Back over the rocks he slipped and fell and didn’t feel a thing, didn’t even check his knees for gashes. He could still hear the dog’s whimpers. He ran across the length of the beach and up the path to the B&B. He ran through the empty living room and into the dining room. There was a family sitting at the dining room table: a mother, a father, two girls, and the boy from the beach. They stared at him in stunned silence. The boy grimaced. William’s mother was laying out one of her many maps of the area.
“What have you done?” she gasped. Her face crumbled and William was sure his mother already knew everything.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” William choked, out of breath from running.
“Oh, your knee. What a mess, come here. Let me have a look.”
William had forgotten his knee. He looked down. Bits of gravel were embedded in the pink flesh and the blood had spilled over the torn skin and trickled down his leg. It made him ill to look at his own blood and the tissue under his skin.
His mother pulled him into the kitchen, away from the guests. She picked him up and sat him on a stool, ran a clean cloth under the tap and pressed it to his knee. She carefully cleaned around the edges and patted the raw centre, gently picking out pebbles with a small pair of tweezers.
“Always into things.” She frowned, trying to look stern. She rinsed out the cloth and ran it up and down his leg, wiping off the blood. The cloth was cool. It felt wonderful to him. He wanted to take it for the dog.
“What happened?” she asked.
William shook his head. “I slipped on some rocks,” he whispered.
“Well, you have to be more careful.” His mother inspected his knee once more. “I never get to do this anymore. You’re getting too big.” She took a large box of Band-Aids from one of the cupboards and sealed up the cut. “Be more careful next time,” she said, patting his cheek. “Why don’t you play inside now.”
WILLIAM WENT BACK TO his room to take a nap, but he couldn’t sleep. He remembered his rock and slithered under the bed on his stomach. He carefully placed the travertine back between the whale-shaped sandstone and the almond-sized quartzite. He ran his hand along the windowsill, gently brushing the rocks with the tips of his fingers, watching them spin slowly. He had placed the quartzite in his mouth once and chipped one of his molars. He picked up the travertine and licked the smooth surface ringed in rusty reds and ambers.
Whenever his father returned from one of his trips, he would pull a new rock from his shirt pocket. Sometimes he would give William a rock right in the middle of the airport with William still wrapped around his neck in a hug. Other times, William had to wait until they reached the parking lot, aware the entire time of the hard lump pressed to his chest as his father carried him to the car. And sometimes his father forgot all about the rock. The next morning there would be a stone sharing William’s pillow. He could see his father’s long fingers with their carefully clipped nails — he kept them very short to keep the dirt from collecting under them — turning the rocks gently as though they were fragile as eggs. He would smooth his fingers over their surfaces, giving them a particular sheen. Over time they dulled and William would rub them furiously with his own fingertips without any results. Licking them was the only way he could get them to shine. Miriam never got rocks as presents from their father. She got notebooks or fancy pencils, and once she got a large shell full of the sounds of the ocean. Later their father explained that the shell did not contain the sounds of the ocean, but rather the sounds of the inner workings of their own ears — their blood and bones.
William opened the window and stuck his nose outside. The wind had let up and the clouds hung low and full. A stillness had fallen over the beach, the occasional lap of a wave the only sound, no longer rhythmic but stuttering and sad. William knew he had to go back, but he didn’t feel like hurrying anymore.
WHEN HE REACHED THE hole the dog had stopped crying. It was lying quietly, taking in shallow breaths. Another, older dog lay near the hole, tongue hanging out sleepily, spotted belly exposed. William kicked sand on the old dog and it raised its head a moment before letting it drop back with a thump. He yelled at it and hit it with his stick.
“Get out of here, mutt. Stupid shithead mutt, move.”
The dog rolled over onto his back, panting heavily up at William, its paws swimming in the air. He kicked more sand on the dog. He kicked sand everywhere: at the old dog, at the dying dog. The dog in the hole started to whimper again and then yelp, short, piercing cries that bounced across the water. William sat down and pushed at the sand with his feet and hands. It only took him twenty minutes to fill the hole. Much less time than it had taken to dig.
AS WILLIAM CLIMBED BACK up the rocks, a light sprinkling of mist coated his face and arms. By the time he got to the top it had started to rain — fat, silly drops that hit him in the eyes and trickled down his forehead in streams. When he touched his face, he could feel the red heat of his cheeks. He had the same wetness in his underarms as he’d had this morning. He stopped at the edge of the rocks to take a few deep breaths. Miriam in her yellow rain hat was trudging up the bank toward the house. He turned and watched the rain patter over the mound where the hole used to be, the drops smoothing the surface until that part of the beach looked exactly like every other part of the beach. He stayed on the edge of the rocks until his jeans were soaked and the flush had drained from his cheeks.
WHEN HE GOT BACK to the house, Miriam was sitting on the floor in the living room, braiding a blonde girl’s hair. The girl sat poised, one knee bent, as though she was ready to bolt instantly, but Miriam still had a firm hold on one of her braids. The other stuck out crookedly from the back of her head. It looked painfully tight. The bang from the kitchen door woke his mother, who was napping on the couch beside the two girls.
“Is the whale still there, William?” Miriam said, without looking at him. She was still focused on the blond girl’s hair.
“The whale?” he said, confused for a moment.
“Yeah, the dead one. I saw you by the rocks.”
“No,” he said. “No, it disappeared.”
“What whale?” his mom said, sitting up now on the couch. The left side of her face was lined with sleep creases.
“There was a huge whale down that way on the beach with no eyes. The birds ate its eyes.” Miriam said. She finished the braid and the little girl instantly stood and ran into the dining room without saying goodbye.
“A dead whale? Why didn’t you tell me about this?” His mother looked worried.
“William said it was a secret. He said if you smelled the whale, you’d barf.”
“William, where on the beach was it?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Past those rocks,” Miriam said. William bent down and pretended to be busy taking off his shoes. He picked at the knots in his laces.
“Well, I hope you didn’t touch it. William, take those sandy shoes outside.” His mother sank back down onto the couch and curled up like she was getting ready to go back to sleep. “How could it just disappear?” she said, through a deep yawn.
William pulled off his shoes and looked at his hands. He had sand under his fingernails. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s gone now.”
THE ART OF EATING
CHARLIE BEAULIEU DOES NOT notice the day’s unusual weather. As he drives to the restaurant, he does not notice the wind wrestling the trees into dramatic bows all along English Bay. He does not see the crazed kids sprinting along the edge of the shore, shouting in glee at the sheer size of the crashing waves. He misses the sight in the park across from the ocean of the remaining fall leaves shooting out of their once-tidy piles and forming miniature gold-brown tornadoes across the lawn. Bombing down Denman Street in his second-hand Honda Civic, he fails to see the light angling through the dark clouds gathering against the mountains. He doesn’t feel the frigid note in the air or notice the birds fleeing for shelter. Charlie rolls the window down an inch to air out the smell of stale cigarettes clinging to the car’s upholstery. He stares dully, straight ahead, trying to ignore the unease beginning to brew in the far recesses of his brain, and ashes his cigarette out the slit in the window. The damp November air rushes through the crack and tickles his ear with its swip swip whisper, but Charlie Beaulieu does not notice any of the day’s remarkable happenings — the wind, the birds, the riotous ocean — because Charlie is thinking hard about how much he is worth.