People of the Whale by Linda Hogan

Author:Linda Hogan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2008-08-01T16:00:00+00:00

Ruth counts the seconds. Not much later, a minute, then even longer. It ran in his family, she thinks, even her Marco.

If it rains and Ruth is cold out there in the rain, she leans against the rail and pulls her coat tight. On a clear night, she looks not just at him but at the moon path and the shine of natural light, a manta ray in the distance or floating blooms of plankton. Some nights, when she catches sight of something shining, she feels happy and smiles.

Maybe she loves him still. You’d think so since she watches over him so carefully. They say love is the closest thing to hate. That saying was created by someone who knew little of the many layers of emotions, she thinks.

He is the reason why there are nights now she is on land instead of asleep in her fishing boat where she is accustomed to waking and beginning her day early in the morning, before dawn, setting out to fish.

“You need your sleep,” her mother says. “It’s dangerous work you do. You can’t afford to follow him around at night or take him food. You are paying for that food. You are getting dark circles.”

“He’s still my husband.”

“Some husband.” Silence.

Yet they both remember how Ruth’s father, their spiritual leader, had made their marriage whole. Ruth with shell earrings down to her chest. They were at the sea. Ruth had woven her own hat of fine grasses. Her father, with the same finely chiseled bones as Ruth, wore a scarf around his head. A dog peed nearby and Ruth laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Her father said with a smile, “This should never be too solemn an occasion. The coming together of two people is to rejoice.”

That night Thomas had looked at Ruth with love, her graceful form and happy eyes. Ruth looked at his beautiful—how else to describe it?—blue-black hair and wide face. The feast was salmon cooked in wide leaves that had no name in English. Everyone was there.

And then he came home one day and he had joined the army.

“We are warriors,” he said.

“But you need to be here with your people. You have a wife,” her father said. He was dismayed at the decision of Thomas.

Maybe it didn’t count anymore, tribal worlds, marriages.

Now, instead, he has a Medal of Honor, a Silver Star, his Purple Hearts, all on ribbons, something for bravery under fire, bronze, stripes and things she doesn’t understand, and they were sent to his father when his dog tags were found, also a folded flag. They were all kept inside his father’s glass case. She didn’t know what any of them meant, just that they were honors and his father carried them around and never missed a chance to show them off to anyone nearby, no matter how often. His father, with large carver’s hands and a rough face that was a book of his history. An ugly-hearted man who created beauty. He’d carved the faces of Ruth and her father into near eternity and then sold them at a gallery.

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