like hell to beat the tide—on Clay’s instructions, slow and gentle—wound up singing “Silent Night” to a whale.
Some of them even harmonizing.
I will never forget the sight of it—of so many people trying so hard to help. To rise above themselves and do the right thing. See that? I told Duncan in my head. This is what it means to be fully alive. To feel it all—the joy and the sorrow, the hope and the fear. This is what life demands of us. You just have to stay, and try, and let life break your heart.
* * *
Mrs. Kline notified the search teams that Clay had been found, and they made their way to the beach in pairs as they all heard the news and gathered on the shore to watch the rescue. Carlos and Coach Gordo went back to the school to gather buckets, and the group formed a bucket brigade, sloshing salt water over the whale’s exposed skin as the rescue team worked.
Once he trusted that we were following his instructions, Clay allowed the grown-ups to take over. He was clearly exhausted, and he was, after all, a child.
When the Marine Mammal Stranding Network arrived, they agreed with Clay’s assessment, his rescue strategy, and the calls he’d made—especially the urgency of the whale’s situation: Yes, this was probably a pygmy sperm whale. Yes, there might be hope for this one. Yes, time was running out. We had another hour or two at most before the tide would be too low.
The hope became that if we could just get the whale free from the net, it might be able to use its tail to power back out of the surf. And while half-submerged in the water wasn’t ideal, it was certainly better than fully beached.
The scene was undeniably inspiring: Police and firefighters working together to cut away the net—and taking gently spoken instructions from a lady marine biologist, no less: the ranking member of the Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Teachers faithfully working to slosh the whale with buckets of water. The exhausted Clay wrapped up safe in his mother’s arms. And all of us now gently humming “Silent Night.”
All of us on the same team, desperately coming together to work toward the same meaningful, important thing, in a way that human beings almost never do.
I want to tell you that all of this was enough to completely hold my attention—that I was 100 percent dedicated to Team Whale.
And I was.
But I confess that part of my brain was also wondering about Duncan. Where was he? Shouldn’t he be here by now? I kept checking the crowd. I wasn’t worried about him. I just felt like he ought to be here. That he would want to be here. That this remarkable moment somehow wasn’t quite complete without him.
Even though the thought of seeing him again was not appealing.
Even though the humiliation of it felt like liquid agony.
I still didn’t want him to miss it. I still couldn’t help but think about how good it would be for Duncan to see humanity doing something good for a change.
How good it was for me to see it, too.
How much I wanted to share it.
The news crews showed up—but the firefighters wouldn’t let them turn on their spotlights. Vacationers staying in nearby condos and folks who lived in the surrounding area appeared with coolers of water and boxes of cookies to help fortify the rescuers. As the crowd grew, newcomers either added their voices to the humming, or just stood gazing at the sight—everyone seeming to sense instinctively how important it was to stay quiet.
That is, until Kent Buckley showed up.
“What the hell is going on?” he shouted from the top of the seawall. “Nobody texted me!” He clomped down the concrete steps to the sand and then pushed through the crowd, his face red and flustered.
By this point, the firefighters had brought some beach chairs to Babette and Tina, and Clay had curled up on his mother’s lap—totally unwilling to leave the beach, but fighting to stay alert. When Tina saw Kent Buckley, she defiantly stayed seated, tightening her arms around Clay a little.
“You were supposed to let me know when he was found,” Kent said. “I had to hear the whole story on the news!”
“Shh,” Tina said.
The onlookers hummed a little louder, as if they could drown him out.
“You couldn’t send me one text?” Kent Buckley demanded.
“I was busy,” Tina said.
“He’s my son,” Kent Buckley said, sounding notably petulant. “I’ve been