by Anne Valente
I told Tom I was pregnant two weeks before my father’s diagnosis. He came home with balloons that night, big gaudy congratulations balloons and triangle hats and kazoos and cake, our baby’s first birthday party, the only one just for us. He pulled me close, kissed the line of my neck just below the hat’s elastic, and I felt his light bloom from that spot, a light I thought of again and again in the following weeks as my father’s began to dim.
That his light had left the earth was a truth, unbearable. It was something palpable, a feeling I’d never admit to my mother or Tom, a tangible lack I felt as clearly as the onset of winter, the sun turned from the earth, a rotation away that wore down my heart.
I thought I felt him again, only once, four days after the funeral, one morning after Tom left for the office. I was standing in the kitchen, bent over the sink and waiting for the morning sickness to pass. Our baby moved and then a cardinal hit the window, bright furious flash, a red as clear as a small star. Look for me in rainbows, my father had told us one July afternoon, when he felt something closing in upon him. But I saw him in cardinals instead, if only for a moment— and then he was gone, a bird flown away across treetops, as quickly and violently as it came.
In the morning, I awoke early, well before Tom. When he finally came downstairs, I’d already called in sick.
Baby nausea? he said. I thought we were past that now.
I’m just tired, I said. That noise again. It kept me up all night.
The lumberyard? He smiled at me, a smile that made him familiar again.
I don’t know what it is. I can’t believe you slept through it.
He sat down next to me on the couch. I’m sorry about the dolphins, Kate.
Each dolphin has a signature whistle. Did you know that? Scientists can tell every dolphin apart by the shape of their sonograms.
You sound like your father, he said. He touched my knee. A featherlight touch, warm and pooling, but to look at him felt impossible. His comment was one I’d have hated once, as irksome as wool scratching skin, but now his voice felt like a lullaby, some quiet, homesick hymn.
After Tom left I lay on the couch between sleep and waking, a sensation I imagined our baby felt floating inside the womb, muted pink light, the two of us dreaming together upon couch cushions. I knew her ears were taking shape, small snail shells, but that her eyelids would be closed for another few months, a world of sound but not light, only shadows and silhouettes and my movements.
I had wanted to be a biologist, once. I wanted to see the world as my father did, and my mother, retired now from teaching high school biology but there was a time, between the both of them, when our house flooded itself of wonder. At dinner, over my head, they spoke of bottlenose dolphin behavior and fetal pig anatomy and cell division and plant species, so much that I yearned to know what they knew. But I trailblazed instead, set myself anew, and now even in dreams recognized the dull beat of hours, ticked away at my desk, as no match for the pulse of waves or blood.
In the afternoon, beyond fitful napping, I looked out the backyard window and noticed three neat piles of leaves as if they’d appeared for the first time. Tom had raked, clearly, had known how much I hated the upkeep of homes, even after the stretch of the summer when he’d picked up my slack and watered, mowed, weeded. I put on my jacket, started the car, and by the time Tom came home from work I’d gone to the store and returned and made homemade chili, his favorite.
What’s this for? I heard him say, felt him come up behind me near the stove.
No reason. I turned and looked at him. Thanks for raking the leaves.
He kissed the top of my head, then leaned low to kiss my stomach, my sweater.
After dinner, my mother called. Tom answered the phone and I knew it was her by the lilting tenor of his voice, softened in her wake since my father left.
Where were you today? she asked when Tom passed me the phone. Did you go out for lunch?
Home sick, I said. Nauseous, and tired.
When I was pregnant with you, I ate fresh ginger. Grated it into tea.
That’s not it, Mom. I hesitated, looked across the room to where Tom sat, reading a magazine. Have you not heard those noises at night? It’s been so steady, the past few nights.
My mother grew quiet. No, dear, I’ve heard nothing.
It must be the lumberyard here, I said, an explanation that was beginning to sound thin even to me. So have you heard anything more? About the dolphins?
They found a buyer in Florida, she said. Some private facility that will charge people to swim with them. I’m going to see them tomorrow. They’re being shipped out this weekend.
I heard the hurt in her voice, so palpable I could touch it.
Do you want me to meet you there? I can come by after work. Just tell me what time you’re going.
No, she interrupted me, her voice quiet. I’ll be just fine on my own.
When she hung up the phone, I blinked across the room at Tom, the stretch of hardwood between us vast as a valley.
They’re selling the dolphins, I said. This weekend.
Tom looked up from his magazine. So soon?
My mother, she sounded so sad.
Tom set down his magazine, moved from the living room to the kitchen where I sat. Maybe it’s for the best, he said, blanketing his hand over mine.
I looked up at him, his face unfamiliar, different.
How can you say that? I felt a white-hot prickling run the length of my body. How can you even say that?
Maybe it will help you both get closure, is all I mean. Why is that so terrible to say?
Because you don’t understand, I said. I pushed myself away from the table and stood there a moment, blinking, wild-eyed and immobile, and then felt the air close in upon me, a vacuum, the space of the house too tight to breathe.
I walked out into the yard and watched the sun submerge itself into the silhouettes of trees, a goodbye that felt wistful as the wind picked up, swirled the leaves Tom had raked.
What the hell are you doing? I heard Tom’s voice behind me, the crackle of leaves beneath his shoes as he approached. What is it that makes you so fucking angry all the time?
But there was no answer for him, no words, not even a deep well of rage to draw from out here on open land. Instead there were only tree branches, and wind, the swirl of air pushed from somewhere else on this earth.
There are rocks that slide across Death Valley, I told him, with no apparent cause of wind. Researchers know they move by the tracks they leave in the sand.
I don’t know what to say to you anymore, Tom said. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on here.
Don’t you? Jesus Christ, Tom. My father. My father’s gone.
Sure, Kate, your father’s gone. But something else is going on here. Why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on.
The wind receded around me then, leaving only the red-blazed urge to strike, to hit him hard, the solidity of fist against skin. Before I could move the wind gusted back and slammed into both of us and then the howling began, a hum so loud it vibrated through bone.
Tom stared at me. Let’s go inside, he said, the rage in his voice replaced by fear, and I moved through the door behind him, belly churning, the howl spinning a funnel cloud around us, so loud it seemed to rattle through my ears to my brain and then everything fell quiet, once Tom closed the door, the silence of the house as startling as a scream.
That wasn’t the lumberyard, Tom said.
No. It wasn’t.
I’ve never heard a sound like that in my life.
Neither have I. I moved upstairs to our bedroom, away from him, while the howl picked up again and rattled the windows. I didn’t want to talk, not anymore, not for anger but for something more sobering, the first time I thought of them when Tom said it—of signature whistles, the only of their kind, and of clicks louder than waves, a sound strong enough to stretch across the sea, an unsounded void I once thought was the most immeasurable.
In the morning, after the sound pushed its fury against our windows through the night, after even Tom lay awake next to me, his breathing accelerated and after I tossed and rolled, our baby kicking, I awoke from some brief stint of sleep to the sunrise and no howl, its absence as violent as its blare. Over breakfast of only coffee, neither of us hungry, Tom looked at me across the kitchen table.
You need to tell me what’s going on, he said.
I’d tell you if I knew.
But you know. You need to be open with me. We’re having a little girl, Kate. I don’t need to tell you that again.
I stood from the table, poured the rest of my coffee down the drain. This reminding of our child, the last thing I wanted to hear.
At work I tried to concentrate, despite sleeplessness, growing nausea, despite every tingling cell of my skin telling me to stop, turn off the computer, walk away and out of the office forever. When I’d first told my parents I was going into marketing, my mother’s features fell. But you're just like us, she said, and I’d wanted to slap her in that moment—the only critique she ever lodged, as it turned out, the only moment she ever uttered words that weren’t full-hearted support. It didn’t surprise me that when the clock ticked past five, I found my car moving toward Columbus, toward my father’s facility, where I knew she would be.
When I stepped into the facility, the one key I still had, I saw my mother at the other end of the pool, the high rafters of the ceiling splayed above her, dwarfing her small shape kneeling next to the water. The surface placid but for a few small waves, swirl of fins, several of six bottlenose dolphins my father had kept for over fifteen years. As a teenager I’d come to see them so many times, had sat by the water and held my palm to their noses though my father never let me swim with them, never wanted to commercialize them in any way. I’d been almost fearful of them, for the intelligence they held, for the things my father told me they could detect, as if they could see through me.
My mother didn’t look up when I walked in and stood beside her.
I can’t believe we’re coming to the end, she said. Two dolphins swam past her. I couldn’t tell if she spoke to me or to them. At last she looked up. Have a seat, she said.
I took off my jacket and shoes, sat beside her, let my feet sink into the water.
Back to work today?
Sort of, I said. Still no sleep.
My mother nodded like she knew, impossible to tell if she was remembering her own pregnancy or understood something more.
Mom, something’s happening. These noises at night.
I stopped there, unsure where to go. She stayed quiet so long, watching the ripples, that for a moment I thought she didn’t hear me.
In my class once, she finally said, we examined a case where researchers placed objects high on shelves, way above the hospital beds of people who were dying. Horseshoes, bowls, picture frames. The people who lapsed into comas, who needed crash carts, they could all describe the exact objects on those shelves when they woke up, though they had no way of seeing them from their beds.
A dolphin swam up to me, nudged my toes, so close I could barely breathe.
Your father always said dolphins were attracted to pregnant women, my mother said. Their sonar is so advanced, they know you’re carrying a child before you do.
I remembered this, remembered my father telling me so. They can hear the heartbeat, I whispered. The dolphin pushed against my calves. I remembered they could detect illness as well—tumors, their sonar as intricate as ultrasounds. I wondered if they saw my father’s cancer before he knew, a thought that pressed against my rib cage, the dolphin’s skin against my skin. I wondered if they could see every hurt the human body held.
Tom is a good man, my mother said.
The best, I said, so soft I barely spoke.
My mother watched the dolphins a moment longer, the shadow of their shapes swirling just beneath the surface, and then stood. Still in rainbows, she said, and touched the crown of my head, though we both knew that wasn’t true, that there was more, so many other iterations than refracted light.
On the drive home my belly moved, unusually active, not nausea or sickness. I wondered if our girl sensed the dolphins in the same way they sensed her, if energy could penetrate the walls of membranes just to be near unmediated life alone. I wanted that for her, an unsounded awe. To drive past shocks of turning trees and really see them, the blood oranges and sun-gilded yellows just outside my own driver’s side window, to imagine where they came from, how they
As I pulled onto our street, the wind picked up again and whipped around the car, scattering leaves across the pavement. The sun began its descent beyond the trees above our house, casting the yard in muted light, a slanted glow that for a moment made the world warm.
Inside, Tom stood in the kitchen cooking pasta. He didn’t turn when I walked in.
How’s your mother? he asked, already aware of where I’d been.
She’s sad. I set my keys on the table, felt something let go. And so am I.
Tom turned. Good.
I felt myself flinch. Good?
Good that you can admit that. That you can say it, finally.
I watched him, unblinking. And as he moved across the kitchen toward me, a blast of sirens erupted beyond the windows, the same sirens we’d heard all summer, the same sirens that brought only a heaviness now, a weight.
Tom stopped in the middle of the room and looked outside. I can’t believe they’re running those now, he said. The sky is clear.
I looked out the window too, saw only marbled sky and fading sunlight, but also the winds, tree branches bent beneath their force, an increasing churn that pushed at the windows until a parallel siren began to blare.
You know what that means, Tom said. A second siren, I knew, an emergency. A warning to move to the basement.
This is ridiculous. It’s nearly November.
But the way Tom was watching me, I knew we should go downstairs, now.
I grabbed a flashlight, Tom pulled candles from the utility drawer, and we crouched inside the closet beneath the stairs, a sheltered womb, a space to shield us from wind and everything else as the lights flickered out.
You are sad, Tom said through the dark. You are sad and you can say that.
You don’t understand, I said as the sirens grew louder. And then I heard the howl, low and faint, so distant I could almost ignore it.
I do understand, Tom said. The howl expanded and spread. And then he grew quiet and we both heard the sound growing louder, closer, felt it approach the concrete walls beyond the closet, half-submerged in the earth, a wailing cocoon enclosing the house.
My father, I said. To say the words was impossible, as if a lack of light stole the air from the room, as if the sirens pushed every shred of oxygen from the earth.
It hurts, Kate. I know. I know how much you hurt. But there’s more, he said, and I wanted to push him from the closet, I wanted to sit alone in the dark and make him stop as the wind swirled around us, as the howl crowded the space between us.
That noise, I whispered.
I know. Just tell me. Tell me what else I need to know.
Our baby kicked against my belly, an energy vibrating to a pitch, and the windows of the basement blew open, a crash we heard clear from the closet, the wind ripping through the rooms and under the closet door, a current of air like a ghost.
I don’t know, I said, louder. I don’t know what this is.
But you do, Tom yelled back, his voice a match to mine above the wind, the screeching howl. You know as well as I do, you just don’t want to say it.
I’m afraid, I said, and the howling exploded through my brain, so loud it seemed to topple the house, rip through every support beam, every blood vessel.
Yes, Tom said, a yell I barely heard across the clamor of wind and debris.
I thought of my father then, of a moment when I was small, when we’d walked down to the creek behind our house. He’d shown me a nesting pool of tadpole
s, tails flicking, shiny glisten beneath the surface of a sun-speckled current. Tadpoles have lungs just like dolphins, he’d said and I watched until they floated to the surface, gulped what small breath their lungs could hold, a space I imagined as small as a pinprick, the size of the dandelion seeds I blew into the creek after my father walked away, back up the hill toward the house, the impossible wish to be everything he was, to know what he knew.
I am not who I wanted to be.
My voice, no louder than the faintest of footfalls. To say it was to break. But Tom heard it, above all wind and sound, above the blaring of howls and tornado sirens, the rattle of shutters and wind-splintered doorframes. I felt his hand through the dark, his palm encasing my own.
I am not who I wanted to be, I said again. For her. For anyone.
But you will be, Tom said. We all know you will.
I wanted to ask what we he meant, how he could possibly know, but the wind whipped the breath from my lungs, leaving behind only a wash of calm.
I held a hand to my belly, stomach subsiding, our baby somehow soothed. The lights flooded back on and the rattling ceased and the wind died down and retreated through the windows, undisturbed and unbroken, and the howl was gone, no hum, no light. The sirens slowed to a whine, then faded, then stopped. Tom pulled me from the closet to the window, where the sun sank the last of its light, a rotation away that broke my heart, even still, though I knew the warmth would burn elsewhere, some place unknown but bright. And then there was nothing, no siren, no noise and no emergency but only my belly, the shape of Tom’s hand on mine, and the cadence of breath in the signature of our lungs.
A VERY COMPASSIONATE BABY
Gerard finds he cannot take his baby anywhere. Once, when they walked into the Dairy Queen on McPherson, a teenager passed them on the way out and dropped his strawberry ice cream on the pavement. The baby watched the pink scoop fall woefully to the ground, then exploded into such unmanageable tears that Gerard and his wife had to bring him back to the car. Another time, when they took the baby to the park on a sun-filled spring day, the park crew was out mowing the grounds, and the baby leaned out of his stroller, saw the grass flying, weeds razed, dandelion spores whipping up and away on currents of violent air, and he cried with such deep sorrow that the sun couldn’t cheer him, nor the baby ducks swimming through the pond, nor the tulips blooming in the fields. They turned the stroller around and took him home.