Whale Song (17 page)

I started back upstairs. Unable to resist, I looked back at them. They stood near the window, hugging each other and staring into one another’s eyes. Even from the top of the stairs, I felt their love…and their anguish.

“
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 movement.

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.