Waiting for Unicorns

by Beth Hautala

  I was so reluctant to stop the search that Dad eventually had to insist, gently taking the boom cables from my hands and winding them back up in their crates. Although I didn’t want to, I finally gave in, and helped him put away the equipment. If I put up too much of a fight, his surprise at my commitment might turn to concern or frustration, or worse, curiosity.

  Even though Dad knew about me and unicorns, I wasn’t ready to explain my jar of wishes just yet. I was worried he wouldn’t understand. Sometimes a secret gets better when you share it, and sometimes telling a secret makes it smaller. I couldn’t afford to have my belief in unicorns shrink just when I was about to see them. We still had four whole days left to search, and just because we hadn’t found the whales today didn’t mean we wouldn’t find them tomorrow.

  But the next day was no better.

  And neither was the day after that.

  All day we orbited the second star on the map in ever-widening circles. And then we did the same surrounding the third star Dad had marked. With chattering teeth and shaking fingers I turned the knobs and dials on the receiver myself, while Dad lowered booms into the Arctic Sea. And with every ounce of strength I possessed, I poured my whole self into listening, waiting to hear whale song. Waiting for the voices of my unicorns. But they did not sing for me.

  In the midst of all that cold, where gray skies pressed down on gray, empty water, I tasted the same disappointment Dad must have felt, searching for his belugas and never finding them. Even my wishes, written across dozens of tiny paper slips, had gone still in their jar. Silent.

  And the sea remained quiet. Empty. By the middle of the fourth day it was all I could do to keep from screaming, “Where are you? You’re supposed to be here!”

  But I didn’t scream, or cry. Instead I just stared up at the cloud-filled skies as they bore down against my chest, and I whispered one word, over and over and over again until Dad rested his heavily mittened hand on my shoulder. I jerked away from him, throwing myself against the prow of our little whaling boat, whispering that one word in my heart.

  Please. Please. Please.

  It became a kind of prayer. A prayer that went unanswered.

  AS DAYLIGHT FADED AWAY on the evening of the fifth day, Dad stood on deck beside me in the cold wind, and together we searched the dark, empty seascape. Beginning at sunrise we would start making our way back to Baffin Island and then Churchill.

  Even though Dad was standing right next to me, I felt alone. This was different for him. He was used to this. The hope, the search, the disappointment. And then he would try again. But this was my only chance.

  Dad didn’t need the unicorns the same way I did. He didn’t have a jar filled up with wishes, one of which needed granting more than anything else. He didn’t still need her. Not like I did.

  But none of that mattered now because they weren’t here. There were no unicorns.

  I began carefully hauling in the booms, my back to the empty sea, ocean water splashing on the deck and onto my boots as I heaved the long cables up over the rail. Even with the protective waterproof choppers, it only took a few minutes before my hands were frozen and I couldn’t feel my fingertips anymore. Dad came and took a cable from me, hauling it hand over hand and winding it into a neat coil on the deck until the heavy boom attached to the cable’s end reached the surface. And he hauled it over the rail as well, his strong arms making it all look so easy.

  “You okay, Tal?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” I said. But I was clenching my teeth and holding back tears, so the words came out funny.

  I didn’t at look at him. I wanted him to go away so I could just be angry instead of sad. Because somehow that was easier. Sad brought everything closing in around me until I couldn’t breathe anymore, or think straight—even if I wanted to. So I chose angry instead. I was angry at Dad for being gone, at the whales for not being there at all, at myself for hoping, at Mom for dying. And I was almost sure Dad would turn around and walk away. Because, maybe, that was easier for him.

  But he didn’t.

  With his arms full of equipment he stood there behind me, his tall frame swaying easily with the motion of the rocking boat.

  “I know this is hard,” he said.

  When I didn’t respond right away, he sighed. Then he said, “I miss her, too, Talia.”

  The wind caught his words and threw them out to sea, and my stomach dropped as they floated away. I wanted to hang on to them, to write them on a slip of paper so I could keep them. I hadn’t realized how desperately I needed to hear him say that—to hear Dad say he missed her. And it wasn’t fair of me to be mad at him for never having said it before because I never talked about Mom, either. It was the one wish I’d never made, and maybe I should have. Maybe I should have been wishing it all along.

  I wish we could talk about Mom.

  “Talia. Look at me.” Dad’s voice was quiet and firm.

  But I couldn’t look at him. Instead, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, making myself swallow the tears.

  “You think you’re the only one who’s hurting?” Dad asked, setting down his equipment and coming to stand beside me. I was surprised by the bite of frustration that iced over his words. “You think you’re the only one who would give just about anything to have Mom back?” His voice shook and his mittened hands gripped the guardrail. “I know I haven’t been there for you as much as I should have been,” he said, “and I might be getting more things wrong than right, but I sure as hell know you’re not fine.”

  I bit my lip and stared, dry-eyed, over the water.

  “I’m doing the best I can, Tal,” he said. “I know this is hard, for both of us, but I’m figuring this out as I go. And I’m right here now. You don’t have to do this alone.”

  It wasn’t until then that I actually looked at him.

  “You’re right here?” The threat of tears vanished, swallowed up by the hotness rising in my chest. “I’ve been on my own for weeks! You went off to look for whales, and you just left me!”

  “I know,” he said. “I know, and I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry? No! That’s not fair! That doesn’t just fix everything!”

  “I can’t fix this!” Dad said. “And you’re right! It isn’t fair. Nothing about this is fair. Losing Mom wasn’t fair. Coming here, that wasn’t fair to you. The missing belugas aren’t fair. Leaving you with Sura wasn’t fair—for either of you. And now we can’t find those narwhals, and that’s not fair, either. Life isn’t fair, Talia! And no matter what I do, no matter how sorry I am, I can’t fix this for you.”

  His voice had gone from angry to so quiet and low, I almost couldn’t hear him over the noise of the water and the boat.

  “If I knew how to fix it, I would. If I knew what you needed, I’d make sure you had it, Tal.” He ran his hands over his head in frustration. “But I don’t know what you need. I don’t even know what I need.”

  I stared at the toes of my boots. The spray off the boat had glazed them in salt water.

  “But I’m not giving up,” Dad said. “I’m not leaving again. I’m not going anywhere without you. Okay? I promise.” He turned, staring at the side of my face. “I want to try and figure this out. With you. I thought maybe bringing you out here would help get us started.”

  I pressed myself against the rail, closing my eyes and letting the wind whip salt spray over my skin. It was bitter cold and tasted like tears. And suddenly I wanted to tell him I didn’t know what I needed either. I wanted to tell him how much I’d missed him. How much I missed Mom. How much I wanted everything to go back to the way it was before. I wanted to tell him to keep trying to figure things out. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, too, because no matter how much I didn’t want to admit it, I knew that even if he’d stayed, even if we’d never come to Churchill, I still would have been angry and sad.

  But I d
idn’t say anything. I just stood there, staring out at the waves of salt water. And then, slowly, I leaned over and rested my head against his shoulder, fingering the tiny horn that hung around my neck on its delicate silver chain.

  On the morning of the sixth day, we woke up early to do one final search. Then around lunchtime, when we still hadn’t found anything, Dad officially called off our expedition, and we began making our way back to Baffin Island. We would stay there until the following morning when The Walrus would arrive and take us the rest of the way to Churchill.

  Hours later when the boat finally docked, Dad had to nearly carry me to shore because I was so cold and stiff, and tired with disappointment. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my hair.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  I just shook my head and buried my face in his chest. For a minute I considered telling him about my jar so that he would know why those unicorn whales were so important. But I didn’t.

  We stayed the night on the island, huddled up next to small propane stoves and hot cups of coffee, which normally would have tasted too dark and bitter to me. That night the bitterness was exactly right. And although it wasn’t fair, maybe it didn’t have to be to still be okay. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to find those unicorns just yet, because if I had, Dad never would have said the things he did. And maybe—maybe—I needed to hear those things, at least on this trip, more than I needed unicorns.

  AS DAD AND I DOCKED in Churchill and started hauling our equipment and supplies back to the CNSC, I felt ready to get back to the blue house—to Sura, and Simon, and the Birdman. We’d only been gone nine days, but I’d missed them. More than I thought I would.

  Dad and I didn’t say much on the drive back to town, but it wasn’t as uncomfortable as before we left. Knowing he still missed Mom, knowing he hadn’t forgotten all about her, knowing he wanted things to change between us had made the Mom-sized space between us shift a little. Maybe even shrink.

  Sura met us at the door and welcomed us back, and I actually gave her a hug, which surprised her I think. She started rushing around after that, helping us settle in, putting the kettle on the stove for coffee and hot chocolate, doing her best to make us feel like we’d come home. Which, in a way, we had.

  “I’m going to put my stuff away,” I called as I headed toward the stairs, but there were only muffled voices of response from the kitchen.

  I made my way up the narrow stairway, hefting my duffel bag over my shoulder, my steps a bit clumsy in the steadiness of the house after the constant motion of the boat.

  I dropped my bag on the bed and surveyed my room, welcoming and untouched in my absence. My books were stacked neatly on my shelf, my shoes lined against the wall by my closet. My corkboard hung over my desk—littered with bits of Churchill that represented something to me. I’d pinned up the arctic tern feather Sura had given me, her recipe for touton, and the words to “Baby Blue” that Simon had copied down.

  I ran my finger along the edge of the tern’s feather before sighing and unzipping my bag. A bundle of dirty clothes, socks, mittens, hats, and wool sweaters spilled out. And buried beneath it all, my jar of wishes sat silent and motionless.

  All summer, I’d been waiting for that moment out on the water. But that moment had come and gone and my jar was still full. Now I didn’t know what to do with it because this wasn’t part of the plan. I didn’t want to put it back under my bed. I was afraid its fullness would rise into me while I slept, filling me up with the weight of my unfulfilled wishes. But I couldn’t just leave it sitting on top of my desk for everyone to see, either.

  So I emptied my duffel of dirty clothes and left my jar where it was, in the bottom of the bag, zipping it up and stuffing the whole thing in the back of my closet.

  After I brought my laundry downstairs and started a load in the wash, I wandered back toward the kitchen and leaned against the doorway, listening to Dad tell Sura about our expedition as she made dinner. And then I walked in, washed my hands in the sink, and began pulling apart a head of lettuce for the salad Sura was making.

  I felt Dad’s eyes on me and heard him falter briefly in whatever he was saying, but Sura wasn’t fazed. She didn’t make a fuss or tell me she didn’t need my help, which was probably true. Instead, she just flashed me a warm smile and returned to the onions she was chopping.

  We moved quietly around the kitchen, me slowly navigating the unfamiliar room, and Sura offering directions whenever I began to look a little lost. Like drawing lines between coordinate points on an uncharted map, I was slowly finding my way.

  I glanced at Sura, watching her move around the kitchen. She made it look so easy, same as Simon playing his guitar, and I added a wish to my jar, writing it across a slip of paper in my mind.

  I wish I could cook like Sura.

  But as I watched her, I noticed that she looked different than usual. There was something not quite right—anxiousness hung around her eyes. Her eyebrows kept coming together as she worked, settling her face into a worried frown. Sura’s kitchen was the one place where she was usually comfortable and totally at ease, and I suddenly wondered if it was me. Maybe I was in the way? But when she caught me looking at her, she smiled. I probably wouldn’t have noticed the effort it took, except that I was used to people rearranging their faces around me. The doctors and nurses did it all the time while Mom was in the hospital, like by changing their expressions they could protect me from something. And a kind of heavy unease settled in my chest as I tried to shake the feeling that Sura was doing the same.

  She waited until we finished dinner—salad with a light dressing, steaming bowls of caribou stew, and warm crusty bread fresh from the oven—before she told us what had happened.

  “The Birdman was attacked by a bear.” She said the words quiet and slow, like she was trying to ease them into the room and do as little damage as possible.

  But the way she said “attacked” made the walls in the kitchen close in on me. There was a roaring in my ears, and Dad sat up very straight in his chair. All I could see was the face of that polar bear—nanuq—long and white, its black eyes small and steady as it gazed at me from the other side of the windshield.

  Churchill’s polar bears seemed especially attracted to the Birdman. None of us knew why. The Birdman obeyed all the rules, stuck to the roads, carried pepper spray, wore bells to signal his presence, and never provoked a bear. Perhaps he smelled particularly tasty.

  “He’s all right,” Sura said, looking at me anxiously. “Or, he will be.”

  The Birdman had been just outside of town. It was early in the morning when a small road crew, working to repair some of the ice-damaged roads, heard someone screaming. They’d taken a truck over the tundra and not more than three hundred yards into the scrub, they found the Birdman getting worked on by a young bear.

  Sura paused and glanced at Dad, and whatever passed between them made her skip the details. She told us how the bear had been shot right there in the scrub, and how the road crew had rushed the Birdman back to town. He was at the hospital now. Simon was with him.

  That was all I needed to hear. I was out the door and racing for the Churchill Regional Health Authority building. I heard the screen door open and Dad call my name, but I gritted my teeth and didn’t stop.

  This was too big. Too urgent. Dad hadn’t been here for the last six weeks. He didn’t know Simon and the Birdman like I did. They were important. I had to go.

  I RAN ALL THE WAY, and Dad caught up to me by car. I could tell he was upset with me for taking off, but he didn’t say anything. He just drew his lips together in a straight line and sighed, running a hand through his hair. Together we walked into the hospital.

  A nurse led us to the Birdman’s room, but I hesitated. My legs had quit working. I was still out of breath from running, and now I was shaking, too, nervous and scared. I fell into a chair just outside his roo
m. I needed to make my stomach settle down and my heart return to its proper place in my chest before I went in. I leaned over with my elbows on my knees, and propped my face in my hands, examining the linoleum—diamonds and squares marching down the hall.

  I knew it was the Birdman on the other side of the wall, but it wasn’t him that I kept seeing in my head. It was Mom. And for that reason I couldn’t move an inch. So I sat there, staring at the floor until Dad sat down beside me.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  I nodded, but I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. I didn’t want him to see how scared I was. So we just sat there, me and Dad. It had been a while since either of us had been inside a hospital. He seemed uncomfortable, too, and I watched him tap his feet against the linoleum. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. Just like my heartbeat.

  Eventually, he patted my knee and stood up.

  “You don’t have to come in, Talia,” Dad said gently. “He’ll understand.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” I said. And I meant it.

  Dad nodded, and without another word, knocked softly on the Birdman’s door. He was welcomed by a warm “c’mon in” from the other side.

  Dad disappeared, but I stayed out in the hall, pulling the fractured bits of myself together.

  It wasn’t that I hated hospitals. I knew that lots of good things happened in them, too. People got better, babies were born—good things. This was a place of healing.

  It wasn’t even that I was afraid of what the Birdman might look like. Even if it was horrible, I’d heard his voice. He’d welcomed my dad just as he always did. And he sounded the same as he always had, bear mauling or not. He’d be out of the hospital soon.

  So what was I afraid of?

  I leaned back in my chair. Mom’s words washed over me.