Chasing at the Surface

by Sharon Mentyka

  “Mom?” Did I actually say her name out loud?

  “You’ve got their hearts now, Marisa,” she whispers. “Good girl. I knew you could do it.”

  “Should I tell them about the kayak in the fog?”

  “It’s your choice,” she says. “But I would. It’s an important story. Remember, they need to experience it as you did.”

  I can feel the audience getting restless. Just one second more.

  I rub the little orca charm on Carol Ann’s bracelet, take a deep breath, and open my eyes. For the next few minutes, I share what it felt like to “hear” the tremendous noise of the bridge when I was under it in my kayak. I explain what Naomi taught me about sound being amplified underwater, how the roar of an engine can frighten and disorient orcas, especially the young ones, who are so sensitive.

  I describe seeing the mother orcas making their exit but then turning back because the calves wouldn’t follow. It’s simple to understand why they’d do that, isn’t it?

  I know I don’t have much more time—I can see the announcer checking his watch. My voice gets stronger, louder. I don’t need the microphone at all when I announce proudly that it was my friends and I who posted the flyers around the inlet. That’s why there are hundreds of people here tonight. And then I tell them we have no choice—we have to do something.

  “The whales are trapped. And we can’t waste any more time … we have to take action now. Please, tell the county commissioners to close the Warren Avenue Bridge to traffic. It’s the only chance the whales may have to get safely home. The only other option is watching them starve to death and die … right here in Dyes Inlet.”

  Then it’s over and I rush off the stage to thunderous applause. The sound follows me as I step into the darkness of the hall and stumble my way back to Tal and Grace.

  Harris and Lena have made their way over, applauding wildly. My adrenaline fades and I feel like I’ve just run a sprint. Naomi runs up to give me a hug. When I turn to look for Dad, he’s right there with a big grin on his face. He opens his arms wide, and I fall into them gratefully, his warmth silencing my shaking body.

  Once more, I close my eyes. And I see her again. She’s standing and clapping now, along with the rest of the audience. I imagine someone next to her now, too—a young man in his twenties. He’s got the same thick, dark hair as Mom and me.

  Both of them are smiling.

  CHAPTER 24

  Orca Day 28

  All day Sunday and Monday we wait, and hope, until finally, late in the evening we get the good news. The county commissioners announce that they’ve approved the request to set up a “No-Wake Zone” for any vessels entering through the Narrows. Even better, they vote 5-2 to close the Warren Avenue Bridge to all traffic except emergency vehicles for a twenty-four-hour period, and to restrict boat traffic on the inlet to approved vessels only.

  “Yahoo!” I cheer when Dad hangs up the phone and shares the details with me.

  “That was the Inlet News. Apparently, the county offices were flooded with calls and e-mails yesterday. The story will be on the front page of tomorrow’s edition,” Dad tells me. He’s grinning, actually grinning, from ear to ear. “And it’s all because of you.”

  “Not just me, Dad. My friends helped a ton.”

  Not to mention a little help from Mom, too. But I can’t stop smiling. We did do it, didn’t we?

  The commissioners schedule the bridge closure for Wednesday morning to give people time to make other plans for their commutes. Wednesday is two long days away, and everyone gets busy planning.

  All the whales need to do is hold out a little longer.

  ––––

  It’s been a long few days, and I just can’t wait another minute. After dinner on Tuesday, I turn off all the lights except the small one over the stove, then I pull the blue envelope out from my pocket. Pushing aside some dirty teacups and take-out food containers, I gently slide out the letter and leave it sitting there for a minute on the kitchen counter.

  How old is the writer, I wonder. Older than Carol Ann Reese? Will he say where he lives now and what he’s doing? Will he ask if Mom has any other kids?

  There’s only one way to find out.

  “Dad?”

  “Umm?” He walks into the kitchen, toweling dry his hair after a late-night shower.

  “There’s a letter here I think we should read. Together.”

  His eyes flicker to the envelope lying on the countertop, then back to me.

  “From Mom?”

  I shake my head no. Unfolding the sheet of paper, I smooth it out flat on the counter. Dad sits down beside me. I feel his arm encircle my shoulders and together, we begin to read.

  Dear Mrs. Gage,

  After mailing you my first letter, I panicked. I’m guessing you’ve received it by now and are probably still in shock that the son you gave up for adoption years ago has contacted you. With all my heart, I hope that you decide to contact me at the phone number I provided. But if you cannot or do not want to ever meet me in person, there are a few things I don’t want to leave unsaid.

  Because giving you my name and phone number isn’t the same as telling you what my life has been like.

  So here goes.…

  My adoptive parents, Craig and Brenda, are wonderful. They named me Ben. And I had an older sister, Gina, but she died when she was thirteen, in a car accident when she was staying with friends. It was so sad, I hardly got to know her. We lived in North Hollywood, but after Gina’s death, when I was eight, we moved to Bakersfield.

  What else? When I was a kid, I loved to swim. I swam all the time. Was on swim teams for almost ten years, and I was pretty good! As a teenager I worked as a lifeguard and taught swim lessons to kids. I still swim a couple of days a week at the local Y.

  I guess my absolute favorite thing to do these days is go up into the mountains. Camping, fishing, hiking—you name it, I do it.

  I just finished up my degree in Mathematics and Natural Science at CSU Bakersfield. I graduate this June. I’m hoping to get a job as an environmental biologist. Cross your fingers!

  I guess that’s enough about me. I’m hoping to meet you someday so we can get to know each other better. For now, I just want you to know that I’m okay. And I hope you’re okay, too. I have a good life and I don’t hate you for what you did.

  Your son, Ben

  ––––

  I keep my eyes on the counter, where Ben’s letter lies open, nervous about Dad’s reaction. Because even though Dad is Dad, I know this is huge.

  “It must have been hard,” he says finally, breaking the silence. “For both of them. Stepping into each other’s lives like that.”

  “How are you feeling?” I ask.

  “Well …” he lets out a long breath, “life isn’t always a straight line. It twists and turns and changes. We do our best to make a plan, but at the end of the day, it’s our choice. I think there’s enough love to go around, don’t you?”

  He picks up Ben’s letter, folds it back up, and hands it to me.

  “Ben,” Dad says, smiling. “I think she’ll like that name.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Orca Day 30

  At the set time—seven o’clock in the morning on Wednesday, November 19—two Port Washington police officers park their vehicles, blocking the east and west entrances of the Warren Avenue Bridge. The officers unload barricades and set them up across the entrance ramp, propping a “Road Closed” sign against it. They flip the flasher light to the “on” position, and the still-dark road glows with amber light.

  Instantly, the span is totally and officially closed.

  “I’m still in shock,” Kevin says, shaking his head. “For once, the vote came down on the side of the orcas, instead of the humans.”

  We’ve all gathered just off the bridge deck to watch. For a few minutes, we celebrate. Then reality sets in and we realize we have precious little time to help the orcas leave, and yet there’s so little we can control. Alm
ost everything depends on luck.

  Some of our ideas Kevin vetoed as too stressful for the whales, including making loud noises or lining the channel with boats to herd the whales in the right direction. So the approved plan includes playing recorded whale sounds to entice the whales out, keeping our vessels in position to block their return, and gently coaxing them southward with back-and-forth passes.

  We’ve also loaded the motorboat with close to two hundred pounds of salmon—just a snack, really, for nineteen orcas. They won’t eat fish that have been dead for too long, but the scent alone should be good enough to lure them. All we really want is to attract the whales to the end of the inlet.

  Secretly, I’m really praying the whales will know what to do all on their own.

  “Twenty-four hours,” Naomi whispers. “Let’s make it count.”

  “What are y’all waiting for?” Kevin says. “Let’s go!”

  ––––

  We scramble down to where the raft is prepped and waiting. Harris and I jump in and Kevin takes off. Lena, Grace, and Naomi follow behind in the motorboat as we cruise out toward the open water of the inlet to see if we can locate the pod. The Suquamish Tribe has sent a single, large canoe, with about a dozen rowers, to paddle alongside our vessels. Most look young—no more than seventeen or eighteen—and I wonder how they were selected for this assignment.

  “I was out early this morning,” Kevin shouts over the noise of the engine. “The whales were scattered all over the place!”

  A dark purple-gray cloud cover hangs low over the inlet. Off in the distance, to the west, there’s just the barest strip of sky visible at the base of the horizon. The wind whips my hair around as we speed across the water, leaving the bridge behind.

  We reach the center of the inlet, and Kevin kills the motor. Nearby, Grace’s motorboat rumbles to a stop. Naomi drops the hydrophone over the side, except this time, instead of recording the whales, we’re transmitting prerecorded vocalizations, hoping to lure the pod in the direction of the bridge.

  “These calls are from L Pod, so we’ve got a better shot at them working than they did up in Alaska,” Naomi says, biting her lip. “Hopefully, it’ll get their attention. Still … these guys are so darn smart.…”

  We wait. Water sloshes around the raft as we bob in the water. The whales are nowhere to be seen. Half an hour later, the tape ends. Naomi clicks rewind and the audio starts up again.

  Where could they be? Did they just decide to hole up somewhere and sleep the day away? Lifting the binoculars, I scan back and forth across the wide expanse of the inlet.

  Then I see them.

  “Naomi, there!” I call out, pointing south, back toward Rocky Point. Off in the distance, I can just make out vague clouds of whale blows rising from the surface.

  “And there,” Naomi repeats, pointing west now, toward Chico Bay. I look and see birds diving at the water surface. She swivels her head 180 degrees. “And there!”

  “They’re milling.…” Kevin murmurs, swiveling to check out each location. “Turning to move in the same direction.” He turns to Naomi. “Okay, let’s back ’em up, make sure they don’t do an about-face. Follow me!”

  We speed south, toward the bridge, taking care to stay well behind the whales but positioning our two crafts so that any of the groups would have to pass directly by us to head back north into the inlet. Within five minutes we’re smack in the middle of the three groups. They’ve slowed now, each grouping no more than forty feet away in any direction. We kill our engines and hunker down, waiting to see what they decide to do next.

  The group to the west consists of most of the big guys. As we watch, they make a run at the surface, swimming fast as a group, their bodies almost touching, and a huge wall of water blocks them from our view. Then in a flash, they change direction. There’s some breaching and tail slaps, but most of the activity is underwater. Then the whale Kevin identifies as L26, Baba, turns onto her side and starts pec slapping the water.

  “I’ve seen her do that before when she gets near the bridge!” I shout out, remembering that day up in Tal and Bette’s tower. “I think she’s trying to get the others motivated!”

  I spot Kevin’s foam-lined camera case lying on the floor of the raft near my feet. Without even asking, I reach down and grab it, then heave the thing over the side, and start slapping the water with it, imitating Baba’s movement. The case is light but almost the size of a small briefcase, and it makes a satisfying smack—smack—smack on the water’s surface.

  “Maybe a little backup will help her motivate them,” I say when Naomi stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. She hesitates a second, then grabs a life jacket and does the same. But Baba just looks at us curiously. The other whales ignore us completely. Apparently our pec slaps are not very motivating.

  For the next hour we try everything we can think of to urge the whales on. Nothing works. A little more than 2,000 feet ahead, the hulking mass of the bridge looms, silent at last. Twice, a group makes an approach, and we throw salmon out as a lure, but each time they turn back. And every time they do, Kevin and Grace maneuver to partially block them from making a full retreat back into the inlet.

  By noon, all three groups are still holding their positions, milling around but not seeming to want to go anywhere in particular. The tribal paddlers in the canoe don’t seem bothered by the wait, they’re relaxed and chatting, but the rest of us are exhausted.

  “How long can they keep this up?” I ask Kevin.

  He starts to answer when, suddenly, the hydrophone picks up something weird. Some kind of signal, something deliberate, passes among the three groups of whales. We all hear it. They begin chirping, first one group, then the second, then the third … it repeats and cycles, going on and on until the individual sounds all blend together.

  Alongside us, the paddlers in the canoe are suddenly on high alert. One young man sounds his drum with short, sharp beats, while the others ready their paddles.

  “Whoa … this is kind of eerie,” Harris says, shifting his weight in the raft. One after another, a dozen whales stick their heads up out of the water, spyhopping. Some follow with a tail slap, a roll, or a breach for good measure.

  I watch, fascinated, feeling the electricity passing between them. They’re communicating. And something else, too.…

  “I know it sounds crazy, but …” I whisper, “but it’s almost like they’re arguing.”

  Harris laughs. “Nothing would surprise me about these whales.”

  We’re really close to the bridge now. I can feel the current pulling our raft out toward the mouth of the inlet. I notice how quiet it is. With the roar of bridge traffic gone, the air is absolutely silent.

  “There!” Kevin yells. He points ahead to where a huge whale has positioned himself at the top point of the triangle that the three groups have formed. A hissing sound surrounds us, growing louder and louder. “L57 … Faith! He’s taking the lead!”

  I swivel around to see. All the whales are blowing rapidly now in synchronization, five or six times each. Short, quick breaths fill the air.

  Pfoosh—Pfoosh—Pfoosh.

  At the same time, they close ranks until the whole pod is now one huge group assembling directly ahead of us.

  “What’s happening?” Harris yells.

  “They’re getting ready to dive!” I shout.

  “And it’s gonna be one heck of a deep one!” Kevin announces.

  The blows continue, rapid and short, with the last ending in one long exhaled breath. Finally, a great whooshing noise echoes around us as nineteen whales, in unison, dive one final time, sending the water around our raft roiling and bucking.

  “Whoa!” Kevin yells. He turns on the motor, struggling to hold the craft steady against the enormous pull the pod’s dive has created. “I’m gonna follow!” he shouts and we take off like a shot. I hear the rumble of Grace’s motorboat coming to life as she struggles behind us, bucking in the current. Somehow, the tribal canoe keeps up, the pa
ddlers pulling hard in the water while two continue drumming.

  We cross under the bridge. The deck is jammed with people above, all peering down at the water. Kevin quickly guides our raft to the right, hugging the western shore, to give the pod the full width of the inlet to maneuver. He positions us so that we’re looking north under the bridge again back into Dyes Inlet. In Grace’s motorboat, Naomi counts dorsal fins as they slice past us through the water.

  “Are they all through?” I shout, turning to her.

  “Just about,” she yells back. “Seventeen so far!”

  The water under the bridge is empty now at the surface but churning underneath. As the whales pass through, they spread out widely into Rich Passage, slowly riding each other’s waves and the tidal current.

  I look back under the bridge just in time to see one lone whale breach, shooting herself straight up into the air. Then—spectacularly—half a dozen whales on our side of the bridge breach off our starboard side, led off by Canuck, breaking the surface not more than twenty feet from our raft.

  “They’re starting to party!” Harris yells over the din. Up on the bridge deck, seeing the majority of the whales passing by, people start to whoop and holler.

  “They’re gonna make it!” Kevin says. Tears are streaming down his face. “They’re really gonna make it.”

  Near the bridge, on the inlet side, two whales remain, circling. The tribal drummers start up a steady beat again.

  “Look!” I shout, pointing, “it’s Muncher!”

  Kevin brings his binoculars up to check as the little one does a spyhop.

  “You’re right,” he nods. “Looks like he’s got his mom with him … L47, Marina.”

  Out already in the passage, Canuck heaves herself up out of the water again, breaching, offering encouragement. Still in the inlet, Marina gives a deep blow and dives under the bridge. I hold my breath with her, waiting for Muncher to follow.

  “C’mon Muncher, you can do it,” I whisper as much to myself as to the little calf.