“Don’t tranquilize yourself. You’re not a house pet. Your fire is one of the things I admire most about you.”
“But I think that’s why Nate left. He saw that side of me, the ugly part, and he decided to walk away.”
George is watching me closely, unmoving, like something is roiling inside him and he’s about to burst with it.
“There are no ugly parts. Some of them are louder than others. Some might be vicious when provoked.” His eyes drill into mine. “But they’re all you. They’re all worthy of love.”
The intensity in George’s tone matches his gaze, and I have to look away. I stare out at the beach. It’s still bright out. I’m surprised by the number of surfers still at it.
“Not much to look at, is there?” George says, and I smile.
“How will we ever survive a week in this dump?”
“Uppers and downers?”
“A classic combo.”
“I’ll ask Kevin if he can hook us up.” George leans back in his chair, his hands laced behind his head and his bicepspopping.
“You should leave me out of the request.”
“True. I can’t believe you told him you hate whales. You should know better by now.”
“I was tired,” I say. “It slipped out.”
He chuckles. “People are so sensitive about whales.”
“Right?!”
“To be fair, they are extraordinary animals.”
“Traitor.”
“Did you know that whale urine moves critical nutrients around the ocean, sort of like how bees transport pollen?”
“I did not,” I say.
“Humpbacks, right whales, and gray whales are hugely important to the overall health of oceans. Increasing their numberswould help protect their ecosystems from climate change.” His eyes have gone kind of fierce, the way they do when he’s worked up.
“Aren’t you full of facts,” I say, smiling.
“There was a study last year. Your mom told me about it.”
My grin falls. That surprises me. “She did? She never talks about whales anymore.”
Before she left, my mom followed news of right whale sightings, births, and entanglements in fishing lines. She wrote letters to politicians and a column for the local paper about the environment, which Dad clipped every week and kept in a manila folder.
But when she came back, she was different. She went into full-time wife-and-mom mode. She baked and made lunches with notes in them and had afternoon snacks ready when we got off the school bus. She threw herself into helping my father with his cabinetry business, dreaming up plans to renovate the house to showcase his work and inviting customers in for coffee so they could see his craftsmanship. She still wrote the occasional op-ed and got fired up about rising sea levels, but there were no more reports of Francesca or her migration. No stories about whales at bedtime.
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Francesca and a whale named Francesca…
George’s eyes soften, like a storm-swept sea returning to a calm summer blue. “She does,” he says. “If you ask.” Then he stands and holds out his hand. “Come on.”
I let him pull me to my feet. “Where are we going?”
“We’re not going to spend the week watching movies. But I thought we should tonight.”
I follow George upstairs, where he’s made a picnic on the bed with the chocolate-covered strawberries and candy. A grin spreads across my face when I see what he has cued up on the flat-screen.
