She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb

Author:Wally Lamb
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Television, Psychological Fiction, Humorous, New England, Teenagers, General, Romance, Self-Perception, Women - United States - Psychology, Compulsive Eating, Fiction, Women
ISBN: 9780671021009
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 1992-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Climbing the dune was like my dreams: running from Jack Speight at a plodding, dangerously sluggish pace. When I reached the top, I was out of breath.

Its mass was what threw me first—a black rock ledge of life. My hands fanned out and I fell back against the cold sand. My heart pounded from the climb and the sight of it.

The whale lay surrendered on its belly, its head pointed out to sea. Most of its body sat stuck in shallow, red-clouded water, but the massive black tail reached up onto the beach. Incoming water lapped and channeled around and over it The larger waves broke against its face.

Seagulls walked the whale's back and rocked in the water around it. Twenty or thirty people—most on the land, some in wet suits in the water—watched and talked and circled. Two men jabbed at its side with an oversize syringe. Electrical wire ran from TV equipment to some humming machine perched in the front seat of a jeep. The ground was strewn with people's stuff.

Domingos saw me and waved, hastening up the dune toward me. Wind whipped his hair and jacket. He looked shaken. "Why don't they do something?" I said. "Try to push it back in or something?"

"Too big."

"They could at least try. Instead of everybody standing around gawking. Jesus Christ."

He shook his head. "It's dead, Dolores. Died about an hour ago. Some of these people been here all day with it."

But it wasn't dead.

From out in the water came noises: clicks and sighs and heavings —the sounds of despair. The gulls rose off its back and into the air. On shore, the spectators jumped and shouted. The whale's living had taken us all by surprise.

"Dios mio," Domingos whispered to himself. He took me by the hand. "Come down," he said. "Come see."

I pulled my hand away. "I don't like this," I said. "I want to go."

Out in the water, it grunted loudly and writhed, then suddenly mustered the strength to shift itself onto its side. "Ohh—!" we all said together, as if some miracle was about to happen. Its colossal tail scraped against the wet sand, carrying along a trail of it in its sweep. Its stiff flipper pointed straight up in the air. A miracle: as if that flipper was a wine that could lift it back out to open water. As if its other flipper weren't lying crushed and folded beneath its weight.

It fell back on its belly again, cracking against the water, raising sidewalls of white spray. The huge, muscular tail thudded, up and down, up and down against the beach—so thunderous in its suffering that the vibration reached up into my throat.

I clapped my hands over my ears, trying not to hear or feel that thudding. "I can't… Get me out of here!" I screamed.

Domingos was down the bank, halfway between the whale and me. The others stared up at us. He ran back, took my arm, and guided me away, back down the bank toward the cab.

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