?” Quinn asked. She had gone through a short haiku phase—it made sense she’d want to try another form.
Abcde looked a bit disoriented, as if we had woken her up, but she ripped a piece of paper from her notebook and handed it to Quinn, along with a pencil wrapped in purple grosgrain ribbon.
“Go for it,” she said.
“I want to write about the whales,” said Quinn.
“Twenty-six words or twenty-six lines?” Abcde leaned toward Quinn. I fought the urge to say “Back off.”
“Twenty-six words,” said Quinn. “Easier.”
“It’s actually harder,” said Abcde. “With twenty-six lines, you have more leeway.”
Quinn frowned at the page until her face lit and she lifted the pencil. She spoke the words aloud as she wrote, “A … big … creature … dives.”
“Great beginning,” said Abcde.
Quinn didn’t even look up. “Everybody fears,” she said.
“Some people do,” I said. Quinn scowled at me and went back to her page.
“Giant heavy … ichthyosaurs … jump.”
“I don’t think whales are ichthyosaurs,” I said.
“Close enough,” said Abcde, and I wanted to slap her. “Plus, it’s a great word.”
“Killing … little … miniature … n … n … n … nematodes!” Quinn looked ecstatic at the word she had pulled out of thin air.
“Another great word.” Abcde held out her hand for a high five. Quinn slapped it.
“I learned it in my biology book.” She grinned. I bought you that book, I wanted to remind her. Another library sale find. All hail libraries!
“I don’t know what to write about next,” she said.
“Well, think of O words,” said Abcde. “Ocean. Octopus. Ogre. Oricchiette.”
“What’s that?” asked Quinn.
“A kind of pasta,” she said. “It looks like a little ear.”
“Gross,” said Quinn.
“Onion. Olives. Oil. Oranges.”
“Someone’s hungry,” I said.
“Famished.” Abcde rubbed her soft stomach. “I only had some muesli this morning. Dry.”
“Only!” said Quinn. “Only … only … only … pears … No, only, p, p, p … professional … only professionally … qualified … researchers … swim …”
“Like Sam,” I said.
“Yeah!” said Quinn.
“Keep going,” said Abcde, and I wondered if she felt jealous that I knew Sam by name.
“Tucking …”
“Ooh, great word,” said Abcde. Quinn shot her a look to get her to shut up and I felt a rush of satisfaction.
“Tucking … under … v … v … v … v …”
“Vibrant,” said Abcde. “Vitamin. Vigorous. Velvet.”
“I can write it myself,” said Quinn.
“Please do.” Abcde didn’t look stung at all, much to my chagrin.
“Tucking under violet water.”
“That’s beautiful, Quinn,” I said. I knew better than to say the water wasn’t violet. Some hours of the day it was. Plus, Abcde would probably be surprised, but I had heard of a little thing called poetic license.
Quinn smiled down at her paper. “X,” she said. “X is hard.”
“I told you,” said Abcde. “You have to be creative with X. It’s okay to spell words wrong. X-tra. X-ample. X-traordinary.”
Quinn bit the eraser. “I got it,” she said. “X-citing. X-citing your zeal.”
“Perfect!” Abcde snatched the paper from Quinn’s hand and jumped to her feet. She read the whole thing out loud in a dramatic voice: “‘A big creature dives. Everyone fears. Great heavy ichthyosaurs jump. Killing little miniature nematodes. Only professionally qualified researchers swim, tucking under violet water. X-citing your zeal.’”
I gave Quinn a squeeze. “I can’t believe you wrote that so fast,” I said.
“Congratulations, Mom.” Abcde shook my hand. “You have yourself an abecedarian poet.”
I flashed briefly upon Quinn’s motel-room birth. I was the one who said “It’s a girl”—in wonder, in shock—as she emerged face-up, inside the drained bathtub. The midwife, my diner boss’s sister, said “Congratulations, Mom,” then, too. The word, “Mom,” was almost as shocking as the birth itself. How could that label apply to me? I was glad Quinn called me “Eema”—it felt less official, somehow. Easier to wear.
I looked out to the water. Sam was back on the cutter now, doing the work she wanted to do all her life. I thought I saw her look at me standing on top of the levee; I waved, but either she didn’t see me or she ignored my ridiculously flapping hand.
THE HALLS OF THE SQUAT BRICK PERKINS PERMANENT Care Facility were decorated with gloppy handprint turkeys. Karen felt sorry for the aide who had to dip gnarled, half-conscious palms into paint and press them against construction paper, then scrub the color out of all the dried-up life lines, love lines. So many funky-looking turkeys everywhere she turned, their five feathers crooked, thick-knuckled.
Nathan’s father still had a touch of orange on the edge of his right thumb. He was asleep, if not comatose, his face puffy, like a drowned man’s. Karen could detect a resemblance—the squareness of the forehead, perhaps. The set of the jaw. His skin was yellowish, but not from paint, his hair still mostly black, but sparse, with swaths of silver fanning over his ears. Dark purple shadowed his closed eyes.
“Hey, Pop.” Nathan sat in the olive green molded chair next to the bed. His father didn’t stir.
Nathan gestured for Karen to sit on the edge of the bed, but the thought of being so close to his dad’s bloated abdomen, his wide open mouth, made her queasy. She slipped into the chair beneath the TV, tuned to a football game, the sound off.
“I brought Karen with me,” he said. “The girl I’ve been telling you so much about.”
His voice sounded strange, strained, as he spoke, but it was thrilling to know he had talked about her. For a moment, she didn’t smell the urine in the air, the smell of boiled green beans, the unmistakable scent of bodily decay. For a moment, “Help me” wasn’t ringing in her ears, echoes from the woman in the wheelchair who had clutched Karen’s jacket so fiercely, Karen had ended up pulling her halfway down the hallway.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Main.” She gave a little wave, as if Nathan’s dad could see her.
“Look,” chuckled Nathan. “You gave him a woody.”
She grimaced and closed her eyes, not wanting to know if he was telling the truth.
“I told you she was hot, Pop, didn’t I?” His voice had a weird edge to it again.
She found herself flashing on Hop on Pop, two little monsters jumping on the belly of a bigger monster, her mom leaning over her, reading in a deep, soothing voice. She loved how her mom used to read to her, before she could read to herself. Hop hop, we like to hop … Before daily skating practice, before competition. When she could hop just because she wanted to, just because it was a fun thing to do. Her mother smiling as she hopped around the coffee table …
“And you know a thing or two about hot women, don’t you, you bastard.”
When Karen opened her eyes, she was startled to see Nathan’s eyes were as wet as hers.
“Fucking bastard,” Nathan said, quietly at first, then louder. “Fucking drunkass bastard.” He smacked the bed with his fist. His dad’s eyes opened a slit; they looked like turtle eyes, slow and prehistoric. The irises slid to the side before his swollen eyelids clamped shut again.
Karen held her breath, heart pounding in her ears.
“Fucking piece of fucking shit.” Nathan smacked the bed again, this time closer to his dad’s head. His dad startled, let out a garbled moan. His monitors began to beep madly.
“We gotta get out of here.” Nathan grabbed the sleeve of Karen’s coat, much like the woman had from her wheelchair. She had to run to keep up with him down the hallway. Help me, miss. Help me. Help me. Help me.
NATHAN COULDN’T STOP muttering as he drove—Karen couldn’t make all of it out, but at least every other word was so
me sort of curse. He banged the steering wheel, the car fishtailing over the wet road.
“Maybe I should drive.” Karen tried to keep her voice calm. She had gotten her license but hadn’t had much of a chance to use it. And she had never driven in a car without her mom, who was always ready to critique her use of brakes and turn signals.
“I’m fine,” he said, but then a deer bounded across the street a good block ahead of them and he swerved, narrowly missing an elm tree.
“I don’t think so,” she said. He grudgingly put the car into park and let her take the wheel. She sat in the driver’s seat and breathed deeply until she felt ready to tackle the rainy drive. The streetlamps flickered on, making the street look slicker, even more treacherous.
She flicked the windshield wipers on faster as he slumped lower in the seat. He hadn’t put on his seat belt. She leaned forward to try to get a better glimpse of the road.
“Does that happen every time you visit him?” Even twenty miles per hour felt too fast. She was grateful there was no other traffic.
He shook his head again. “It’s been building up,” he said. “I thought if you were there, it wouldn’t …” He karate-chopped the dashboard. “Fuck!”
Karen nearly jumped out of her skin. “You’re going to make us crash.” Her mom would kill her if they got in a crash just before Nationals.
He blew on his hand, shaking it. “Fucking asshole.”
“And you’re going to need that hand, too,” she said. “Get it together.”
“Fuck.” Tears streamed down Nathan’s cheeks. “I don’t want to be like him.” She had never seen his face like this, in such agony. It looked sort of like when he was dying as Tristan, but more horrible, more real. His head dropped down to his chest. “Please. Oh my fucking God, please. I. Don’t. Want. To. Be. Like. Him.”
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