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

“I’ve just never heard you talk without sounding angry,” Jane says. “That’s all.” She walks towards me, swinging her arms at her sides. She is still holding two clay pigeons. Just in case I get out of line? “Tomorrow morning Rebecca and I will check into the closest hotel.”

I feel that headache coming back. If she does that, I’ll never hear the end of it from Joley. “I told you I was sorry,” I say. “What more can I do?”

“You’re right. It’s your house, your farm, and I shouldn’t be here. Joley imposed on you. He shouldn’t have asked you to do something like this.”

I smirk. “Thank you, I know what ‘imposed’ means.”

Jane throws up her hands. “I didn’t mean it that way.” She turns in such a way that the light from the barn falls over her face, enough to let me know she’s on the verge of crying again. “I don’t mean anything the way you take it. It’s like every sentence I say goes through your head the reverse of the way I intended it.”

I lean against the shed and start to tell her about my father. I tell her how I used to fight with him about how the orchard ought to be run. I tell her how the very minute he moved to Florida, I was digging up trees and replanting them where I thought they should go.

She listens patiently, her back to me. Then she says, “I get your point, Sam.” But she doesn’t know anything about the way I run my business. And what’s worse; she doesn’t see it as a business. To her, an orchard is another form of farming. And working with your hands, to a born and bred Newton girl, is sure-fire second-class. I feel at that moment something I haven’t felt since I left Tech: shame. Running an apple orchard isn’t what people do in the real world. If I was really someone, I’d want to make a lot of money. I’d own more than one suit, and I’d drive a Testerosa, not a tractor.

“No,” I say to her, “you don’t. I don’t give a shit if you think this orchard should grow watermelons and cabbage. Go tell Joley and tell Rebecca and whoever the hell you want. And the day I die if you can convince everyone else, go ahead and replant the place. But don’t you ever tell me to my face what I’ve done so far is wrong.” I lean closer to her, so that our faces are inches apart. “It would be like-like me telling you your daughter is no good.”

When I say that, she takes a step back, like I’ve hit her. Her face goes white.

She looks up at me with incredible force-that’s the only way I know how to describe it. It’s like she could physically move me with the strength of her eyes. And as for me, I look at her, and I really see her for the first time. That’s when I see something written all over her face- Please.

She opens her mouth to speak, but she can’t seem to find her voice. Then she clears her throat. “I wouldn’t plant watermelons,” she says.

I smile, and then I start to laugh, and that makes her laugh too. “Let’s start over. I’m Sam Hansen. And you’re . . . ?”

“Jane.” She smooths her hair back from her forehead, as if she’s concerned about this first impression. “Jane Jones. God, I sound like the most boring person on earth.”

“Oh, I doubt it,” I say. I hold my hand out to her and feel quite clearly the pattern of her fingerprints when she presses her palm against mine. When we touch, we both get a shock-probably static electricity from moving around on the dusty floor of the shed. We both jump back, equal distance.

The next morning Jane is sitting in the kitchen when I come downstairs. It’s early, and this surprises me. “I wanted to make sure I was out of the shower,” she says, smiling.

“What have you got planned for today?” I ask, pouring myself a glass of juice. I hold the bottle out to her. “Do you want some?”

Jane shakes her head, pointing to a mug of coffee. “No thanks. I don’t know what I’m going to do today. Joley was asleep by the time we got back in last night, so I haven’t asked him what the plan is.”

After we talked last night, I walked Jane around the grounds of the orchard. It is careful going in the dark, but if you know it as well as I do there’s nothing to really be afraid of. I showed her which apples would go directly to Regalia Clippe, which ones would be seconds for the public stand in the fall. We even placed a five-dollar bet on one of Joley’s latest grafts; she said it would take, and I said it wouldn’t. The tree’s past hope, the way I see it-and even Joley can’t work miracles all the time. Jane asked me how she was going to get her money if the graft took after she’d left Massachusetts. “I’ll mail it,” I said, grinning at her. She said I’d forget. “No I won’t,” I told her. “If I say I’ll stay in touch, I’ll stay in touch.”

On the way back to the Big House, we talked about what everyone else thought must have happened to us. We agreed they probably figured we’d killed each other now, and they were waiting till day to find the bodies. And then, halfway there, a woodchuck crossed our path. It stopped a second to look at us and then leaped down a hole. Jane had never seen one before. She crept up to the hole and stuck her face close, trying to get another glimpse. Most women I know who see a big old ugly woodchuck run in the other direction.

I watch her swirling her coffee in her cup. “I was thinking today I’d take you down to Pickerel Pond. There’s this really nice area to go swimming.”

“Oh,” Jane says, “I’m not much for swimming, but Rebecca would love it. It’s hot enough.”

“You can say that again.” Now, barely seven in the morning, it’s at least eighty-five degrees outside. “I was thinking I’d do a little fishing before everyone else gets up.” I slide into the seat across from her at the table. “I usually take Quinte, but I think you’d make better company.”

“Fishing,” Jane says, like she’s weighing it in her mind. She looks up at me and smiles. “Sure. I’d like that.”

So I take her out to the sheep pen and overturn a mound of soil with a spade. Underneath all this manure there’s more worms than I know what to do with. I pick ten long juicy ones and put them in a canning jar. To my surprise, Jane gets down on her hands and knees. She reaches right into the soft earth and pulls out a thick wiggling worm. “Is this a good one?”

“You don’t care about touching them?”

“Not really,” she says, “but I’m not going to thread your hook.”

I run to the shed for my fishing stuff and then we walk down to the shore of Lake Boon. I’ve got an old wooden rowboat there, one I’ve had since I was a kid. I keep it turned upside down on the yellow reeds, with the oars underneath. It’s green, because that was the color of the primer I used when I was twelve and decided to paint it. Except I never got around to buying the paint.

This is my favorite time of the day at the orchard. The water sings to us as I row into the center of the lake. Jane sits across from me, prim, with her hands in her lap. She’s holding the jar of worms.

“It’s nice out here,” Jane says. Then she shakes her head. “That’s an understatement.”

“I know it. I come out here almost every Sunday if I get the chance. I like feeling that I’m part of this picture, kind of.”

“I must be ruining the harmony, then,” Jane says.

I open up the tackle box and take out a hook and a leader. “Not at all. You’re just what this place needed.” I point to the jar. “Hand me a worm?” Jane unscrews the lid and pulls out a fat worm without a second thought. “You should try catching the first bass.” I hand her the fishing rod. “You know how to cast?”

“I think so.” I tell her to aim for the lily pads behind me. She stands up precariously, balancing the boat under her feet, and releases the catch on the reel. She whizzes the line over my head; a really good cast, actually. Then she chokes up on the line a little and sits back down. “Now I just wait?”