The Seal that ate my Father’s Fish

Grain Summer 2017 Volume 44.4

It was spring break and the weather so hot and sunny that the cherry trees were in full bloom. Their crowns looked like pink cotton candy. My mother and I were mopping the green winter slime off our deck that overlooked the bay. She worked at one end, I stayed at the other. Scattered between us were the hoses and attachments to the pressure washer we couldn’t start. I watched her from the corner of my eye as she rinsed her mop in the bucket, then slapped it back down on the deck for a few more swipes before rinsing it again. When she stopped mopping, I stopped mopping. “Your father should be here to do this,” she said.

“Let’s call him.”

“So, he can see that I can’t manage to clean a deck without him? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No. Just to see if he’ll help us, that’s all.” My father had moved out after Christmas, said he needed to get his shit together. His shit turned out to be a woman named Linda who owned the artisan gift shop at the island’s marina where boaters visited. True islanders avoided the place. The influx of so many people each summer was annoying, and my mother said Linda’s business wrecked the ambiance of the island. 

I was trying to decide if I dared to call my father behind her back again when a gunshot ripped across the bay. My whole body jerked. She dropped her mop. Everything went still until a fishing boat revved up and sped off. A minute later a seal started barking and wailing on the rocky jut of land near the mouth of the bay. The other seals slid into the water and left it all alone. The agony of its cries made the afternoon sun appear brighter, the smell of bleach at my feet even stronger and the need to see my father even more unbearable. 

We ran down the steps to the water and stood at the end of our dock. “What should we do?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“We have to do something.”

My mother got in her kayak that was tied alongside our dock and paddled out to the mouth of the bay without putting on her lifejacket. I watched and worried she’d tip. She angled herself directly into the breeze coming across the Salish Sea and paddled hard. When she got close to the rocks she stopped. Her orange kayak bobbed on the water. The kerchief that kept her long brown curls off her face blew away and her hair swirled around her face like a swarm of bees. 

When she got back and was securing her kayak, I asked, “Is it going to live?”

“Looks like it got shot on the side of the head. Right through its eye.” 

“Nasty! We can’t just leave it. I’m calling Dad.”

“Tina, don’t you dare!”

She ran up to our kitchen taking the steps two at a time. I followed. My mother stood at the sink; her foot tapped the floor as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. “Go get a fish from the freezer,” she said.

I ran down to our dark cellar and found at least a dozen salmon covered in freezer burn. Leftovers from my father’s weekends spent fishing with his brother. We never ate anything he caught because one large fish was too much for the three of us and he never bothered to cut them up or wrap them properly. He’d say to my mother, “Marg, you’re better at filleting than I am.” She’d say, “Why would I package the fish you caught on a trip that didn’t include me?” The fish piled up. 

We filled the kitchen sink with warm water and when the fish was all limp and slimy she placed it on old newspapers. I watched as she guided the sharp knife across one side of the fish skimming off a centimeter of yellowed flesh. The inner meat was a deep red. She flipped the fish over. By the time she finished, it looked good enough to serve in a restaurant.

The seal was still alone on the rocks, barking and wailing when she got back in her kayak, this time wearing her life jacket with her hair up in a tight bun. I followed in mine and we paddled out to it with our offering. I knew my father wouldn’t approve. He didn’t believe in feeding wildlife, even injured ones.

We got as close as we could and threw the fish in the water. The seal slipped off the rocks and circled. He submerged then came up directly underneath the fish. He bit into it and dragged it under. 

The seal resurfaced close to me and I almost tipped when I saw its eye half gone. It swam around us a few times then climbed on to a rock exposed by the ebbing tide. Blood oozed from its head as it lifted its face out of the water.

When we got back to the house, I went to my room and cried. Why did everything have to be so sad. My mother came in and asked what was wrong. How could I say, EVERYTHING when she was struggling with her own heart ache? Every night I heard her cry after the lights were out and worse, sometimes I heard her on the phone begging my father to come home.

The next day I got up after my mother had gone to work. She left her regular note stuck to the fridge telling me to stay away from the water and to do my chores. The weather had cooled off and clouded over. As I made toast and emptied the dish washer, I could hear the seal out on the rocks again. Its pain every bit as loud as yesterday. I thawed another fish, removed the ugly white freezer burn as best as I could and paddled out to it. When it galumphed off the rocks and swam towards me, I tossed the fish in the water. The eye socket wasn’t bleeding anymore but the gash in its head looked deep. 

Before my mother got home from work, I thawed another fish. It ate that one just as fast.

The next morning, my father was supposed to pick me up. He’d promised me a day in Nanaimo clothes shopping. I waited and waited by the front door for the sound of his muffler to come roaring down our quiet road. Close to noon, long after all the morning ferries had departed, he called to say, “Sorry, Tina something came up.”

“Will I see you at all this week?”

“I’ll try.”

I went to the end of the dock, dangled my feet in the water and cried. My mother would be furious he stood me up again – this would make them fight even more and I hated getting stuck in the middle. 

In between my sobs, I heard the seal cry, too. 

Back to the cellar I went. This time I pulled out the largest Chinook salmon my father had ever caught. A trophy fish. He’d wanted to have a big party the day he caught it, invite the whole island but my mother was already suspicious of the woman from the marina. “She’s circling awfully close to my nest,” she’d said.

“She’s not a bird,” he said.

“I don’t like that skinny blond with her fake tits?”

“They’re not fake.” After that my mother refused to invite anyone over for a salmon grill. 

The Chinook salmon was almost a metre long and thick in the middle. I thawed it in the bath tub then carried it outside where I used the new hatchet with the shiny wooden handle we’d bought at the co-op to chop in into chunks the size of my head. By the time I finished, its smelly juices saturated the chopping block and black flies were everywhere. I rinsed everything with the garden hose but the fishy smell lingered.

The wind was up and it was tough going as I made my way out to the jut of rocks again with the salmon chunks in a burlap sac balanced on the bow. When I got close enough, I tossed the pieces into the water one at a time. As the seal came up to feed I got a close-up look inside its mouth – tight rows of pointy yellow teeth. 

As I paddled towards home, it followed. While I tied up my kayak, it hauled out on the rocky shelf beneath our deck. It watched me with its one good eye while I sat crossed legged on the dock about twenty feet away. I texted my friends to come see it, but no one got back to me. I used my phone to search for seal facts. I learned that its toes are called digits, each digit has a long nail on it. The back flippers are webbed, and seals can stay under water for over 25 minutes. They’re called pinnipeds because of their sharp pointy teeth that are perfect for ripping at their food. And even when they’re blind they can feel their way underwater with their whiskers. 

For the rest of the day I completely forgot about my father and my mother and all the awful things they yelled at each other. I didn’t hate the woman my father was with and I didn’t care that I’d be returning to grade nine in a few days wearing the same old jeans and t-shirts. A seal had followed me home.

When my mother got home from work and learned it had hauled out under the deck she said, “Oh shit, I shouldn’t have fed it that fish.” I couldn’t exactly admit to being on the water alone.

By Friday, all the fish from the freezer were gone, even the ones we could still eat if we wanted. It was another unbelievably hot day. When the seal heard me come down the steps towards the water, it slid off the rocks and swam towards the end of the dock where I’d fed it from. Its skin and fur puckered around the empty eye socket. As I sat there trying to figure out if I ought to try feeding it food scraps from the composter, I heard my father’s truck coming down the road. Shit! I’d be in big trouble for being on the dock alone. The rule was in place since we’d moved here when I was only five and before I’d learned how to swim. It was the one thing they agreed on, “A kid drowns every summer, we don’t want it to be you,” they’d say. 

As fast as I could, I ran up the stairs. He still had a key and by the time I was back in the kitchen, he was opening the front door.

“Hey, Tina. Sorry about the other day.”

“That’s okay.” 

He had his swimming trunks on and his own towel in hand. “Want to jump off the dock like we used to?”

It was our thing on hot summer days. He’d go first then I’d try to jump past him. “It’s kind of cold,” I said. The sun and tide flow only warmed the top of the water. Deeper than that held a bitter freeze.

“Are you kidding, look out the window.” I looked across the bay and sure enough a couple were diving off the bow of their sailboat. 

I got my bathing suit on and followed him to the water. He didn’t have much to say and I was busy looking for the seal. The water did feel warm but even warmer than the sun and the water was his smile. He said, “I never should have cancelled our day together.”

My heart felt all fluffy and loved. 

“Come on, let’s jump in,” he said. 

Not far from the dock, the seal’s head bobbed up and it looked like the head of a Rottweiler pup. Then it went under.

My father backed up about ten feet, took a good run towards the end of the dock and jumped. What a splash. I went to his starting point, and waited for him to surface. His head bobbed up, arms in the air, mouth and eyes wide opened then he went down again. I thought it must be outrageously cold. I hesitated, took a few steps closer to the end thinking I’d jump short, closer to the ladder. That’s when I saw the seal, sliding over his body pulling him down. I screamed, ran to the very end and jumped in right beside him. I felt the seal’s body slide between us all smooth and heavy. Then it was gone.

I helped my dad to the ladder, climbed first then pulled him up. The calf of his leg was all ripped opened, a flap of skin four inches long hung over the back of his heel. I had to look away. 

Lying on his side he tried to reach for his phone. I took it from him and called 911. He threw his t-shirt over his leg, and told me to go up to the road and wait for the ambulance. I ran up the stairs. At the top, I turned back to look at him. He was flat on his back. The t-shirt covering his leg was crimson red. When I got to the front of the house I started to shake uncontrollably. 

The ambulance finally arrived, and a paramedic told me to stay right there. He wrapped a blanket around me and made me sit on the grass. Each minute passed so slowly I could hear voices echoing up from the water. I wanted to run to my dad, but I couldn’t get my legs to move. 

Finally, a gurney got rolled from around the house along the cement walkway. My father was sitting up, telling the paramedics that he didn’t live here anymore, he was just visiting. When I tried to go to him, my legs gave way and I fell to the grass. My throat locked and I couldn’t get a word out. As the ambulance door closed, he waved to me and smiled. I don’t remember if I waved back or called out to him.

He was airlifted to a main land hospital. My mother’s friend, Sage, took us to the ferry. We got to the hospital late that evening when my father was out of surgery and asleep in his room. He’d lost a whole lot of blood. My mother donated a pint. His brother arrived and gave more. We weren’t allowed to see him, but my mother insisted we stay until she could talk to him. Sage went down to the lobby and came back with banana bread and fresh coffee from Starbucks. “Why would a seal just bite someone like that?” she said.

My mother hung her head, her nose pointed down towards the Vente coffee she held close to her face. 

I was working up the courage to admit that I’d been feeding the seal and that’s why it was hanging around so close to the dock, when my father’s girlfriend came down the hallway from the direction of his room. I’d never paid much attention to her when I’d seen her around the island. No need to until now. Her hair was naturally blonde, not died like my mother suggested. Her big boobs did look a little high for a forty-year old but so what, and her skin was as lined as my mother’s. What was strikingly different about her was her posture, her clothes and the confidence that oozed from her. My mother, Sage nor I intimidated her. 

“What are you doing here,” my mother asked.

“Where else would I be? He phoned me while he was on the dock waiting for the ambulance to arrive.”

My mother put her coffee down on top of a pile of old newspapers that sat on a coffee table. It tilted to one side and I was certain it would tip. She pointed a finger at me. “Did you know he called her first?” 

“No, I was on the road waiting for the ambulance.”

My mother started to cry. 

My father’s girlfriend said, “Look, this is an awkward situation. I have to get home and I won’t be back until the end of next week. The doctor said he’ll be here for at least that long and it would help if he had someone to visit with him.”

Sage said my mother ought to leave and let him sit alone all week seeing as he’d made his choice. My mother refused to leave, and I pleaded to stay on the mainland with her.

We sat in his room, got him ice water, brought him salads and subs from Subway and my mother rubbed his neck to help get his mind off the pain in his leg. She helped him hop to the toilet and stood just outside the door until he was finished, then helped him back to bed. When his pain became unbearable, she argued with the nurse to give him more painkillers.

By Wednesday my mouth felt thick and sticky with the confession I’d been keeping in. When my mother finally left his side to return to our motel room for some rest, I stayed with him. “Dad, this wasn’t entirely a freak accident.”

“What do you mean, Kiddo?”

“The seal that bit you … I’d been feeding it the fish from our freezer.”

“Even the big Spring?”

“The seal was hungry.” 

“Oh.” The corners of his mouth curled down. He looked like he might cry and that got me feeling anxious. I didn’t want to see my father cry. At least not over a fish.

I rambled on about trying to start the power washer, the gun shot that echoed across the bay and the injured seal that didn’t die. And how hard it was to live with my mother since he’d left us. “She’s so hurt,” I said.

It took him a long time to say anything and I feared this seal incident would never be discussed, that it would get tossed in that great big vat of unresolved issues. Finally, he said, “I wanted to fillet that prize fish. Serve it with wild asparagus and a lemon-dill drizzle. It was so hard to reel in. The kick to that fish – I almost lost my rod! I told everyone I was going to have the biggest salmon grill the island had seen in a long time.”

“That would have been nice.”

“Yes, it would have been nice.” He reached for my hand. When he pressed it flat on his chest over his heart, I knew he was never coming home.