The Smell of Other People's Houses Read online

  I gaze up at the peregrine falcons nesting high on the cliffs as we motor north. The memory of my dad grows smaller and smaller, darting in and out of my brain like the tiny black dots flying above me. It’s hours and hours until we get upriver, and I sleep through them all—more hours than I have slept at one stretch in years.

  The engine dying down wakes me in time to see Dumpling step a rubber boot gingerly into the shallow water and pull the boat forward, tying us to a ruddy spruce tree. Dumpling’s mother immediately climbs the bank, looking like a bushy-tailed squirrel pulling brush and downed limbs together to get a fire going.

  Bunny is trying to unload the garbage bags I’ve been sleeping on, yanking at them and pushing me off; we roll around wrestling in the bottom of the boat until Dumpling starts rocking it back and forth, threatening to flip us over. Life feels light and easy now, laughing with Bunny and being far away from Fairbanks.

  Suddenly everyone is bustling around, sweeping mouse and rabbit turds off the wooden tent platform, chopping wood and putting tents up on poles, stringing together the racks for drying fish, and getting the charred black coffeepot full of the brothers brewing on the fire. Everything has a purpose here, even me.

  My parents have never bothered about stocking up salmon for the winter. Dumpling’s father has always been generous, bringing fish back for everyone at Birch Park, so my mom would just shrug and say, “Why work so hard?” whenever the subject came up. But it doesn’t feel like work.

  It feels like being part of a family.

  The day the ferry passed us, I was the only person who saw the boy fall overboard into the pod of orcas. The ferry made no attempt to turn around; nobody on deck seemed to notice him. I had never launched the Pelican all by myself before, but adrenaline is a remarkable thing.

  Then again, so is sheer luck. Dad was busy talking on the radio (it takes all his concentration) and Uncle Gorky was down in the engine room, which is why they never even saw me struggling to untie and move the Pelican from the flying bridge to the deck and then into the water. There just wasn’t time to think or talk or ask permission. By the time they finally saw me, I was rowing my inflatable raft straight into the whales. I have no idea what they must have been thinking. I do know what I was thinking: Please, please, please don’t let me be too late.

  But then he appeared on the surface, a boy about my age, though it was really hard to tell from that angle. He was floating facedown and I was able to grab one arm of his waterlogged plaid coat. He wasn’t wearing a life jacket, so it was odd that he was on the surface, especially since he was unconscious. Or was he dead? Maybe I really was too late. That’s when I started wishing I’d at least brought Uncle Gorky.

  I tugged, but he was so heavy that surely I could not pull this body into my boat, and I was becoming more and more panicked with every minute that went by. “Come on, you lug,” I said to him, as if insults might do the trick, and all of a sudden not only the arm but the whole body was suddenly light. I fell backward into the Pelican and the boy landed right beside me as if he’d jumped in all on his own. But he wasn’t moving at all. A loud bark and then a clicking noise next to the raft got my attention. I looked over to see the oily black nose of a whale, so close I could smell his breath.

  “Were you the one helping me?” I whispered. Underneath my hand the cool, smooth nose felt like butter. I was so mesmerized I almost forgot about the unconscious body in my raft, until the orca nudged the side of the Pelican, turning me back to face the Squid, which was headed toward us. This boy really was about my age—I could see this now, his wet hair flat against his skull. His features were chiseled like a Roman sea god, and he looked peaceful, not like someone who had been struggling to get out of the ocean. I had heard a lot of gruesome stories about bodies that wash up, but this one was not gruesome by any stretch. He was not pale or colorless, or cut up or bloody. And I’m only going to say this once, because it shocked me—both that he looked this way and that I thought it in the midst of panicking and rowing and being so close to an orca—but this boy was beautiful.

  I dipped my oars and the orca pushed the side of the Pelican one more time, hard enough that I heard the rubber of the raft squeak beneath his smooth nose, and then the huge whale dipped his body back under the surface. I was able to see the gray patch on his back—the saddle—and wondered what it would be like to ride him, even as I knew I was wasting valuable time. I began to row hard.

  I was still running on adrenaline, but my dad was visibly shaken as he and Uncle Gorky hauled the unconscious boy onto the Squid. He tied the Pelican so loosely to the stern that I had to retie or she’d have floated away.

  I watched him pressing on the boy’s chest and breathing into his mouth, and the whole time I could not stop thinking about the way the orca seemed to be helping me, pushing the boy up out of the ocean and into the raft. Looking at him sprawled across the deck, I wondered if he might actually die. His long legs were bent beneath him; his feet were bare except for one red sock on the left one. No shoes.

  Finally he began to gag and throw up kelp onto the deck, belching seaweed and salt water until the whole ocean seemed to come out of him. Inside my own chest, that hard knot of fear that he was dead floated free as I watched him choke and painfully draw in air. And then we were both able to breathe again. After a while Uncle Gorky carried him to the big bunk, where he’s been for two days now.

  My uncle keeps telling me to let him sleep. “Leave him be, Alyce,” he says, but I want to be there when he opens his eyes. I can’t get out of my head the image of that one orca staring at me with his wide black eye, as if he was telling me something. It’s not the kind of thing you tell Uncle Gorky. “The orca and I have an understanding and I need to look into this boy’s eyes when he wakes up. It was kind of like a promise.”

  Yeah, right. I have those kinds of conversations all the time with my dad and my uncle.

  —

  But when he does finally wake, it’s obvious that he is not happy or grateful or any of the scenarios I played out in my mind. If anything, he looks disappointed. I feel embarrassed to be propped so close to his face, my chin on the edge of the bunk.

  “Where are the orcas?” is all he asks, but his voice still sounds like it’s underwater and I can tell it burns him to use it. When he coughs it sounds exactly how the orcas sounded that day they woke me up on the flying bridge. Maybe he didn’t want to be rescued after all? He keeps a wall up between himself and the rest of us that feels impenetrable. Asking anything seems rude. So far all he’ll let me do is tilt his head up so he can take small sips of water. I smell the sea in his hair. But then he lies back down and closes his eyes. It’s clear he wants to be left alone.

  Later my dad takes him a mug of tea, and I sit on the open hatch of the fo’c’sle, eavesdropping despite Uncle Gorky’s disapproving look. Dad sloshes the tea on the way down the ladder, and I hear him say, “Shit,” in that way that always makes me laugh because it’s so lacking in real emotion—why even bother? It reminds me of Mom complaining that Dad is an “underreactor,” like that’s a bad thing. If I lie on my belly, I can look down into the fo’c’sle and just barely see them. Dad props up the boy’s head and holds the mug to his lips, saying, “Careful, this is dangerous,” as if swimming in the ocean is nothing compared to the riskier task of drinking tea on a boat.

  “You want to talk?” he asks.

  The boy shakes his head.

  “Didn’t think so,” he says.

  I can tell this conversation is going nowhere.

  “I’m George,” Dad says, and then turns to head back up the ladder.

  “Sam,” says the boy. “I’m Sam.” I see my dad look back at him and nod. Then he pauses and decides it’s okay to mention one more thing.

  “I did check with the Marine Highway, and they say they aren’t missing any passengers.”

  Sam just stares at my ballet slippers hanging on the nail, and I feel my cheeks grow warm.

  “You just rest
,” Dad says. “If there’s no rush getting you back, it would be great if we could finish up the king opening. There’s still another week and a half and I can’t afford not to fish. That okay with you?”

  Sam nods.

  I didn’t know my dad checked in with the ferry, and I can’t stop asking him and Uncle Gorky why they aren’t more curious that there was no record of Sam. I know he was on that boat; I saw him.

  Dad says more words than usual when he tells me in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t stick his nose in where it doesn’t belong. I’m beginning to see my mom’s point about Dad being an underreactor. We rescued a boy in the ocean and he’s just going to keep fishing?

  “You haven’t learned the way of the sea yet, Alyce?” Uncle Gorky says to me. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

  “But he’s my age,” I say.

  “Doesn’t matter. If somebody tried to unravel the secrets in this ocean, there would be no age limit. And it would be like opening Pandora’s box, if you ask me. If this boat ever goes down, you think those ballet slippers hanging there wouldn’t be a mystery to somebody?”

  Uncle Gorky always knows how to shut me up. I do not want to talk about my ballet slippers.

  Sam being on the Squid has certainly taken my mind off dancing, though. After a few more days, he finally comes out on deck to look around. He looks so pale and thin, I don’t think Dad wants to make him do anything. But slowly he asks me about how things work on the boat. I feel like I’m reading an inventory list of the gear.

  “This is a cleaning tray,” I say, slicing through the neck bone of a king salmon and making him wince. I was actually trying to impress him.

  “Sorry,” I say. “It’s only brutal the first time. Or maybe you’ve fished before?”

  He shakes his head.

  “My dad used to,” he says.

  But then he stops and I feel the invisible wall go up. Okay, don’t ask about a dad.

  “Are you ever going to tell me what you were doing on the ferry?” I try to sound as if I’m not actually prying.

  He sighs.

  “My brothers and I stowed away.”

  “Really?” Now I am impressed.

  “Please don’t tell your dad,” he says. “I think my older brother could get arrested if they find them.”

  “But we should get them word that you’re okay, don’t you think?”

  “I figure Hank probably saw you rescue me and knows I’m okay. He’s just trying to figure out a way to get in touch without the authorities finding out. And he’s probably really mad at me.”

  “Wouldn’t he just be worried?”

  “Not Hank. He acts like he’s our dad now, and I’m always messing everything up. He’s big on being in charge.”

  He won’t look me in the eye. “I’m sure he knows I’m fine; he’s just got to figure out how to get in touch.”

  This seems like a long shot, but I have more questions.

  “Why did you run away in the first place?”

  “Why are you so nosy?”

  “I’m just curious,” I say, feeling slapped. “I did save you, you know.”

  “Thanks,” he mumbles, not at all grateful. I could tell him that I didn’t see anyone else on the deck of the ferry and I doubt his brother knows he’s safe. But if he thinks I’m too nosy, fine. I’ll keep it to myself.

  —

  Slowly Sam starts doing small jobs like handing fish to Uncle Gorky down in the fish hold or hosing off the deck at the end of the day. Dad shows him how the trolling poles work, explaining that the little bells attached at the top will ring if there’s a big fish on the hook. I don’t know when I learned any of this. Maybe never, because I was born on the boat, so all of this stuff was just part of being human, like learning to talk and walk and breathe.

  The moment Dad started seeing Sam as another pair of hands was probably the day the wind kicked up out of nowhere and Sam ran over to the stabilizer propped on the deck, undid the chain, and threw the whole thing overboard like he’d been doing it forever. Stabilizers are heavy weights on chains that are a pain to haul back in, so Dad avoids using them until it’s so choppy we’re flopping around like a tiny toy in a very large bathtub. I watch Dad watching Sam, starting to see him as someone who could eventually pull his own weight, skinny as he is.

  —

  The days start to bleed together one after another, and Sam and I fall into a routine of sitting on the flying bridge at the end of the day. Sometimes he even forgets to put up his impenetrable wall, and I get to learn a few more things about him. He’s sixteen and likes poetry. His younger brother, Jack, is fourteen and has what Sam calls a “sixth sense.”

  “Sometimes it’s weird,” he says, “like he can feel things that other people can’t.”

  I can tell he’s thinking about his brothers a lot, but I don’t ask direct questions anymore since he called me nosy, and I do keep my promise not to tell Dad.

  I also finally tell him how the Pelican saved his life. He touches the rubber side of the inflatable raft, and I’m grateful he doesn’t laugh when I say she was his rescuer. But I don’t see her the same way I used to, either. She looks like nothing but an old beat-up raft, especially now that Sam is sitting next to her. I look at the duct-tape patches and the faded rubber that is almost white in spots from being bleached by the sun or the ocean or the passage of time. “Was there anyone else there?” he asks. “I mean, besides the whales?”

  I think about the way the orca looked at me; how it blinked as if we had an understanding. But I still don’t know how much I should say to this boy who is starting to make me feel weak in the knees. I tell myself it’s just my sea legs, but I think Uncle Gorky would disagree. I’ve seen the way he looks at us, like we are a puzzle to be figured out. I don’t see how anyone will figure out Sam, because if he is a puzzle, there are some big missing pieces that he isn’t in any hurry to tell us about.

  “No, just the whales,” I say, and he looks disappointed. It’s kind of the truth, but not the whole truth. I’m afraid I’ll sound dumb, and I don’t want him to stop talking to me again.

  On the way back down, we stop on the bow, where Dad and Uncle Gorky’s voices filter up through the open porthole. They must have forgotten it was open, because we can hear them talking about Sam.

  “Are you going to tell him?” Uncle Gorky asks.

  “I don’t see how that’s going to help now,” says Dad.

  “You should at least tell him you know who he is.”

  “And then what? Make him go back when obviously they were running away from something?”

  “What about his brothers?”

  “My guess is they were all on that ferry, probably stowaways. They’d have gotten off by now, even if they made it all the way to Seattle.”

  “You owe it to Martin.”

  I have no idea who Martin is, but Sam does. The color drains from his cheeks. He flies into the wheelhouse and I follow close behind him.

  “You know my dad?” he says, making both Dad and Uncle Gorky jump and slosh their tea. “My dad’s name is Martin; do you know him?”

  Dad sets down his mug and stands up. “Sam, I knew your dad. And I know he was killed in the tsunami.”

  “NO!” Sam is shouting. “He’s not dead, he’s not dead. He’s swimming with the orcas.”

  He sounds like a little kid, not a sixteen-year-old boy, and I would be embarrassed for him if I hadn’t seen the way the orca had helped him, or felt the way I had when I touched that cold black nose. The minute Sam says those ridiculous words, I get it. The way he looked at me when he woke up; his disappointment at being rescued. Sam slumps onto the floor, the way you do when you’ve lost all hope and can never, ever go back.

  Dad and Uncle Gorky look down at the oil marks soaked into the galley floor and out the window at the silent sea—anywhere but at Sam. I don’t know how long they plan to leave him there—maybe forever—but I can’t stand it.

  I sit on the floor and wrap my arms aro
und him while he buries his head in my shoulder and soaks me with his snot and tears. “I should probably find my brothers,” he finally says to my dad, as if the memory of them is an orange life ring—something tangible to hold on to in the midst of a storm.

  Without looking away from the ocean, my dad just dips his head in acknowledgment and says, “We’ll find them.”

  —

  Later Sam and I are down in the fo’c’sle, and even though it’s pitch dark, I can tell he’s not asleep. I let him keep the big bunk because it seemed childish to ask for it back, so I’m in the hammock that was my bed when I was much smaller. It’s like sleeping in a mummy bag with my arms pinned to my sides.

  “Sam?” I whisper.

  “Hmm?”

  “You know how you asked me about the whales? Well”—I pause—“I’m pretty sure the orca helped me save you.”

  I can just barely hear him breathing.

  “I thought so at first, too,” he says, “like he was telling me to kick off my shoes and swim with him. I felt like he was taking care of me.”

  “Maybe he was.” I am thinking about the orca’s smooth nose and his eye as big and round as a giant gumball.

  “I don’t think so,” Sam says, as if he’s suddenly aged a hundred years. “But thanks for not laughing.”

  “You didn’t have any shoes on,” I tell him, as if this proves something, but he’s already shut the door on that thought. He doesn’t respond and I hear him turn over in the big bunk, something that is nearly impossible in my tiny hammock.

  I fall asleep and dream I am a hermit crab, living squished in the toe of a brown boot at the bottom of the deep blue sea.

  Remember when my mother said “You wait until your whole world falls out from under you”? It turns out the world has many bottoms.

  For the next two days, Jack and I somehow make our way around the Matanuska without Sam, but we still look for him behind every corner. As minutes turn into hours, the reality that Sam is really not on this boat burns in my chest, scarring my heart and my lungs until it’s hard to take a deep breath. We find his jacket in one of the lifeboats on the side of the ferry, flapping in the wind like a detached brown wing. Now Jack sleeps with it every night, burying his face in the rough corduroy as if it has all the answers. He breathes in Sam’s smell, believing in that Jack way that Sam will still be found, that he’s out there somewhere, alive.