Undaunted, I continue to work. I have climbed Lighthouse Hill and sat on the slope for hours, looking to the west, where the whales pass by at irregular, unpredictable intervals. They are mysterious. They have been cropping up in my dreams, swimming through the moonless oceans of my mind, swishing their tails, displacing gallons of water, singing loudly enough to wake me.
The other day, I saw a blue whale. I was high on the hill, trying to plant my tripod on the crumbling granite. The creature rose up without warning. The noise caught my attention first — the whistling gasp of its breath. Fifty feet from shore. A rare thing. A marvel. It was bigger than a building, bigger than a dinosaur. I knew the numbers — the amount of school buses that would balance out its body on a scale, the quantity of football fields that would constitute its spine.
But I could not capture this girth on film. I got a snapshot of its nose. Its maw, mottled with algae. A gigantic flipper flinging droplets like throwing stars. The tail, off-kilter. It reminded me of the parable about an elephant in a dark room. One person touches the trunk and describes the animal as a tree, the next touches the torso and describes the animal as a wall, and the third touches the tail and describes the animal as a rope. My photographs were similarly fragmented. Only pieces, rather than the whole. No grandeur. No force. No sense of power and size.
I was scrolling through the images I had taken — all unsuccessful and unbeautiful — when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned so swiftly that I lost my footing. Andrew stood there grinning. His red cap was askew, the gold emblem winking at me. I skidded down the slope, flinging out a hand. Andrew caught my arm. He pulled me up, then yanked me against him. He wrapped me in a hug.
“Poor Melissa,” he said. “Always falling down.”
“Let me go.”
He tightened his hold. My camera was pinned between us, digging into my chest.
“You’re hurting me,” I said.
He released me, stepping back. I shivered.
There was a scuffle, and Lucy appeared on the hill. I was glad to see her — a novel sensation. She was panting, her cheeks scarlet from exertion. A coil of hair trailed across her cheek. Her expression was mulish.
“You walk too fast,” she said to Andrew. “You never wait for me.”
“Look who I found,” he said.
Lucy glanced up, wiping her brow with her sleeve.
“Oh, mouse girl,” she said. “Have you seen any burrowing owls?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to this.
“They’re an invasive species,” Andrew explained. “They feed on the mice.”
“They don’t belong here,” Lucy said. “We chase them off, but they always come back. It’s a constant battle.”
“Oh,” I said.
She turned away. “Let’s check Garbage Gulch, babe. I saw a couple there yesterday.”
She did not say goodbye to me. She marched down the slope, her braid swinging behind her. Andrew blew me a kiss.
THAT EVENING, LUCY brought the octopus into the living room. We were all downstairs, as we are every evening, seven bodies crammed into the tiny space, Galen and Forest reading on opposite ends of the couch, Mick scribbling notes about whales in the daily log, Andrew at the table, Charlene washing dishes. I was sitting on the floor, scrolling again through the images on my digital camera, deleting the duds. This is a nightly ritual. It will be months before I will be able to convert my pictures into prints. For now, they remain in a half-real state, glimmering on the screen, stored in electronic impulses in the memory card, more idea than art.
I was aware of Andrew’s gaze on my back. Galen’s noisy breathing. The odor of Mick’s sweat. The restless jiggle of Forest’s legs. There is no peace here, no solitude. I have not yet learned to tune out the constant presence of the others. I will have to acquire this skill soon, for the sake of my sanity.
Then Lucy laughed. The sound startled me. She was standing in her bedroom doorway with something cupped in her hands. She set the octopus on the floor. Evidently she had removed him from the aquarium on her bureau. She flicked the damp off her fingers. For a moment, Oliver stayed curled in a protective ball. His suckers were flipped outward, rumpled like lace. One yellow eye gleamed.
He unfolded all at once, a remarkable gesture, eight legs tumbling in every direction. The sac of his body sagged like a deflated balloon. No bones. He had no bones. He began to drag himself right toward me.
I got to my feet, backing away. I bumped into the couch. Oliver changed color, his flesh darkening from sandy ochre to furious red. The same hue as Andrew’s stocking cap. His progress made a surprising amount of noise. Suck and slide. Slither and coil. Suddenly, he changed direction. One long arm snaked to the side and tugged. His body rolled over, the skin puckered with dust.
“He can’t breathe,” I said. “Won’t he die?”
Lucy did not answer. She was watching her pet with something like pride. I found that I was standing by Mick, my fingers hooked in his sweater.
“He’s fine,” Mick said. “They can hold their breath for thirty minutes or so. Look at him run! He’s trying to find a way out of here.”
There was something both hopeful and hopeless in the scene. The octopus did not know that he was half a mile inland. He did not know about the obstacles he would have to overcome to return to the ocean. Acres of sharp, uneven granite. Gallons of dry, unforgiving air. The predatory seabirds overhead. The detached, amused gaze of the biologists. The octopus was unaware of how trapped he truly was.
“There’s no escape,” Lucy said.
10
I WISH YOU WERE here. I wish you were anywhere.
Over the years, I have tried to reconcile myself to the fact that I write to you, and you don’t write back. I have pretended that there is something therapeutic about all of this, in simply putting pen to paper. I have imagined that by storing up anecdotes for you all day long, I will be able to keep you with me. A relationship is a two-sided thing, both parties reaching toward one another across the empty air. You may be gone, but if I keep reaching, some element of our bond may remain.
I even find myself narrating my own life, in my mind, throughout the hours — notes for my next letter to you. Sometimes it feels as though I’m two different people — the one doing the action and the one describing it afterward.
Pouring a cup of tea, I will think, The steam billowed over the rim and filled the air with cinnamon. Taking a walk along the grounds, I will think, I saw five birds circling the lighthouse, climbing higher and higher on a current of air, their wings open but unmoving, folded and fixed like the flaps of a kite. This is not the way most adults live their lives: narrating every moment as it occurs, in the past tense, as a detached observer. But for me, the act has become reflexive. I have been writing to you for so long that I don’t feel as if something has happened until I have told you about it. The life cycle of any event begins with action, crescendos in observation, and finishes with nouns and verbs. It isn’t over until I have recorded it on the page. For you.
But recently, I have not written to you. I have not been able to. Something terrible happened — so terrible that it took away my words.
During that time, I have tried to write. God knows I have tried. But I could never seem to begin. My mind has been empty. I have taken out paper and pencil, sat staring for a while, and walked away, leaving the page blank. The other day I sent my father a postcard that said simply, Status quo. A big, fat lie. I could not write the truth. When Charlene has settled deferentially beside me at the kitchen table, asking how I am, I have made noncommittal noises and shaken my head. I have said nothing of consequence. Even my usual narration, internal and constant, has deserted me. Mick and I have taken our customary long walks in the chilly air, pushing through the fog. Holding his arm, steadying myself, I have been as silent as a stone.