Deep waters, p.22
Deep Waters, page 22
I wanted to describe the incident, but it was too personal to discuss at work. Brendan had levied judgment based on a sliver of the story. He thought he was acting on behalf of his close friend who needed to get out and explore—live as fully as ever. I understood coddling Jim would be counterproductive, and a nine-year-old shouldn’t have to take responsibility for a parent, but it was not fair to criticize our son for wanting to protect his father. Glen’s instinct, his near-crazy drive to prevent Jim from free-diving again—to keep him safe—made sense to me. I was proud of our son. My feeling was Jim should have done more to reassure Glen. Instead, it sounded like he’d downplayed how rattled we all had been by the free-diving incident.
As I rushed off to a meeting, a wave of anger and disappointment in Jim hit me. Brendan had no idea what actually happened. Brendan’s belief that Glen and I had overreacted to a small snorkeling incident burned a hole in my trust in Jim’s perception of reality and sense of fairness.
Two days later, I stood in front of an office door on the second floor of the science building. I raised my fist and hesitated. After another deep breath, I knocked. Nothing. I knocked harder.
“Come in.” Dr. Stafford’s low monotone sent my heart pounding faster. I was prepared, I reassured myself. My case was solid. I opened the door to the head of the Natural Sciences Department and stepped into the corner office with its expansive view of Auke Bay. He continued writing, head down. I greeted him.
He looked up and said, “What do you want?”
“I set up a meeting with you to talk about my position.” He’d forgotten. His desk and the three extra chairs in his office were stacked high with scientific journals, books, papers, and student notebooks.
“Oh.” He lowered his glasses as if to clarify who I was. “Right.” I’d been in our small department seventeen years, longer than any of the other biology faculty. He gestured to a pile on the chair across from his desk. “You can put those on the floor.”
Frank Stafford, a chemist, was smart and hard-working, but his manner was often condescending. Over the years, I’d experienced rare connections with him through our senses of humor. During faculty meetings, his sarcastic and witty jabs provoked spotty laughter around the conference table. I enjoyed hearing, and especially making, him laugh. He was, however, more often brusque than funny.
“Go ahead.” He reached for a pad of paper.
I summarized my years at the university, the awards and favorable student evaluations I’d earned, my research on harbor seals and Steller sea lions in Glacier Bay, and the Research Experiences for Undergraduates program Brendan and I had led for nine years.
He jotted a few notes.
“I publish my research and present it at professional conferences.”
“Okay,” he said, in a flat, get-to-the-point tone.
I glanced at my notes and sat taller to release tension. I mentioned I’d never asked for a promotion. I did not explain why. One reason was Jim had earned almost twice my salary. The second was I had a fanciful notion if I did good work it would be rewarded without having to ask.
“When I submit my three-year review to the dean,” I continued, “I plan to request a promotion from Assistant to Associate Professor. I’d like your support.”
He inhaled hard and looked out the window. “Well.” He fingered his mustache. “Without a PhD, I don’t think you’ll succeed.”
I swallowed, although my mouth was dry.
“Have you thought of getting one?”
I held his gaze. Was he serious? He knew about my husband’s stroke.
“You could do it through Fairbanks.”
He was serious. My mind raced. Yes. I’d love to go back to grad school for a PhD—indulge in research without the extra work of teaching, grading, and faculty meetings. But I needed to earn more money, not less.
“In two or three years,” he added.
I held my expression without speaking. My blinking rate, however, increased. Maybe a biochemist can complete a PhD in two years, I thought. Collecting enough data on a population of marine mammals in Alaska for a doctorate would take many more. Coursework and securing funding alone would eat up a whole year.
He was telling me, as the chair of my department, he wouldn’t support a promotion because I didn’t have a PhD. Without his endorsement, as I understood, my request could not move up the chain. Blood drained from my head. “Thank you, Frank.” I stood to leave.
“Think about it,” he said.
A few days later, during lunch in the campus cafeteria with a senior colleague from another department, I told him about the meeting.
“That’s bullshit,” he said. “Gary doesn’t have a PhD. He’s in the exact same position as you, and he was recently promoted. Since you’re not tenure-track, it’s not even up to Stafford. It’s up to the dean and the provost. Take your case to them.”
29
WATCH THE BIRDS
With the summer program behind me, I hurried up the ferry ramp toward Jim and Glen, starved for their company. Jim lifted me off my feet and swung me around like he’d done in our courting days, somehow keeping his balance. Glen stood back and watched, then joined in a family embrace. Tears of joy threatened as we walked hand in hand to IJsselmeer’s slip. That night, we anchored east of Hoonah in Whitestone Harbor, a protected cove used mainly by loggers and fishermen.
The next morning, the pitter-patter of raindrops pulled me from a gauzy dream. I rolled over and stared at Jim’s shoulders. How can my need for time apart be as strong as my desire to be with him?
The wind hummed in the rigging, tripping a vivid memory from twelve years earlier—before our son was born. I thought back on our stormy, midnight escape from South Inian Cove, visualizing the two of us performing as a team as if witnessing someone else playing my role. Faced with the same situation now—dragging anchor toward shore in a storm at night—my intuition warned I might lock up with fear and be incapable of doing what I did then. With all our experiences across the years, wasn’t I supposed to become more and more confident about boating? Was it normal to feel less secure remembering a successful performance under strain so long after the danger had passed?
The rain continued to splatter the deck above. IJsselmeer rolled with the swell, a giant cradle. What had changed?
One factor was obvious. We now had a child. It was one thing to explore Alaska’s wilderness edges as a couple, another to bring our son along. But we’d been doing that for nine years—successfully—since Glen was six weeks old. Many of our most memorable family experiences had been on IJsselmeer. And we were a cautious boating couple. From the outside, my husband might appear to be a risk seeker, but the opposite was true. His mechanical know-how, willingness to tackle any at-sea engine hiccup or failure, and desire, if not compulsion, to run a safe ship remained intact. He took pains to anticipate and reduce risk. Before the stroke, I’d viewed him as physically invincible. Through many challenges, his body had never failed him—or us. But we’d entered a new phase. No longer could I rely on him pulling us through every situation.
The next time, I might have to lead us out of danger.
Angled light on glassy water backlit the misty blow of a humpback whale far ahead. I adjusted my heading a few degrees. We were motoring down Chatham Strait. Jim napped and Glen read below. I checked the chart: an hour and a half to Baranof Warm Springs. Near where the whale dove, another surfaced. Through binoculars, I watched as two dozen small birds flocked low over the water. Seconds later a whale lunged up, exactly below the swarm of birds, mouth open.
“Pa-hooohh, shush!” The slow-exhale, rapid-inhale cycle was followed by two more surfacings. I shifted into neutral. Three decades after my first winter as a research volunteer in Hawaii, observing whales still filled me with awe. As the forty-ton mammal arched and raised its flukes, I clicked off a photo. The boat was well behind—but close enough to capture details on the pigmented underside of the tail. Colleagues might be able to use the unique fluke pattern to figure out if this whale had migrated to Alaska from Hawaii or, less likely, Mexico, after a breeding season. As I scanned the area, several more whales surfaced and dove.
Twenty-six years earlier, I’d volunteered on these same feeding grounds. Back then, I was sorting out who I was, proud of my independence. Grad school at UC Santa Cruz was learning on steroids, and I loved it. I’d been mesmerized by the self-reliant field researchers I’d worked with in Alaska. I missed the tight camaraderie and intense sense of discovery that came with long stretches of camping on a remote island, living and working together as part of a driven team.
Jim and Glen should see this, I thought. “You guys,” I called into the boat. “Come check out these whales. There are at least eight ahead.”
Waiting for the next surfacing, I zoomed in on those grad-school memories. Wasn’t the glossy idea of being on my own simply a euphemism for having failed to find a fulfilling relationship? Those days had, in fact, not always been so rosy. Unsure of myself, I’d had a few relationships with men I enjoyed and trusted, but they hadn’t worked out. One grad-school boyfriend was fun and funny—but not available on a deep level. I couldn’t remember why I’d tried so hard to make that work.
Minutes later, Jim stepped into the cockpit. Hair splayed at the crown like a stubby turkey tail, he reached for the other pair of binoculars. A wave of love for him engulfed me.
Glen nudged up from behind. “What’s going on?”
“Watch the birds.” I raised my binoculars. “They’re red-necked phalaropes. Every year they migrate between the Arctic and South America.”
Ahead, a flock of twenty phalaropes swarmed and coalesced inches above the water. I watched one of the skinny-necked birds, weighing about as much as half a croissant, hover and dance its lobed feet across the water, dipping her needle-thin bill into the water. Suddenly, one of the whales emerged, mouth open wide, lower jaw and expanded throat pleats engulfing 15,000 gallons of seawater teeming with prey. The phalaropes darted out of the way, flitting down and up, snatching prey pushed to the surface by the whale, seawater rolling and tumbling out over the whale’s closing jaws.
“Very cool,” Jim said, fully engaged.
A smaller whale lunged in tandem with an adult. “There’s a calf!” I said.
“What’re they eating?” Glen asked.
“They’re too far away to tell. The calf’s probably still nursing, but it may be learning how to filter feed.”
Glen stepped out from the cockpit to join us on the deck.
“The calves have to learn how to use their baleen to feed on schools of small fish, like herring, and invertebrates the size of a fingernail.” I clicked my thumbnail. “One day, when it’s about seven months old, that calf will have to fend for itself.”
While the whales were down, Glen thwapped the end of a line against a rail.
“What if you only had a year to learn everything you need to know from us?” I asked.
He gave me an oh brother half smile and quipped, “I’d call Keagan to see if I could move in.”
The sun’s hint of warmth graced the air as a faint breeze ruffled the water.
“Is that what they’re eating?” Glen asked.
I scanned ahead. “Where?”
“Right there. Look.”
Binoculars lowered, I leaned out over the rail.
“There! See?” He pointed down at the teal ocean. The water all around our boat teemed with swarms of inch-long dog-paddling krill, Euphausia pacifica.
“Good spotting, hon!” The three of us leaned out over the rail.
“Far out!” Jim said, scooping some up in a net for a closer look.
Later, Jim took the helm, and we continued south to the warm springs. Perched on the cockpit rim, I finished my entry about the feeding whales and Glen’s observation. The VHF radio crackled with US Coast Guard alerts.
The three summers I’d spent in Alaska studying humpback whales were among the best and most formative times of my life. What hit me as I sat in the cockpit, sea breeze rushing by, was I did not want to turn back the clock. Raising a child in Alaska was beyond what I could have wished for before I met Jim. These moments of discovery with my husband and son were treasures I would carry to my grave.
30
BARANOF WARM SPRINGS
Line in hand, I straddled the railing as we coasted toward the dock at Warm Springs Bay. To the left, a river cascaded into the remote bay, fueled by a huge glacially fed lake. Warm Springs Bay tucks into the east side of Baranof Island. The size of Delaware, Baranof is the tenth largest island in the United States and home to around a thousand brown bears and nine times as many people. Almost all human inhabitants live in Sitka, which is on the other side of the island opposite Warm Springs Bay and not connected by road.
Two fishing boats and three other private vessels, including a large tug, were tied to the dock. Jim slowed IJsselmeer, aiming for the one remaining space. I stretched a leg down and stepped onto the dock, looped the line around a cleat, springing the boat in snug, then took the bow line from Glen. Jim’s expertise in docking made my job easy.
As soon as the boat was secure, we gathered soap, shampoo, towels, and fresh clothing in a canvas bag. Into another tote, we tucked a chunk of cheddar cheese, crackers, bottle of wine, corkscrew, and three water bottles.
Owners of the fifteen houses and cabins along the community boardwalk had diverted the nearby hot springs into three private bathhouses. A hand-painted donation box was nailed to a railing. Outside of peak summer weeks, however, the bathhouses were free. A welcoming sign read, “As a courtesy to others after your bath, please: Empty and clean tub with brush.” Built on pilings over the cove, each room featured its own galvanized steel cattle-watering trough. The wall facing the opposite shore was open above waist-height, framing a grand view of temperate rainforest. The only voyeurs were raucous ravens and masked ospreys.
We filled the six-foot-long tank by adding a plug to capture the continuous flow of hot water. Jim eased in first, Glen next, then me. Enveloped in sulfury steam, the three of us sat and talked, legs entwined. We reminisced about the week, Glen’s improved boating skills, and the whales and birds we’d seen. Outside, ravens exchanged throaty calls.
Seconds after we’d toweled off in cool air, Glen climbed back in the half-drained tank and sloshed back and forth on his belly like a river otter.
On our way back to the boat, we met Kate, who stepped out of the cabin door of a sixty-five-foot wooden boat, Lazaria, to introduce herself. She and her husband ran their salmon tender out of Petersburg. Eight-year-old Lizzie peered out from behind her mother’s legs and invited Glen aboard. Compared to ours, their vessel was huge, with an upstairs, downstairs, and a main cabin with room for a cupboard full of games. I liked Kate instantly. She welcomed Glen aboard. We did not see him again until dinnertime.
The next day, I woke first. Jim slept in until pancakes and sausages were on the table. Before we finished breakfast, Glen asked to go play with Olive.
“Who’s Olive?” Jim and I asked.
“Lizzie’s new kitten.”
“Oh, nice,” I said. “Yes, you may go as soon as you clear the table.”
He cleared, then grabbed his Spot It pattern recognition game and headed down the dock.
On our second afternoon in Warm Springs Bay, the three of us hiked together in rubber boots past the bathing cabins, into the inner sanctum of spruce, hemlock, and alder. Jim relied on his trekking poles to navigate the muddy path, gnarled with roots and ruts from other parties of tourists and fishermen. I watched from behind as he faltered and corrected more than usual. With three weeks on the boat, his balance was tuned to counteract ocean swells. My inner ear vestibules also amplified the sensation of undulating more while on shore than on the boat, a temporary neurological condition known as land sickness. The trail soon paralleled the Baranof rapids as they drained from the lake to the ocean. A quarter mile up, we heard distant voices and laughter.
Between the trail and river, magma-heated water bubbled up from thermal springs below. The temperate rainforest framed several steaming pools eroded into rock. I’d never seen anything like it. The thundering river made it possible to have private conversations a dozen feet from strangers. Still, I was glad the naked visitors were dressing in preparation to leave as we stripped down to bathing suits. It had been my idea to wear suits.
Glen maneuvered across slippery rocks. “Wait for us,” I called to his back.
The higher pools, closest to the trail, were hottest—up to 120 degrees. Those spilled over several levels toward the torrent of glacial meltwater. We climbed over and around boulders to reach the lowest pool where we eased into clear, hot water. Surrounding the pools were lime-green devil’s club and lush ferns. Exposed tree roots ambled over rock and forest duff like a network of veins across a weathered hand.
I laid my head back and closed my eyes. “Did you feel that?” I asked Jim and Glen. “Those splatters from the waterfall?”
“I heard some people tried to raft down these rapids.” Jim spoke loudly over the noise.
“Really?” Six feet away, cold water screamed by.
“Yeah, they died trying.”
“Glen, don’t go so close.” I reached out to him.
“He’s okay.” Jim patted the underwater ledge, coaxing him back in from the icy river.
From opposite sides of the clear pool, Glen and I aligned the soles of our feet and pedaled them back and forth, laughing whenever they slipped apart.
Jim squeezed my hand. “Man, this is great. This-this feels so good. To be out here. Taste that air.”
After breakfast the next day, Jim and I peered at the nautical chart of Chatham Strait, Frederick Sound, and Stephens Passage unfolded across the table. We were plotting our route for the next few days. Glen was off playing with Lizzie and Olive.
“So. Tell me again when you have to be back?” he asked.
