Jodie Picoult - Songs of the Humpback Whale - A Novel in Five Voices

We slept in our respective beds the night before the funeral, with the doors open in case Mama needed us. A little after three Jane came into my room. She shut the door, sat on the edge of the bed, and then she handed me a picture of the two of us, one she had found trapped between the headboard of her bed and the wall. “I’ve been thinking there’s something wrong with me,” she whispered. “I don’t feel anything. I’m going through the motions, you know, but I couldn’t care less that he’s dead.”

I held her hand. She was wearing an old nightgown of our mother’s. I found myself wondering what she wore at night, next to Oliver, in her own home. She would never sleep naked like I did. She did not like the feeling. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Considering the circumstances.”

“But she’s crying. She’s upset. And he was worse with her than he was with me.” She let those last words run together and then she got into bed beside me. Her feet were very cold, and the strange thing was, they stayed like that the entire night.

At the funeral, the reverend talked about how my father had been such a pillar of the community. He mentioned that he was a doting husband and father. I held Jane’s hand. Neither of us cried, or pretended to for the sake of decency.

It was an open casket. My mother wanted it that way. Jane accepted everyone’s condolences and I kept my arm around my mother’s shoulders, holding her up most of the time. I brought her juice and biscuits and did everything my maiden aunts suggested, to help her through such a difficult time.

By the time all our relatives and assumed friends left for the graveyard it was mid-afternoon. The funeral manager gave Jane the bill and then she disappeared. When I asked him where she had gone he pointed to the anteroom, the place they had the coffin on display. I watched her standing over his image, this wax mask that carried none of the terror and the power I knew. She ran her finger over the silk that lined the box. She touched my father’s blue ancient matter tie. Then she raised her arm. Her wrist was shaking when she whipped her hand through the air, the hand that I caught before she struck a dead man.

If you look real carefully, you can see the scars on my eyes. I was born cross-eyed, and the first operation was done when I was so young I cannot remember. Medically speaking, the procedure involved tightening up the slack muscles that let my eye wander. Invisible stitches, I guess. There’s hardly anything there now, twenty-four years later, except a thin line of film in each eye, like a yellow eyelash. You can see this when I look out the corner of my eye.

Until I had the second operation I wore thick Coke-bottle glasses; round ones that made me look something like a bullfrog or a lawyer. I did not have many friends, and during recess I’d sit alone behind the swings and eat the sandwich my mother had packed in my lunch box. Sometimes the other kids came up, called me four-eyes or crossed their eyes to make fun of me. If I came home from school crying, my mother would bury my face in her apron-it smelled of fresh flour-and tell me how handsome I was. I wanted to believe her, but I couldn’t. I took to looking down at my shoes.

My teachers began to say I was shy, and they called up my mother, concerned. One day my parents told me I was going to have an operation. I would stay in a hospital, and I would have patches on my eyes for a while, and when it was all over my eyes would look just like everyone else’s. Like I said, I do not remember my first operation, but the second is very clear. I was scared it would change the way I’d see things. I wondered if when the bandages were removed, I would look the way I thought I looked. If the colors I saw would be the same.

The day after the operation I heard my mother’s voice at the foot of the bed. “Sam, honey, how do you feel?”

My father touched my shoulder and handed me a wrapped package.-“See if you can tell what it is.” I ripped off the paper and ran my hands along he soft leather folds of a soccer ball. Best of all-I knew exactly what it would look like.

I asked to hold the soccer ball when my bandages were removed. The doctor smelled like aftershave and told me what he was doing every step of the way. Finally he told me to open my eyes.

When I did, everything was fuzzy, but I could make out the black and white boxes of the soccer ball. Black was still black and white was still white. As I blinked, everything started to come clear-clearer than it was before the operation, in fact. I smiled when I saw my mother. “It’s you,” I said, and she laughed.

“Who did you expect?” she asked.

Sometimes when I look in the mirror now I still see my eyes crossed. I’ve dated ladies who tell me how nice my eyes are: the most unusual color, reminds them of the fog in summer, things like that. I let the words roll right off my back. I’m no more handsome than the next guy, really. In a lot of ways I’m still four-eyes, eating lunch behind the swings at school.

My mother burned all the photos she had of me with my eyes crossed. Said we didn’t need a reminder of that around the house, now that I had the operation. So at this point all I have left is this faulty perception, from time to time, and the scars. I also have that soccer ball. I keep it in my closet, because I don’t think that’s the kind of thing you should ever get rid of.

Oliver is the only man who has ever made love to me. I know, I grew up during the generation of sex and drugs and peace, but I was never like that. I’d met Oliver when I was fifteen, and dated him until we were married. We built up a repertoire over the years, but we always stopped at a critical point. I talked about sex with my friends and pretended I had done it. Since no one ever corrected me, I assumed I was saying the right things.

As for Oliver, he did not really pressure me. I assumed he had slept with other women, like all the other guys I had known, but he never asked me to do anything I didn’t want to. The perfect gentleman, I told my friends. We would sit for hours on the docks downtown in Boston, and all we’d do is hold hands. He would kiss me goodnight, but perfunctorily, as if he were holding back much more.

My best friend in college, a girl named Ellen, told me in excruciating detail about all the sexual positions she and her boyfriend Roger had mastered in the cramped quarters of a VW bug. She’d come into class early and stretch her legs out in front of her seat, complaining how tight the muscles in her calves were. I had been dating Oliver for five years, and we never came close to the unbridled passion Ellen discussed as casually as she talked about her pantyhose size. I began to think it was me.

One night when Oliver and I went to a movie, I asked if we could sit in the back row. The movie was The Way We Were . As soon as the opening credited rolled on the screen, I handed Oliver the popcorn and began to trace my thumb along the inseam of his jeans. I thought, if that doesn’t get him excited, what will? But Oliver took my hand and clasped it between his own.

I tried once more during the movie. I took a deep breath and started to kiss Oliver’s neck, the edge of his ear. I did all the things I had heard Ellen talk about that I thought might work in a public theater. I unbuttoned a middle button of Oliver’s oxford shirt, and slipped my hand inside. I rubbed my palm over his smooth, olive chest, his strong shoulders. The entire time, mind you, I was staring at the movie screen like I was really watching.

Oh, Oliver was gorgeous. He had thick blond hair and a smile that ruined me. His pale eyes gave him the air of being somewhere else. I wanted him to really see me, to stake a claim.