Whale of a Tale

High school: the land of stigma. The stereotypes run rampant, like racoons in in a landfill; it’s a field day. Anyone and everything is fair game. There’s Spider Mike who rides his Spider-bike, a ten-speed decked out to the T for Spiderman. Squishy is this girl who stepped or gum with her brand-new Vans, she only got the nickname cause she freaked out about it trying to pay Freddie Hawker to scrape it off. Pencil boy is Brady Guffaw, twin to the valedictorian, he can’t seem to remember a pencil, ever, whether or purpose or by accident no one knows. Don’t forget Diver Dan, a kid who got caught sifting through the garbage bins for his retainer freshman year, he’s a senior now and even the new freshmen know his label. So, kids get associated with these behaviors and symbols, sometimes to no fault of their own other than an unfortunate scuffle with fate. Mine is whales.

Whale Raincoat Girl. Rachel Chattelson was gone, replaced by this freak. All because of this stupid coat. It’s a thick rubber raincoat that’s navy blue with green little whales all over. It has two drawstrings for the large hood and two pockets, one on each side of the button stretch. I wear it every single day. Why? I don’t know.

All I know is I wake up and the coat is there, I go to bed and the coat is there. I get dressed and put the coat on. I shower and take it off, but once I’m toweled off, I put it back on. I wear a dress and the raincoat overtop. I wear jeans and a sweatshirt, and still the raincoat overtop. When I’m getting dressed, if even for just one second, I consider not putting it on I get sick to my stomach.

A wave a nausea just flows over me, and my knees go weak. The room starts to spin, and I regret everything I’ve ever done, sometimes I have to grab the bedpost. It’s some sort of innate rule, cast by witches, warlocks, kings, emperors, magicians, or even God himself, I don’t know. All I know is I follow it, no matter what it does to my social status.

I didn’t used to be this way, but no one seemed to remember who I used to be, and honestly neither could I. I don’t know what happened. My entire memory isn’t gone. I remember being a kid: eating ice cream, hugging teddy bears, riding a bike, good stuff like that. And I know my name, where I live, who my parents are, but one day it all goes black. I just don’t know why. And for another unknown reason, I have zero desire to try and figure it out.

I just exist like this, adding the moronic rubber slicker to every outfit I pick out and going to school. This behavior, of course, attracted the attention of the high school sharks, earning me my new nickname. I’m not exactly sure how long it was before I realized the new norm wasn’t always my norm, a month perhaps two. But I’ve accepted it. That’s another rule: nothing bothers me, I don’t care about anything, I don’t even want to know what happened.

These whales follow me, and not just on the coat. On TV there’s a nature documentary on the matriarchal societies of whales. The neighbor kid runs through the yard with his inflatable Shamu pool toy. At the dollar store there’s a whale shaped succulent pot. The whales are everywhere, and so are the stares as I walk into the grocery store in the middle of July with my indifferent attitude, shorts, tank-top, and childish raincoat.

One night around 10:30 PM, however, that all changed.

We were sitting on the couch, that stupid documentary on the TV, me, Mom and Dad. Mom was playing Candy Crush on her cell phone, Dad was sort of watching sort of scrolling Facebook, while I stared blankly at the TV, not quiet absorbing the information, because, again, I don’t care. Suddenly, Mom bolted upright.

“Oh my God.”

“What?” Dad sat up too, concerned.

“It was supposed to come today, in the mail.”

“Oh man, you’re right.” Dad turned to me. “Rachel, sweetie, would you mind going and bringing in the mail, please?”

“Sure, whatever.” I stood up. The lighting flashed through the sliding glass door; it was raining. I was the obvious choice, since I had the idiotic raincoat on.

I made my way outside and crossed the street to the dark green mailbox. It was weird. Since I’d noticed the blackout in my memory, I hadn’t actually been in the rain, even though I constantly had a slicker on. The sticky summer heat started steaming inside the coat, white camera flash lighting kept bubbling up the sky, the rain pitter pattered its percussionist rhythm on my coat, the coat was sticky, a car swooshed past in the rain, the rain got stronger plinking even more drops on my coat, the sticky coat I didn’t even want to be wearing anymore, but the innate rule said I had to.

No.

At that moment, something else inside me snapped. Something stronger than the innate rule, it finally wanted to know why, why I had to wear this dumb thing at every possible moment. So, I quickly grabbed the mail from the box, tromped inside, plopped it on the kitchen table without a word, and I opened my eyes.

The answer was everywhere: the fourth chair at the dinner table that I didn’t seem to notice anymore, the pink pair of converse sitting untouched on the shoe shelf, a closed door we didn’t open, and worst of all, the pictures hanging on the wall.

It was like a switch. I’d turned the lights back on in my brain and suddenly I could see everything I didn’t want to remember. Her smile, with rainbow braces, her hair, in two little blonde braids, her laugh, what a beautiful laugh, the kind that was infectious and pure. And she loved whales, not me.

Anna.

I stretched the soft A syllable of her name in my head. My sister, my baby sister who’d recently grown taller than me. And that day, that horrible day, when it rained, and she forgot her coat. I wouldn’t turn around and go home, we were already late for school. She was throwing a fit in the passenger seat, going on and on about how I didn’t understand how important it was and that I just didn’t like her stupid coat. I looked over to retaliate, when the tractor pulled out in front of us. It was backing out of a driveway, trailer full of farming equipment towing behind. I saw it just a smidge too late and my brakes failed just a smidge too much.

Mom and Dad were sorting through the mail I had just brought in, oblivious to my presence. This weight came crashing down on me, this knowledge that I’d tried so hard not to want, not to know. It was suffocating. I tried to speak, my voice harsh and croaky, it barely came out a whisper. I tried again, stronger this time, but still weak.

“Mom. Dad.” They looked up. Tears started welling in my eyes, anguish obvious on my face. They saw it, they knew what was coming next. “Anna.” I practically whispered.

They dropped the mail and came rushing to me. Four arms enveloped me like a storm of love. My knees gave out, but they had me. I was safe, I knew, as all that pain finally broke the surface tension of my repression. I could remember it all.

Everything. The day she was born, sharing goldfish from the county fair, fighting over the plastic princess plate at dinner, spray painting the neighbor’s cat’s tail, watching the same movie a hundred times, crushing on the same boy on summer vacation, disagreeing about the best ice cream flavor, braiding each other’s hair. I even remember the day we went thrifting and she bought the whale raincoat. She had been so excited, it had whales, her favorite, and it was the perfect size. She joked that I’d better not steal it from her, since we could now share clothes, I promised I’d never do such a thing in a million years, hideous jacket.

But everything meant the bad stuff too. The blurry whir of sirens and hurried trip to the hospital. The confusion and terror when I couldn’t find her. The frantic questions that no one seemed to answer directly. The nasty scar from my eye to my chin that I chose not to see in the mirror. The awful day when we all wore black and pretended the well-wishes made us feel better. The quiet days in the empty house. And finally, the day when something inside me broke and I put up the wall, blocking it all out, all of it.

As it came back, I cried, and my parents cried with me. As much as it hurt, it was so much worse knowing I had tried to forget all of it, even the good stuff. I felt guilty that I’d tried to erase my sister from my memory for the sake of my own pain. But together, with my parents I felt safe and comforted and loved. I knew whatever happened next, no matter how hard, I would always have the whales and with them I’d never forget Anna again.