that would have kept Mom here in the inlet, kept her home.
The whales. I’m sure of it.
If only they decided to visit before she left.
CHAPTER 2
By the time we haul our rowboat up onto the gravel beach at the Tracyton launch, a crowd is already gathered there, buzzing about the whale sighting. I steady myself as we walk up the concrete ramp, then hang back while Lena stows our gear.
Dyes Inlet is narrow here—it’s easy to see clear across to the other side where the Olympic Mountains rise up behind the tree line. Little towns sit scattered all along the shore but Tracyton is the one with the killer views. It only takes me a second to spot a few whales again, swimming just off the far shore. Plumes of water rise up off the surface as they blow.
Nearby, a couple of boats are already prepping to head out.
“Whoa!” one guy yells to his buddies. “One just came clear out of the water and rolled back down on his side.”
“It’s called breaching,” I mumble, turning my back to the inlet. I can’t stop wondering. Could it really have been him, our whale, here in the inlet? Maybe I’m just missing Mom so much, I imagined it.
“… the salmon were schooled up in the shallows,” I hear Lena explaining. “Maybe that’s where the orcas were headed.”
The crowd is growing larger by the minute.
“How close did you get?” someone asks.
“We could see them fine from where we were,” I say quickly.
“Kids have more smarts than you,” another man says and they all laugh.
Lena gives me a look, then smiles. I fake a smile back.
We walk in silence up the steep incline and pull our bikes out from behind the bushes. In the narrow street, the flow of people streaming down to see the whales is so thick we have to weave back and forth, back and forth, to avoid them. Just like salmon, swimming upstream.
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Once we’re past the crowd, we split up and I ride home fast, my legs pumping hard on the pedals, my head swirling with everything that’s just happened. Lena might be way more easygoing than me, but in all the ways that matter, we’re alike. We think about and care about the same things. Meeting her was one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me. But since Mom left—it’s like there’s this wall between us. My life totally changed and hers stayed the same. Talking about even the simplest things feels hard now.
I make the slow turn into the marina. The sharp smell of the inlet hits me and I remember again first visiting here almost five months ago, when school let out for the summer. Dad had heard about a houseboat that might be coming available and he wanted to check it out, “just for fun.”
Dad loves Dyes Inlet. More than loves it really, he lives in awe of it. So we all took a walk here one evening, over from the house we rented on East Sixteenth Street. I didn’t think much about it at the time. I was busy planning my three-month stretch of freedom that lay ahead. I sure never thought that the marina would wind up being my new “home.”
Then two months later Mom left, and we actually moved, like it had all been planned. I was so angry I didn’t speak to Dad for a week after.
I can remember exactly when everything started to change. It was just before school started up again in September, about a week before Mom’s birthday. We’d spent the day fishing on the inlet but it was a disaster. Dad had tried a million ways, trying to get Mom to talk or even just smile at one of his jokes. Nothing had worked.
That night, I couldn’t fall asleep. It was late and I’d made it halfway down the stairs when I heard them in the kitchen, talking. Dad’s voice was muffled; I couldn’t make out his words. At first I thought it was because he was afraid of waking me, until I heard Mom.
“Danny, don’t. It’s not your fault. Oh, Danno. Honey, it’ll be okay.”
I crouched there on the stairs, waiting for Dad to answer. Instead, the sounds coming from him got louder. He was crying. Crying! I’d never seen Dad cry, and it scared me, hearing it now. Mom’s footsteps echoed across the tiled floor.
There was a long, long pause and I could tell they were hugging.
“I haven’t been brave, Dan. I buried things, important things, willed them to just go away. And I dragged you into it, too.”
“It was my decision, Abbe,” Dad said. “Whatever it is, I love you.”
“I know,” she sniffled. “I love you too. And M. So much. It’s just … I need some time to figure out so much.…” Then—“Oh, Danno—,” Mom started to cry, “I’ve done such a terrible job mothering.”
The surprise of her words took my breath away. And listening there, on the stairs, I felt a new kind of scared and it wasn’t because of the crying.
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In the fading light, I roll down the steep embankment, passing a few people without saying hello. I’ve since decided that Dad moved us here because without Mom’s salary at the hospital, it’s cheap. Nothing more than a bunch of run-down floats hooked up to rotting pilings and bobbing on the tides. Peeling green paint and dying potted plants everywhere.
“Hey, sweetie,” Dad greets me, squinting against the setting sun. “How goes it?”
He’s sitting on the warped planks of the houseboat’s outer deck, tying up some newspapers with twine. I step over the rope fence and try to slide quickly past, avoiding his worried eyes. But he gets up and follows me inside anyway, trailing behind like a pet. That just makes me even sadder, reminding me of another casualty of Mom’s leaving, my lost cat, Blackberry.
“Hungry?”
I shake my head. “No, thanks,” I lie. My backpack hits the floor with a thud. “I’ve got tons of homework.” I start down the tiny hall and almost make it to my room.
“Did you stop at the PO on the way home?”
I shake my head no again and keep walking.
“O-kaaaaay,” Dad says, stretching out the word. “Well, come on out later if you change your mind about dinner … or want to talk.”
Without turning, I nod and push the door closed, wishing for the umpteenth time that I wasn’t an only child. I throw myself down on my narrow bed, the houseboat swaying with the sudden movement, and stare up at the ceiling.
Talk. That’s all Dad wants to do now, but it feels too late to talk.
Mom tried to talk too, that night before she left. She came into my room and switched on the light, but I was furious. I jumped out of bed and flicked it back off. I didn’t want to look at her, or hear anything she had to say. So we had our last conversation in the dark. Only it wasn’t a conversation really, it was more like a fight.
“It’s complicated, M. I don’t know how to explain it all right now,” Mom said. “I’m sorry.” She reached out to stroke my hair but I pulled away from her touch. “So dark … and wavy,” she went on anyway. “Just like my mother’s.”
Silence. More waiting. Finally, Mom let out a sigh.
“I know what I’m asking is huge, M. But I need you to trust me. I can’t do this alone. You’re such a capable girl. Can you be strong for me now, Marisa?” She stopped and waited, but I was determined not to say a word. I had no clue what she was talking about or what it had to do with me.
Until I remembered what she’d said to Dad that night in the kitchen. The words shot through me like a bolt, scaring me all over again.
“I just need some time, M. I’ll be back. But it’s the only—”
“So