Three years after I moved in with my grandparents, my father called me. Usually he’d speak to Nonno Rocco, so I knew immediately that something was up.
“Sarah?” he said. “Can you come visit me tomorrow?”
I was relieved that I was finally going to see him, since all of my requests had been denied for one reason or another. In the back of my mind, I sensed that he had something urgent and important to tell me. When I saw him, he looked uncomfortable and nervous.
“I don’t want you to come here anymore,” he said softly. “Or ask to come here anymore.”
I gaped at him, shocked. “But Dad, you’re all I have.”
“I’ll still write and call you occasionally. You need to move forward with your life.”
I shook my head. “How can I move forward without you?”
“Your grandmother told me that you refuse to go out with your friends, that you no longer call Goldie or even Amber-Lynn. She said all you do is write to me, draw horrible pictures and wait by the phone for me to call.”
“What business is it of hers?” I snapped.
“She’s concerned about you, Sarah. So am I.”
“Yeah, right,” I muttered.
He stretched one hand across the table. “You can’t lose yourself in school and work. There’s more to life than that. It’s not you.”
I scowled at him and yanked my hand away. “How do you know who I am? You’re in here. I’m out there, trying to―”
“I know, Sarah. You’re trying to live without a mother and a father. I’m so sorry for that. Nobody expected that I’d end up here. I just want you to be happy, to find someone you can love.”
“Love?” I said, mocking him. “Like you loved Mom―or me? You loved her so much you killed her.”
He flinched as if I had slapped him.
All the anger and resentment I had toward him boiled over. Unleashing a tirade of angry words, I poured out everything I had always been afraid to say.
“You loved me so much that you left me alone, with everyone knowing that my father is a murderer. Do you think I want or need that in my life? That’s fine, Dad. I’ll leave. I know when I’m not wanted.”
His face drained of all color. “But, Sarah―”
“What?” My eyes blazed with fury. “At least I had Nonno Rocco and Nonna Sofia? Yes, they’ve been wonderful―everything I could have hoped for. But it’s not the same.”
I flew out of the chair and stomped toward the door.
“I can’t understand what you did,” I said, refusing to look at him. “Your lawyer might want to call it suicide, but everyone else calls it murder. I’ll never forgive you for killing Mom. She might have begged you to do it, but you should have said no.” I glared at him. “Don’t worry, Dad. I won’t be back. Ever!”
Visiting hour was over.
I lived in my grandparents’ condo until shortly after my eighteenth birthday. Nonno Rocco had been hinting that they wanted to return to Italy, to the valley near Magione where the Rossetti family had lived for centuries. Nonna Sofia was torn between longing to move and wanting to keep me under her wing. When I assured her that I would survive on my own, my grandparents sold their condo, relocated to Italy and I started a new chapter in my life.
During the following years, I completed university and went on to a career in graphic design and advertising. Those few years of designing posters for school plays had left me yearning for approval and acceptance, so I joined a Vancouver company called Vision-Quest Advertising. I worked downtown in a cozy office on the fifth floor, in the design and graphics department. My specialty was creating logos and unique ad campaigns.
I was unmarried, unmotivated and unhappy. My life revolved around designing other people’s dreams and fighting off the occasional glimpse of a predatory gray wolf. It was strange how that wolf seemed to follow me everywhere I went.
When my grandparents had packed up my belongings from the house in Bamfield, the boxes had been stowed away in a rental storage unit. There was no room in the condo. Years later, those same boxes were stored in the basement of the small house I was renting in Vancouver. The three gifts that Chief Spencer had given me were safely packed in a shoebox in the back of my bedroom closet.
Sometimes I heard them calling me in the dark, lonely night.
I struggled to come to terms with my feelings toward my father, but the more I thought of him and his role in my mother’s death, the more unforgiving I became. I blamed him for leaving me. It was his fault that I couldn’t get close to anyone or commit to a relationship.
Why should I? Everyone I love leaves me in the end.
My life was filled with monotony―work, home, work. My co-workers tried on numerous occasions to encourage me to go out with them, but I had no interest in developing any relationships with them outside of the office.
After a while, I was able to push Bamfield and my parents from my mind. It was almost as if everything had happened to someone else. There were no constant reminders of my past, so I buried it deep in my subconscious mind. I was an orphan.
nineteen
Two weeks before my twenty-fourth birthday, I picked up the phone and heard a voice I hadn’t heard in years. Goldie’s.
“Sarah, Nana’s in the hospital.” Her voice trembled. “In Victoria. She was hit by a drunk driver.”
“I’ll be on the next plane,” I said before I hung up.
Two hours later, I found myself flying back to the island I hadn’t seen in more than a decade. Taking a taxi to the hospital, I stared out the window. The streets were still familiar. I arrived at the Royal Jubilee Hospital, paid the taxi driver and got out.
Then I strode into the hospital, remembering the last time I’d been there. The day Mom died. I rushed to the information desk and was directed to the third floor intensive care unit. A nurse gave me the room number and I tiptoed inside.
At first, I thought the room was empty. Then I saw her.
Nana was sleeping in the bed by the window. Her head was swollen and discolored, and a large bandage covered one cheek. What frightened me most was that the old native woman’s eyes were swaddled in strips of cloth. Blood seeped out one corner.
With a shudder, I turned to leave.
“Hai Nai Yu?”
Startled, I hurried over to her. “Nana? Are you awake?”
I saw the snow-white streak in her hair bob up and down.
“I’m here,” I said.
Nana weakly lifted her hand. “You came home.” Her voice was raspy but firm.
“Yeah, I did,” I said sheepishly. “Goldie told me about your accident. Did you really think I wouldn’t come?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “Nana, with all those bandages on your eyes, how’d you know it was me?”
She smiled in the dim light. “I may have lost my eyesight, Hai Nai Yu…but I have not lost my vision.”
Then she asked me about my father.
“We’re…estranged,” I said in a quiet voice.
The old woman shook her head. “It will pass.”
I didn’t believe her.
“Did I tell you the story of The Bridge of the Gods?” she asked.
“Not yet,” I said with a smile.
Long ago, the Great Spirit gave the people of the land everything they needed. No one was cold or hungry. But soon two brothers began to argue over the land. The Great Spirit told the brothers to shoot an arrow in opposite directions.
“Wherever your arrow falls, that will be your land.”
One brother aimed his arrow high and shot it southwards into the valley. The other brother shot his arrow north into the Klickitat country.
Then the Great Spirit built a bridge over the river that divided the brothers’ lands.
“This will connect you,” the Great Spirit said. “It will be a sign of peace, so that you and your people may visit those on the other side. As long as you remain friends, the Bridge of the Gods will remain.”
For years, the two brothers remained peacefu
l. But gradually, they became selfish, greedy and wicked. The Great Spirit punished them by withholding the sun’s warmth. Soon, the rains came and the people were very cold.
They begged the Great Spirit, “Give us fire or we will die!”
There was an old woman on one side of the bridge who still had some fire left in her lodge. The Great Spirit, softened by the people’s pleas for warmth, asked the woman, “What do you want most, in exchange for sharing your fire?”
The old woman asked to be young again.
She shared her fire and the following morning Loo-wit, the old woman, was both young and beautiful. Two young chiefs, one from the south and one from the north, saw the beautiful young woman and fell in love with her.
Loo-wit was charmed by both men and could not decide which she preferred. The men grew jealous of each other, causing quarreling amongst their two tribes. There was much fighting on both sides of the river and many warriors died.
Finally, the Great Spirit grew angry with the people and tore down the Bridge of the Gods, the sign of peace between the two tribes. The Great Spirit threw the rocks from the bridge into the river and turned the two chiefs into mountain peaks. Loo-wit was changed into a snow-capped peak so that neither chief could have her. And the Bridge of the Gods crumbled into the river, its beauty and promise lost in the unforgiving ways of the people.
Nana beckoned me closer. “Anger and resentment can destroy even that which the Great Spirit has created, Hai Nai Yu.”
Goldie joined me that afternoon in the hospital cafeteria.
“How did you know where I was?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Nana knew. She’s always known, Sarah.”
I discovered that before moving to Italy, Nonna Sofia had called Nana and given her the address of my first apartment. From that moment on, the old native woman had kept a watchful eye on me. Whenever I wrote to Nonna Sofia, my grandmother would immediately call Nana.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “What a pair.”
“They’re two of a kind, our grandmothers,” Goldie agreed.
The next thing we knew, we were howling with laughter. People stared at us as if we had lost our minds. As we wiped our tearing eyes on our shirtsleeves, I stared at her. It was as if we’d never been apart.
“So what’s new with you?” I asked.
I was surprised by the changes in her life. I discovered that she was engaged to a local native artist. Nelson Fergis specialized in carving huge twenty-foot totems. It made me remember my small hand-painted totem pole stored in the shoebox in my closet.
I left Nana and Goldie that evening, promising that I’d return the following morning. Goldie looked surprised when I told her I was staying at a hotel in Victoria until Nana was released from the hospital.
“Can you do that, Sarah?” she asked. “I mean with your job?”
I chuckled wryly. “I haven’t taken a holiday since I started there. They owe me.”
Nana’s fractured ribs mended quickly while the dark bruises covering her body slowly faded. But when the doctor removed the cloth from her eyes two days later, her sight was gone. The doctor suggested that she undergo an operation to try to restore some of her vision.
“I’m too old for operations,” Nana muttered, refusing to consider it. “I can see everything I need to. Right here.” She pointed to her head.
Goldie and I became absorbed in renewing our friendship and I never realized until that moment how much I had missed her. I missed sharing my thoughts with someone. We walked around Victoria, arm in arm, giggling like teenagers and ignoring the odd looks that we received.
“You ever hear from Annie?” I asked, curious.
“Yeah, she’s in Ethiopia now.”
I stared at her, stunned. “What the hell is she doing there?”
“She’s building wells.” She giggled.
“What do you mean, building wells?”
“She married a Presbyterian minister. They have two children, both boys. They’re living in Ethiopia, building drinking wells in some of the villages.”
I was speechless.
Goldie nodded. “I know. Who would’ve ever thought, huh?”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
We sat by the water fountain in the park across from the hospital and watched a group of young Sea Cadets. They were playing baseball. Two Cadet instructors―one wearing a purple shirt―had their backs to me. They were busily instructing the children in the rules of the game. One team wore black and silver jerseys while the other wore green and blue.
The innocent, carefree laughter of the children mesmerized me, as did the lean form of one of the men―the instructor of the black team. I laughed when a baseball rolled toward us and stopped a few feet away. The child in me wanted to get up, grab the ball and pitch it across the field. But that child was gone.
“What about you, Sarah?” Goldie asked, interrupting my thoughts. “How’s your dad doing?”
I shook my head, the smile fading from my face. “I haven’t seen him in years.”
She eyed me, curious. “Don’t you visit him?”
“No,” I said firmly. “He asked me to stop visiting a long time ago.” I left it at that, hoping that she wouldn’t persist.
If she was about to say something, she was interrupted by a loud shout from the field. The group of Sea Cadets cheered as one small boy ran around all the bases. He skidded to a stop past home plate. The black and silver team had won.
The Cadet instructor in the purple shirt high-fived his team, gathered up the baseball bats and motioned for the kids to pick up the stray balls. A short, stocky boy left the group and ran toward us. As he leaned down to pick up the baseball, he glanced up at me and smiled sweetly.
I waved to him, but when I noticed his jersey logo, I froze.
Sidney Sea Wolves.
A vision of yellow eyes flashed in my head.
“Wolves,” I mumbled, my mouth suddenly dry.
The boy’s smile faded and he eyed me guardedly. Then he darted away, his shoes kicking up dust. I have no idea what he thought when he heard that one word, but I do know one thing. I had frightened him.
Squinting into the sunlight, I watched as he approached the well-built man in the purple shirt. The boy whispered something in the Cadet instructor’s ear. The man draped a comforting arm around the boy’s shoulder, then hastily glanced my way.
I couldn’t see him clearly, but I knew that he wasn’t pleased.
Nana recuperated from the car accident, stubbornly refusing to use any topical medicines except her native remedies. Oddly enough, her cuts healed without leaving a scar. Even the doctors were amazed.
Determined to get back to work, I returned to Vancouver a week later―much to Goldie’s dismay. I was just finishing an ad campaign for a new nightclub in Burnaby when the phone rang.
“Sarah?”
It was my father.
“What do you want, Dad?” I asked stiffly.
“I…I’m getting out next month,” he said in a hesitant voice. “They’re letting me out on early parole. I’d like to see you, Sarah. Before I get out. I…miss you.” His voice sounded old and rough, but his words sounded sincere.
They stirred my guilt. I’d spent years carefully warehousing my emotions, stowing them in the dark recesses of my mind.
Now my father was back. And he was opening Pandora’s Box.
I let out a weary sigh. “Dad, I, uh―”
The door to my office was flung open and my heavily scented supervisor tiptoed in. He grinned and gave me an exaggerated bow. William West―a.k.a. Willie to everyone who knew him―was a colorful character given to flamboyant fashion and dramatic entrances.
“Sarah!” he hissed.
I pointed to the phone and mouthed, “I’m busy.”
Willy uttered a contrite gasp, then sidled closer to my desk.
“Sarah, are you there?” my father said.
“I can’t talk right now,” I muttered into the receiver. “When will you be�
�” I flicked a look at Willie. “Out?”
I jotted the information down on a post-it paper.
“Thanks for calling,” I said in a cool tone. “Goodbye.”
My father was still talking when I hung up.
Willie grinned. “I’m sorry, hon. Did I interrupt something?”
“No. Nothing important.” My eyes narrowed. “Why, what do you want?”
“Is that any way to treat your boss?” He stroked his freckled face thoughtfully. “How’s the restaurant coming?”
I watched him, suspicious. “It’s almost done. Why?”
Willie shrugged. “No reason.”
He plopped down in the chair across from me, crossed his legs and folded his well-manicured hands neatly in his lap. His closely cropped, fiery-red hair clashed with his impishly effeminate face and when he grinned at me, I knew that the man had something up his sleeve.
I frowned. “Yeah, right. What do you want this time?”
“We have a new client…and he’s a real babe.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively.
“So what?” I said, uninterested.
“Well, honey, he specifically requested you.”
I gave him a disdainful look. “Why would he ask for me?”
Willie leaned forward. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him yourself? He’s outside in the waiting room. Mr. King already interviewed him. You’ve been assigned to help him with logos for his team.” He stood slowly. “Oh, and honey? Let me know if you’d like some help. He’s positively delicious.” He drifted out of my office, leaving behind an overwhelming trail of cologne.
I stared at the wall, curious why a potential client would ask for me. After all, I hadn’t built up much of a reputation in the advertising world and there were others in my department who created sports logos just as well, if not better than I did.
“What’s so special about this new client?” I muttered.
Gathering my courage, I picked up the phone and turned my chair away from the door. “Maura, the new client―what’s the guy’s name?”
I didn’t hear her reply because someone rudely barged into my office.
Whale Song: A Novel Page 17