Hi, I'm Clara

Orcas Screaming.

Apex predators. Not hunted by any other animal. Like boa constrictors, wolves, big humans and humans. A matriarchal social structure, the true beauty of this species is demonstrated in the relationship between a mother and her calf. It is a momentous omen to see them.

I saw them every night.

​

The lake was completely frozen over that winter. Driving up to the house in the dark you could see it glistening in the distance between the trees. A small piece of white in your vision. So cold that it hurt.

The moonlight over the lake felt like something out of the ordinary. Not extra-terrestrial. But the kind of beautiful where something isnt right. There's a movie where a deranged man is bellowing, standing on a lake that looked just like ours. His eyes have a glare from the moonlight, like he's absorbed it. He stretches his arms open, challenging up at the sky. Hungry. Thirsty. Hell bent. Howls at the moon. And then laughs the kind of laugh that your spine hears. Our lake looked too much like that lake.

​

Osceola, Wisconsin. It had rained the night before, and icy dew dropped silently from a hanging bough as I got out of the car. It was like the forest was still weeping quietly, after it had cried.The coldest winter for ten years, bringing unyielding blockages of heavy snow. But this morning, as I walked away from the edge of the forest towards the house, hearing the birds squawking as they launched off branches into the sky, the air was filled with moisture, like the rain still lay in it. Part time love is the life round here, we're never done— I removed my headphones.

"You left a plate on the table after breakfast." said Darcey, walking swiftly past me as I closed the door on a gasp of cold air.

"Sorry." I replied.

"It's okay. But remember next time. You went to buy cigarettes and groceries at Target?"

"Uh-yeah." I scanned the hall for my phone.

"By the way," called Darcey, as I headed up the stairs. "Grandma rang last night. She says Grandpa is driving up this weekend. To talk to Dad."

I stopped and turned to face her. "How many times have we heard that before Darce. It's an eleven hour journey and Grandpa is like seventy. He's not coming."

Darcey stared at the steps.

"And he goes hunting at the weekend." I called, continuing up the stairs. I shut my bedroom door, and the wind howled at my window, the frame rattling angrily. It hadn't been fixed yet.

I dialled Seth's number, then climbed onto my desk, holding my phone above me. No signal.

I got through in the bathroom.

I made my way back out to the car, skirting around the log pile and a wheelbarrow full of concrete. As I approached the car door, I was caught by a presence in the shrouded trees that lay around me. An angel among the white and the birch trees. I am my mother's only one.

It was a deer. We locked a gaze for a moment. I had you in my grasp. She bore into the back of my eyes. Then she was gone.

I could see the lake in my rear-view mirror as I drove away from the house. I imagined an orca breaking the surface of the ice in an explosion of white shards.

Then the silence.

Traceless.

My dreams had been getting worse.

I switched on the sound system.

Leaving the valley, fucking out of sight, I'll go back to Cali where I can sleep out every night

As I turned out of the track that led from our house up onto the road, I was jolted by a car about to pass in front of me. The road was very long, and there were only a few other houses further up. The nearest landmark when you got out of the woods was the gas station, and the shops were a while further after that, so nobody passed through.

It was Shirley. She and her husband were the only people we knew on the road. I first met her when they moved to their house. I was nine, and I remember wondering why she didn't have any children, as she had such nice blonde hair, her make-up always looked really nice, she was so nicely small, and when she smiled it felt like everything must be alright after all.

She wound her window down and I did the same, putting my music on low. "I'm so sorry Amy!" she called out.

"Don't worry!" I replied, leaning out of my window in her direction.

"It's been so long since I've seen you or your sister. I didn't realise you had your driver's licence now!" She beamed across at me, gentle-eyed.

"Yeah, Darcey doesn't use the car much so I'm using it a lot now." I smiled back. She paused. "Well, if you ever need anything. Peter and I are knocking around in that house a lot." She laughed.

"Oh, that's really kind," I said politely. I wasn't sure what to say next. "Hopefully I'll bump into you soon!"

"Yes! Hopefully not our cars bumping!" Shirley laughed joyfully. "See you Amy!" I copied her laugh. "Bye!"

As I drove off. I switched my music back up. I wondered if Darcey had been missing her medication. She was being fixational again. The plate... The fruitful darkness is all around us.

In bloom

It was always funny to me how people assumed that having an older sister meant that there was someone always looking out for you.

It wasn't that she didn't care. She did.

But she wasn't the kind of older sister who had boyfriends and watched reality TV in bed after a late night with her friends.

She was the kind of older sister who got out of bed early on a Sunday morning, and went out into the snow in her snowboots to make sure that the log pile looked neat, and that none of the logs were going to fall forward on the ground, because that would be dangerous if someone was walking past.

Pulling up at the gas station, I could see Seth filling up. I rolled my window down.

"Aime!" said Seth. "I'll be one minute."

After Seth had filled up and paid, I followed him out onto the road and over the bridge, until we turned off. It was a high point, overlooking the river valley. Black, motionless forms of trees, unlit, faced back at us from the other side. It was getting dark.

"Told you," grinned Seth, swinging into the front seat of my car. "I've done wellright?"

"It's pretty cool." I said coyly, and Seth laughed. I lit a cigarette and took in the snowy expanse of the valley. It gleamed through the translucent darkness. "So what's been going on Aime?" asked Seth.

"Well I worked my first shift at the gift store the other day. They said they want to keep me on, and I can fit-in the shifts around school."

"That's so great Aimes, you're gonna be so rich soon!"

"I hope so! And other than that, I mean, I dunno. Family stuff. You know how weird that can be," I replied, exhaling slowly. I request another dream

"Hm. Yeah. Actually, I saw your Dad in the hardware store the other day. Before you ask I was getting tools to put up a shelf for my mum. Nothing fucked up, alright!" I smiled playfully. "He was buying a bunch of stuff, working out how to get the best shot I think. Does he still go hunting all the time?"

"Yeah. He's always hunting deer. Or fishing. He's always outside."

"Huh... but, isn't that just like your Grandpa? You know, 'the rugged hunting type'. Why do they hate eachother so much?"

I concentrated on the landscape, my eyes searching for something I hadn't noticed yet. "Dad doesn't say much about it."

"He never says anything!" Seth exclaimed. Then he frowned. "Sorry."

Dad had always ignored Seth when they saw eachother, other than granting him a brief nod sometimes. Seth felt disapproved of. But I felt like it was Dad not wanting to acknowledge that he was a father, not wanting that as part of his identity. Ignoring that he existed in a domestic space with two daughters. That meant ignoring Seth too, his daughter's best friend.

"Since I can remember he's said that Grandpa blames him for what happened to Mom. And that Grandpa doesn't care about me and Darcey, now that his little girl's gone."

Seth seemed to be thinking about that.

"That doesn't seem right." he said. "Maybe they don't like your Dad, but it sounds like your Grandma and Grandpa are always trying to get in touch with you and Darcey. It seems like it's your Dad who makes things hard." "Yeah." I turned my head away from him.

Seth seemed to sense my reluctance to continue talking about Dad. "It's good to smoke with you though. With the view and everything. A new spot maybe?" Seth smiled along at me tentatively, and our eyes met for a moment. I nodded. We sat in silence for a while.

"You know what though, I gotta get back. Darcey's been throwing everything out downstairs that gets dirty easilly so she doesn't have to clean it anymore. I just remembered I need to make sure my stuff's out of harms way."

"Say no more." Seth smiled. "Listen to the Biggie album though, and tell me what you think next week?"

"I'll listen now." I smiled back.

Driving home through the woods, I thought about the time Dad had disappeared without warning, how he walked back in through the front door three days later without a word, in his haggard overcoat, with little more than a nod.

Every object in the house had been placed at right angles during that time. Lock your windows, close your doors,

Dad was the sort of person who made you feel like it was always winter. Even on a brighter day, when the sun's rays shone waterily through the kitchen window, he made it feel like it was still heavilly snowing outside as he came in, bringing in the cold, and drops of water that seemed to linger on his coat and his tough old boots.

When I reached the house, I got out of the car, and walked up to the porch. I had woken up that morning breathing sharply after the face of an orca had slammed violently into my vision, engulfing me angrily. I wasn't looking forward to the night.

I decided I would do some nice things until then. I would watch that documentary Seth had mentioned, the one on reptiles and amphibians, then make dinner unless Darcey had put something out, and then draw. Maybe the deer. Or orcas, but swimming peacefully, and in a family group.

When I closed the door behind me, I realised I was still in darkness.

I could see a pool of light had gathered itself on the living room floor, and I followed it out of the hallway. Darcey was sitting on the sofa. She looked like she had been shocked by something.

"Darce?" I said cautiously, standing in front of her. "Are you okay? What's happened?"

"Grandpa's here," she replied. She started shaking uncontrollably.

"Where? Where is everyone?" I replied hurriedly, looking around me.

"Dad went out to the forest—he said to me he would be back for dinner—he said that this morning—I made something for all of us—then Grandpa got here an hour ago—and waited with me—the-then Grandpa went out to find Dad."

My heartbeat erupted in my head. "W-was Dad angry? Was Grandpa angry?" I didn't wait for an answer.

I ran back into the dark hallway and switched the light on.

Dad's gun wasn't there.

Everything was dark again.

I screamed at Darcey to come as I ran out of the backdoor of the house into the shocking white. I ran across the garden through the freezing deep snow over to the snowy brow of the land that stood in front of the lake and scanned the white flatness in front of me, my eyes heavy and wild.

Three hundred yards away there was Grandpa with his arm stretched in front of him, his finger pointing forward angrily. Dad was fifty yards or so away from him. With his back to him, like he had started to walk away and stopped in his tracks. Standing still, facing the forest. I could see Grandpa taking steps towards Dad, a couple at a time. He was saying something.

I screamed desperately that Dad had gun. I didn't know if he had heard me, the wind was so strong. I tried to hurry down the steps to the lake. They were barely visible under the snow, so I was slow and had to keep looking at my feet. I was screaming for Grandpa all the while. I felt like my words only impacted the slice of air in front of me, before they were torn away sideways on the wind.

Grandpa began to advance towards Dad quickly, still pointing at him. A tall old man, with nothing but his hands. Dad suddenly turned around. It happened in an instant. The roar of a gun.

Grandpa fell backwards onto the frozen ice.

I know I was screaming. But I couldn't hear anything. It felt like the world had fallen away from me. Like I was nothing but a shell. I stood there freezing, shuddering, my trainers soaked under the thick snow. A terrible sob exploded into my deafness from behind me.

I turned, Darcey was sitting there in a ball on the ground. I didn't know how long she had been behind me.

White. Black.

I stood up and went over to pick up Inês, leaving my printed story on the table. She continued to wail carelessly as I placed her head against my shoulder.

She liked the fresh air for some reason, so I opened the front door and stood on the porch, rocking her from side to side as I looked out at the front garden. I had been standing on this porch, smiling wanly as Maddox kissed Inês and left through the garden gate to see an old friend who was in town, just an hour ago. The frequency of her cries began to slow down.

She didn't seem to have noticed that she didn't have my full attention. Perhaps she was used to it now.

I looked across to the other Vermont houses, the other white porches. It was all so clean, and clear. And yet somehow it felt hazy...false. Nothing will ever be as clear for me as the night sky I saw every night over Wisconsin. I guess I needed to see it every night. No glare from lights. Just the sky, and when I squinted my eyes, I used to convince myself that I could see the galaxies, and the Milky Way behind the sky.

Seeing it reminded me that there is space in the universe. Space that stretched further than the house to the lake, the lake to the house, the house out to the town, the town to the bridge, the bridge to the house.

I needed to see it now more than ever.

I needed a bloodbuzz

and in the low waves.

That was my way of saying it to myself, anyway. No one needed to know that, I guessed. It was just that at some point, long ago, I had become used to Seth caring quite a lot about how I saw the world in my own crazy unique way. But that didn't matter anymore, it was what one of my neighbours would call, if she could hear my thoughts, and then used one of her favourite phrases: "an 'anyway' matter".

I closed the door and carried Inês upstairs for an afternoon sleep. She gurgled when I lay her down in her cot, but did not protest. I switched on her musical mobile, and closed the door gently. I didn't need to use the baby monitor, she'd be fine. I didn't understand why people worried so much. I sighed as I switched the iPhone dock on, and put my printed story away in my 'sketches and miscelleanous' draw in our filing cabinet. If I was going to write it all down so Maddox would be able to understand better next time today came around, then I guessed today was the day to. Today, when it was washing over me like an outbreak of contaminated water.

It had been hard to begin with, but I liked what I'd written, actually. A record of the events, but from my psyche, the psyche of the woman he loved, who had given him a daughter, and not from anyone else's.

And not from the police reports he poured over after we began our relationship, convinced that he would help me by offering his legal opinion.

Normally I'd be with Grandma. But now...

Hopefully Maddox would get it after reading what I wrote, so that it would be easier next time. But I missed Darcey. I wanted to hug her frail body and hold her close. My older sister, who was always more slight than me, who

didn't like to travel.

I curled up on the sofa.

So come lay, and wait.

Grandma had told me gently, when I was about twelve, that Dad had never dealt with Mom dying in the hospital, less than a week after I was born.

But homicide. And...

I closed my eyes.

Maybe blood had been on the breeze around that house all my life, and I just hadn't realised.

Grandma had also said once that Mom had a beautiful aura and spirit. Before she choked up and had to hurry out of the room, not realising I could still hear her sobbing in the kitchen.

Darcey was two. She couldn't remember Mom either.

I have buried you in every place I've been, you keep ending up in my shaking hand

Suddenly my phone rang. Shirley's name lit up my screen. I switched the

song off.

"Hello."

"Hi Amy. How are you? I know it's been such a while since we've spoken. I've been thinking of you all morning and I wanted to call you."

"Uh, I'm okay. I guess." I never knew what to say to Shirley. "It's not the easiest day of the year."

"Anniversaries are always difficult, especially one like this. I just wanted you to know that I'm thinking of you," she said fervently.

"Thanks." I replied.

She paused. "I know I could have done more to help you, after...we've always been such good friends, since you were little. And I know your Grandma wasn't able to...and now that she's...I, I feel like I owe you an apology."

"I guess there's no use talking about it now. What's done is done. You can't change things. We just make choices, don't we?" I looked across at the baby bottle lying on the table of our open-plan kitchen/living room. Our pine furniture and crisp white walls. I knew I was being somewhat unkind, but I couldn't help it.

"I'm sorry," said Shirley, in a small voice. Then she said "How is Darcey doing?" She was trying.

"She's okay. She's got a job now, she helps with art therapy. It's a very calm environment, gentle people. It's something she feels able to do." I replied.

"That's great," she said enthusiastically. "Another wonderful artist! My niece wants to go into design and I sent her your website. It's stunnng, Amy!"

"Oh, thanks. And Darcey doesn't teach, she just helps with the practical stuff and chats to people as they paint or whatever. It's a supportive role."

Perhaps Shirley wanted me to copy her joy like I used to.

"Oh! I see—wonderful! And Maddox? And Inês? She must be gorgeous!" She sounded envious, but I wasn't sure if it was just enthusiasm.

"Maddox's fine. It's a busy time at work for him. And Inês is well."

"I'd love to meet her," Shirley replied, sounding emotional.

"We might bring her over to Wisconsin in the fall. She hasn't met Darcey yet, so. We could meet then, if we have time."

"Absolutely," she said with fervour. Then she paused. "I'm sure you're a radiant young mother, Amy."

My face felt tight.

"Well, um, actually Shirley, you've caught me at a busy time unfortunately. I need to finish some things in Inês's nursery, you know how Saturdays can turn out. So I'm going to have to get on. But it's been nice to hear from you. I hope things are going well for you and maybe see you in the fall."

"Oh..okay. Yes I do know just what that's like," Shirley laughed her joyful laugh. "Well, I'll let you get on but yes, please let me know if you come back to Osceola, we'd love to see you all."

"I will do. Bye Shirley."

As the tears that my body had held onto for years poured painfully down my face, I knew that the reason why I never knew quite what to say to Shirley, was that I was holding back the one thing I wished I could say the most. That I wanted, that I had always wanted, for her to cross the invisible chasm that lies between a girl and a middle-aged lady who is her neighbour. Around where we lived, at least. The chasm that exists even if they are kindred spirits. Or mother and daughter in another life. And even when the middleaged woman is really nice and doesn't have any children, probably because she couldn't, and likes cooking for people and loves fabrics and textiles and could teach the girl how to sew.

I looked at the cushion on the armchair opposite me. I had sewed the pattern

myself.

Self-taught.

Regardless of all there is a chasm, and even if she wanted to, the middle-aged lady doesn't know how to cross it. And I have never known how to. Maybe I have always known that that could cause a pain in my chest that might never cease, if I opened myself and was left wounded. There would be no bandages, no medicines, for that kind of wound.

I put my hands over my watery eyes and exhaled sharply. I needed to check on Inês soon.

Thoughts began to fly through my head. I checked my phone. Nothing from Maddox. I stopped myself from calling him a name out loud. I switched the song back on.

Music was my resucitation. It had always been. It brought a spectrum of colour to a black emotion.

I guessed that all the emotion about Shirley had been unconscious, dormant, not useful to the survival of the girl I was ten years ago. As I went up the stairs and approached my own daughter, lying in her cot, already awake and gurgling again, I wondered whether it was possible to give something to someone that you had never been given yourself.

Late that night as I lay on the sofa, the bodies of killer whales flashed before me on the television screen.

Maddox long-gone upstairs, up early tommorow for soccer practice... and Inês asleep long ago.

The light of the screen was intensely bright in the darkness of my home. Black and white forms, slippery, cold. Waterborne. It sounded like screaming but it was just how they communicated with one another, the voice was saying. But those screams had deafened me in my dreams until the me in the dream blacked out, countless times. Killers, screaming.

Then the shot of a large orca and a calf swimming next to it, the voice describing it as the camera showed them at different angles.

Having the mother nearby significantly increases her adult sons and daughters chances of survival.

​