Winter's Tide Read online

  And I was not looking forward to seeing Diana again this afternoon. To tell the truth, my track record with stepsiblings wasn’t too good right now.

  “Daddy,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  I hesitated. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to say to him. Plus, he was already tense about Grammy, and I didn’t want to worry him more. Finally I said, “What do you think about Diana and Lynn staying home from the hospital today?”

  Daddy was driving across the first bridge over the water, and I looked over at the grayish-green waves at an ugly industrial area with a tall mountain of sand. “You have to remember that they don’t know Grammy the way we do. You’ve grown up with Grammy. Diana and Lynn have only known her for a little while. Don’t hold it against them, Stephanie.”

  “Okay,” I said. But I realized I was holding it against them. I didn’t think they were being loyal enough to Grammy. Especially Diana. Grammy had been so kind to her!

  As if reading my mind, Daddy added, “It’s not our place to judge others for what they do or don’t do.” He looked over at me and smiled. “Leave that to God. Plus, think of it this way. This morning you and I got private time with Grammy. And they’ll go to the hospital tonight when we go back.”

  I nodded as we passed a surf shop that was closed for the winter. Shiny plastic mannequins wearing bikinis and surfer jams seemed to be shivering in the frosty window. A big sign said, REOPENING EASTER WEEKEND. I knew Daddy was right. I needed to stop being mad at Diana. Telling myself that and doing it weren’t the same though.

  When we arrived back at the apartment, the aroma of chicken soup surrounded us. Diana was sitting on the couch with wet hair, wrapped in a blanket, eating a bowl of soup, while Lynn stirred the pot by the stove. In a closet in the corner of the kitchen, Grammy’s dryer clanked and whirred. It sounded like a pair of shoes was in there, thudding as the dryer turned.

  Jelly ran to the door when we came in, but when he saw it was us, his head drooped, and then he waddled back down the hallway and plunked himself down outside Grammy’s bedroom with a loud sigh.

  “How is Grammy? Want some chicken noodle soup?” Lynn asked.

  “Sure,” Daddy said. “She’s resting right now. We met with the doctor, a Dr. Claiborne. They don’t have visiting hours again until tonight. I tried to call you earlier.” Daddy took off his coat and hung it on the coat tree next to the door. Then he headed to the kitchen and started helping Lynn get out spoons and napkins and bowls.

  “You’ll never believe what we did!” Diana said. “We saved a whale!”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Yes! There was a whale in the shallow surf, and we got some surfers to help us, and we pushed it back into deeper water, and it swam away.”

  “You went in the ocean in the winter? You touched a whale?” My heart tripped.

  “Yeah! It was so amazing!”

  “She ran in before I could stop her,” Lynn said. “It was terrifying.”

  Now, as Lynn ladled soup for everyone and set it on the counter, Diana described how Jelly had barked, how she had run down the beach to get the surfers, and how another couple had stopped to help.

  “What did it feel like to touch a whale?” I asked. “Did it have big teeth?”

  “Like an inner tube,” Diana said. “And yes, it had big teeth. Not as big as a shark’s though. It flipped its tail and knocked one guy down. But it wasn’t that big, maybe about twelve feet long.”

  “That’s huge!”

  “And it had a nick in its top fin, like another fish had taken a little bite out of it. I think I’m going to name it Nick.”

  “Nick the whale,” Daddy said. “Sounds like a typical Diana adventure! You’re very lucky that tail didn’t get you.”

  “Mom,” said Diana, “I want to take Stephanie out on the beach and show her where Nick was.”

  “Your hair is still wet,” Lynn said. “Not to mention your coat and shoes and jeans.” She pointed at the dryer, which was still making a rhythmic booming sound as Diana’s running shoes tumbled around. “Let’s all have some soup right now.”

  Diana had clearly forgotten that I was mad at her.

  After we finished our soup, Diana and I loaded the dishwasher while Daddy and Lynn talked in the living room about what the doctor had said about Grammy’s surgery.

  I just wanted to be alone. Back in our bedroom, I got out the colored pencils I’d brought, thinking that I’d try drawing one of the shells that Grammy kept in a basket on her back porch. Shivering out on the screened back porch, I sifted through the shells, listening to the soothing sound as they clinked together. I found a pinkish-white conch shell with a pattern of sharp spines along the edge of the opening. Grammy had bought it for me at a shell store when I fell in love with it. That had been that summer I’d stayed with her while Mama and Daddy were deciding to separate.

  I brought that shell and a few others back into the bedroom and arranged them on the end table for a still life.

  Diana came in, dropping her wet towel on the floor and flopping onto the bed. She grabbed her hairdryer and turned it on, the sound of the dryer blasting my concentration.

  I tried to block it out, focusing on the curve of the shell and the way the pale winter sunlight shone on its bumpy surface. It was like Diana was following me around. I thought about what Daddy had said and drew a deep breath, trying not to be mad. The thing that made me maddest was that she didn’t even seem to notice I was avoiding her.

  It didn’t take long for her to dry her flyaway hair.

  I thought she’d leave then, but instead she lay on her side, propping her cheek on her palm. “Nick the whale reminded me about that preppie guy named Nick who you met at the ranch two summers ago,” she said. “Do you ever text him?”

  “Not for a long time,” I said, still sketching. “Not since I saw him at that soccer game where we played his school.”

  “Then it made me think of Russell,” she said. “I wonder how he’s doing.”

  I put down my pencil with a sigh and pushed my hair behind my ear. “You could write him, using the address at the ranch. Or write Maggie.” Maggie had been the head wrangler at the ranch. She’d had a special relationship with Diana, and she’d helped me lose a little of my fear of horses.

  “I did write him. He never wrote back. Anyway, he’s probably forgotten all about me.”

  I glanced over at her. “How could he forget you? With all the searching for the wolves and the surgery with Doc?”

  “Or maybe he just remembers how mad he was at me.”

  “He’s had time to forgive you. And now both the wolves are safe. You should write him again.”

  At that moment, the clothes dryer buzzed from the kitchen, and Diana jumped up and ran down the hall. A few minutes later, she was back in the bedroom, her arms full of her shoes and jeans, and she dressed to go outside.

  “Come on, let’s go down to the beach, and I can show you where the whale was. I can drive the golf cart.”

  I slowly put away my colored pencils. She was never going to get the hint.

  Then Daddy was standing in the doorway of the bedroom. “Why don’t you go down to the beach with her, Stephanie? A little fresh air will do you good.”

  I stood up. Nobody was leaving me alone.

  “Now, I can’t believe I’m having to say this, but don’t go in the water again!” Lynn warned Diana as we put on our scarves and gloves. I shoved my cell phone in my pocket.

  “And be careful with the golf cart,” Daddy said.

  “Okay, okay,” Diana said.

  Outside, the sea oats beside the house bent low in the wind. The sky was bright blue with thin sunlight streaming through wispy clouds.

  “Hop in!” Diana said as she slid behind the wheel.

  I climbed in the passenger seat, beginning to feel excited. The wind seemed to blow the cobwebs from my head. The past few days, I had spent a lot of time in the hospital. Maybe I did just need to go have some fun.


  “Whee!” Diana backed out of the driveway at record speed, slammed on the brakes, and began speeding headlong down the sandy road toward the beach.

  My scarf and hair blew out behind me, and I leaned out to the side, holding onto the windshield brace. “Wahoo!” I yelled.

  The road ended in a small parking lot next to the beach, but Diana didn’t stop. She just drove the cart over the mound of sand, past the sign that said No Vehicles, and down the path to the beach.

  “Whoa!” The cart bounced so hard I almost fell out.

  Diana drove down to an area near the breakers. “Here’s where Nick was. The tide’s come in since then. It took us about seven or eight tries to finally get him back in deep enough.”

  With a wrenching turn, Diana turned right and started speeding down the empty beach. Far away down the beach was the pier. It was so tiny we could barely see it. The wind whipped tears to my eyes and the end of my nose tingled with cold.

  “Okay, I’m going to go as fast as I can go! All the way to the pier!” Diana shouted over the wind, pushing her foot to the floor. The cart sped up, and we were flying over the sand. She zigzagged around clumps of seaweed. Three sandpipers frantically ran away from our tires.

  I clung to the brace beside the windshield. I wanted to shut my eyes, but I was afraid to. The beach in winter was a different place. There was absolutely no one out here. The majestic gray-green ocean stretched out across the horizon as far as I could see, a bone-chilling damp wind whistled by, and closed-up houses nestled behind the dunes.

  I thought of the many times I’d come out to this beach with Grammy, building sand castles while she read her history novels, walking out on the pier, and leaning over to look into the plastic buckets to see what fish people had caught. Once, when Daddy and I were staying here with Grammy, we saw someone catch a baby hammerhead shark. We’d watched in fascination and horror as it flopped around on the worn, warped wood of the pier.

  “Yahoo!” Diana yelled again. She started turning the cart in big S curves, and I slid across the seat and crashed into her. I started laughing and realized it had been a couple of days since I’d laughed.

  “Hey! Oh, my gosh. What’s that?” Diana suddenly said, pointing. I looked down the beach and saw something huge and black, like a giant tree trunk, lying on the beach a few yards from the water. We raced toward it.

  As we approached, my breath caught in my throat. Shiny, black skin; a big anvil-shaped tail slowly flopping. I glanced at Diana. She braked to a noisy stop, jerking me forward, and leaped out.

  Covering her mouth with one hand, she pointed with the other to the wilting triangular fin on top. A jagged nick.

  “Oh no! It’s Nick! He’s stranded again!”

  11

  DIANA

  I knelt by Nick’s head and stared at the slightly open mouth with its neat row of teeth. And then, just above and outside the mouth, I saw his eye. Surrounded by wrinkles, it was dark blue and three times the size of a human eye. The wrinkles made the expression in the eye seem amazingly wise and sorrowful.

  The same kind look I saw in Commanche’s brown eyes.

  And then the eye blinked. And Nick gave a plaintive, sad cry that sounded like a bird.

  “What are you doing back up here, buddy?” I said, stroking the round knob of his forehead. “Why did you do this again?” I stood up, feeling breathless and panicked. “Stephanie! What can we do? He’s stuck on the sand this time.”

  Stephanie came around to stand beside me. I could tell she was scared. She stayed a good distance away from Nick.

  And then we heard a whoosh of air, a sound like a giant sigh, coming from a spot on the top of Nick’s head. Stephanie jumped with surprise.

  “It’s breathing!” she said.

  “Steph, we have to help him!”

  “What can we do? I bet he weighs five hundred pounds or more! We can’t move him.”

  I looked all around. The surfers had gone in. There wasn’t another soul on the beach. “Maybe we can call someone. Did you bring your cell phone?”

  “Yeah.” Stephanie reached in her pocket and pulled it out. “Who should I call?”

  “The police, I guess. Here, I’ll talk.” I took her phone and dialed 911. When the dispatcher answered, I said that we’d found a stranded whale on the beach. The dispatcher asked for my location, and Stephanie told me Grammy’s address, since we weren’t that far away. The dispatcher said she’d contact the Marine Mammal Stranding Network and that someone would be here in thirty minutes to an hour.

  “Meanwhile,” she said, “do you have wet towels or a bucket? You need to keep the whale wet. Keep pouring water on the whale, and put wet towels on it to keep its skin from drying out.”

  “Thanks!” I hung up and got the shell bucket from the back of the golf cart. “Someone will be here in about an hour. We’re supposed to keep the whale wet,” I told Stephanie. “Can you drive the golf cart back to the apartment and get some towels?”

  She hesitated, and I knew she was going to say she’d never driven a golf cart before. “Listen, it’s easy. Just press down on the gas and steer.”

  Stephanie got back on the golf cart, tentatively pushed on the gas, and headed off slowly. While she was gone, I took the bucket down to the surf again and again, filling it and bringing it back and pouring it gently over the whale’s skin. The freezing water sloshed on my hands and pants and coat. After a lot of trips, I was out of breath and had to sit down next to the whale’s head to rest. I touched his large, smooth forehead.

  “We’re working on it, Nick, buddy,” I told the whale. “I don’t know how we’re going to get you back in the water.” I gazed into his large sad eye as I spoke. The winter wind whistled as it blew over us. “But we’re going to try.”

  Nick blinked. How long could Nick live out of the water? As if reading my thoughts, he gave another squeaking call that almost sounded like he was saying, “Help.” The high-pitched call sounded like it came from a tiny bird, not a twelve-foot whale. And then he made a series of soft clicks.

  My throat began to throb. What must it be like for him, to be stuck on land like this? As fast as he could swim in his world, in the water, he was completely helpless on land. And the calls and clicks. Was he trying to communicate with the rest of the whales in his group? I looked out to sea, straining to see a glimpse of fins that would show that the rest of his group was out there waiting and looking for him. I imagined being able to drag him back into the water. I imagined him leaping from the waves with gratitude, then swimming away to freedom, to rejoin his group.

  If I saw this whale out in the water while I was swimming, I probably would be terrified. But out of his element, Nick was weak, barely able to move.

  The wind blew and I shivered. Since I’d been down here, no one had walked by. My fingers were so red, raw, and cold from dumping water on Nick that I couldn’t feel them. I balled up my hands and hugged them under my arms. The wet from the sand was seeping through my jeans.

  I looked again into the whale’s wise and kindly eye. I thought I could see his suffering. Was he in pain? As if in answer, he gave a quick, rushing breath. I thought my heart would burst.

  Then Stephanie and Mom screeched to a stop in the golf cart and jumped down. A pile of towels lay behind them in the golf-bag storage area.

  “I can’t believe the whale is back up here!” Mom cried. “I wonder what’s wrong?” She grabbed the pile of towels and handed some to me and some to Stephanie. “Let’s get these wet, so we can lay them over it.”

  We ran down to the water and dunked the towels. My running shoes sank into the soft sand and then a freezing wave snaked over them, getting my feet wet. We carried the dripping, heavy towels back up the beach and carefully spread them over the rubbery skin of the whale.

  I thought I heard the whale sigh. The sound of that sigh tore through me.

  “Let’s go inside now,” Mom said. “It’s freezing out here.”

  “No! I’m not leaving Nick
!”

  “Diana, you told them where the whale was, didn’t you? They’ll have no trouble finding it. They know what to do.”

  “No, I’m staying here. She told me to pour water over him! I’m going to keep doing that until they get here!” I grabbed the shell bucket and ran back down to the edge of the water. I filled the bucket and lugged it back up and then poured it gently over Nick’s head. Then I went back down to the water and filled it again. I had to do something. This was something I could do. Again and again, ignoring Mom’s pleas to stop, I filled the bucket and poured water over Nick, until I had soaked the whale from head to tail.

  Finally, I sat down again in the sand beside Nick’s head. The wind was making my eyes tear, and my hands and arms were red and cold. I was shivering violently. But I didn’t care.

  Mom had a few big, dry beach towels, and she came and wrapped one around me, one around Stephanie, and then sat down close to me. Stephanie came and sat next to Mom.

  Again, the whale sighed.

  “It’s hard to watch a creature suffering like this, isn’t it?” Mom said.

  “Why do things like this happen? This is why I don’t believe in God,” I said. I remembered that night last spring, sitting in the sea grass with Cody, watching the mare and her foal on the beach. The mare had been injured and in terrible pain. It was almost intolerable to watch. Tears came to my eyes as I remembered.

  “We don’t know why this whale beached itself,” Mom said. “But I know what you mean. Last night, when we were in the hospital talking with Grammy, I was thinking about how much pain Grammy was in and how hard it was to see that.”

  “I wanted to leave,” I said.

  Suddenly Stephanie got up and, without a word, walked away from us until she was out of earshot. She stood, facing away from us, the towel wrapped tightly around her.

  “I wonder if we upset Stephanie with our conversation,” Mom said, looking after her. “I’m glad that you want to stay and help the whale,” Mom went on. “We need to be like that for Grammy too. We need to be strong enough.”