Whale Song (24 page)

Even my father appeared agitated.

“
Is everything okay?” I asked stiffly. “You need anything?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m good.”

We stumbled through an awkward game of
‘catch up’
. Neither of us had anything important to say. We’d both shut down.

I couldn’t wait for the visit to be over and I glanced at my watch uneasily. When our time was up, I rushed outside. I stood in the rain, lifted my face, and cleansed my soul.

In early June, I flicked on the television during a break from studying and caught a news report that made my heart stop.

Matsqui Institute was on fire.

I ran into the kitchen. “Nonna!”

“
What is it?” my grandmother cried out, alarmed. “What’s wrong,
carina
?”

We watched in horror as reporters commentated on a prison riot while camera footage showed flames engulfing several of the prison buildings.

“
Over three hundred inmates have seized control of Matsqui Institute,” a reporter stated. “Eight staff members are fighting for their lives on the roof of one of the burning buildings. Rescue teams are now on their way.”

The camera panned over to the eight trapped men. They waved frantically at a helicopter hovering above them. The men were airlifted from the building minutes before it collapsed.

“
What about Dad?” I asked fearfully.

My grandmother rushed to the phone. I heard her speaking to my grandfather in Italian. I couldn’t understand a word, but the sound of someone sobbing translates in any language.

“
Nonno will call us back,” she reassured me when she had hung up the phone.

We sat at the kitchen table, waiting, daring the phone to ring.

Half an hour later, Nonno Rocco called. My grandmother murmured a few words before passing me the phone.

“
Sarah, your papa is fine,” my grandfather said.

His voice sounded tinny through the phone receiver.

“
Did he get hurt?” I asked anxiously.

“
He’s a little bruised and sore. He got trampled in the riot but…he’s okay.”

I sniffled. “Can I see him?”

The line was muffled. “I’m sorry,
carina
,” Nonno Rocco said a minute later. “They have to fix the prison before visitors can come back.”

My grandmother hugged me after I hung up. “Don’t you worry. You’ll see your papa soon.”

Once more, I threw myself into my art. I painted and designed posters for imaginary plays. Anything to help me escape from the reality that was my life. When kids at school asked about my parents, I lied. I told them that my mother was a famous artist who toured the world and that my father traveled with her. No one really believed me.

I wrote my father every day, sometimes more than five pages detailing my day. But everything I told him was a lie. Except that I wanted him to come home. Every day after school, I waited by the phone, praying that he’d call me. The phone calls became less frequent.

I did what I could to help my grandparents. But mostly, I just stayed out of their way. I knew that they loved me, but I often wondered whether I was a burden to them. At times, their modest home felt claustrophobic and I’d escape outside. I wandered the streets, leaving Nonna Sofia and Nonno Rocco to worry about me.

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.

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 peaceful. 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.