From Chapter One

On the morning of Sloane Sawyer’s thirtieth birthday, Roma gifted her daughter a fitness tracker.

“It’s as addictive as smoking cigarettes, only it’s good for you!” Roma boasted, rolling up her sleeve to show off her own.

Who gives their daughter a fitness tracker? A mother who thinks their daughter is fat.

Roma had been waiting in her car in the driveway for Sloane and Jason to wake up. She would show up like that, driving forty-five minutes from Tippett Valley to Torren Hills without warning. She claimed that if she called first, Sloane would tell her it wasn’t a good time. She was probably right.

“This one’s for Jason,” she said. From her purse, she removed a second wrapped gift—the same shape and size as Sloane’s.

It’s my birthday—why is anyone else getting a gift?

Roma set the box on the counter. “Something the two of you can do together,” she said.

“You mean, like you and Dad?”

It was a mean thing to say. That Roma and Edward would soon be married thirty-two years still amazed her.

“Now that your father’s retired, I see enough of him at home,” said Roma. “Try it on.”

The fitness tracker was the wrong size for Sloane’s wrist. Small. She couldn’t even get the buckle to meet the last hole. To avoid an argument, she accepted the gift receipt and promised to exchange the band for a larger size.

“Mom, I’ve got to get ready for work.”

Roma sat at the kitchen table. “There’s one more thing.”

Sloane rolled her eyes. “What?”

“I’m going to China!” Her arms rocketed above her head.

Roma had never been anywhere, had never been on a plane, had never crossed a border, and she had chosen China as her first trip. Come September, she would be out of the country for two weeks. She told Sloane she picked China because of a Greg Brown song of the same name. She didn’t care that the lyrics were a metaphor; she was actually going to be in China.

“With Dad?” asked Sloane.

Edward refused to go—not during the NHL pre-season—which was likely the response Roma had expected. Edward was the reason for the trip. Since retiring from the steel plant, he rarely left the house, and the house had always been Roma’s space.

“With Vivian. We’re applying for visas this afternoon. I need a break from your father. He wants to tell me everything.”

“Isn’t that a good thing? Couples go to therapy to learn how to be better communicators.”

“He’s over communicating,” Roma complained. “I don’t need to know everything your father’s thinking. I don’t need to have each of his movements narrated.”

“Narrated? Really, Mom?”

Roma lowered her voice. “‘I’m hungry,’” she said. “‘I’m going to heat up some soup. I’m going to do that now. Just got to get out of this chair. Oh, the floor is cold. Better put on my slippers. I wonder who won the Leafs game last night. Better look that up to see if it affected my Bruins in the standings. Darn, I forgot to plug the phone in last night. Remember the days when phones just stayed plugged in? Fifty-five seconds for the soup. Last time, I heated for a minute and it was five seconds too long—’”

“Okay, I get it.”

“All day, Sloane.”

“Is that why you picked China, to get away as far as possible?”

“I’ve always wanted to go to China.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“How do you know?”

“You’ve never mentioned it before.”

“I don’t tell you everything, Sloane. I’m not your father.”

“Dad doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Lucky you.”

Sloane dropped it. Roma hummed the Greg Brown tune. Sloane tightened the drawstring of her sweatpants and wondered if her own best friend would go on a trip with her.

“I ran into Joe Harrington yesterday,” said Roma. “He was downtown buying glue for his model airplanes. Told me he’s looking for help loading some old wood.”

Sloane’s body tightened. “Their old picket fence?”

“He’s finally clearing out his garage. I gave him Jason’s number. Joe said he’d pay for the help.”

Sloane pushed her glasses into her face. “Jason’s not doing odd jobs anymore.”

“Sloane, it’s the Harringtons.”

“Maybe instead of taking the wood to the dump, they should just put the fence back up.”

“Why are you being so defensive?”

“I’m not.” She was. Sloane backed down.

Around Roma’s wrist, her fitness tracker vibrated, alerting her to move. With exaggerated swinging arms, she began walking laps around the kitchen table.

“Will you check in on your father when I’m away? Make sure he’s scooping out the ashes from the fireplace, emptying the garbage, eating. I don’t want to arrive home to a corpse.”

Sloane groaned. “Mom, he’s an adult.”

“Not a very good one.”

“Can you sit down, please? You’re making me dizzy.”

Roma read the screen on her fitness tracker. “In eighty-four steps,” she said.

Sloane pointed to the band on her mom’s wrist. “What size is yours?”

“Medium.”

“And you thought I was a small?”

“You know I always think of you as my little girl.”

“Mom, I’m thirty.”

“You haven’t grown an inch since thirteen.”

In Grade 8 Sloane had been five foot four inches. She hadn’t grown in height, but her weight had changed by twenty-
five pounds. The last time she had stepped on a scale she weighed in at one hundred sixty-two pounds, seventeen pounds over the ideal weight on the chart pinned to the wall in her doctor’s office.

“How was work yesterday?” Roma asked.

“The worst.”

“Every day can’t be the worst.”

“It can if it is.”

Roma’s face lit up. “Jason!”

Jason Howard walked into the kitchen. His short, spiky hair was wet from a shower and his face clean-shaven. “Hello, Roma,” he said, showing off his dimples.

Roma stopped circling the table. With outstretched arms, she crossed the kitchen floor. “I’ve asked Sloane to check in on Edward when I’m away,” she said, placing her hand on Jason’s arm. “I’m going to be in China for two weeks in September. She’s putting up a fuss about it. Maybe you wouldn’t mind?”

“I wasn’t putting up a fuss,” said Sloane, sounding like a child. “I was merely stating that Dad’s an—”

“I can stop by the house on my way to the plant,” said Jason.

“Oh, thank you!” Roma swatted his shoulder and then kissed his cheek. Her lips lingered. Jason didn’t dodge Roma’s kisses or escape from the room when she visited. Sloane knew how important his mom had been to him; how Roma filled the void Roseanne had left when she passed. “Such a big heart,” Roma said, rubbing Jason’s arm.

Are you flirting with my husband? It briefly occurred to Sloane that Roma might be compensating for her daughter’s shortcomings. And maybe Roma found in Jason what was missing in Edward. Sloane’s dad wasn’t a demonstrative man. He showed his affection for his wife by renovating the house, by purchasing stocks in her name and by not wavering when she came to him with an idea like wanting to go to China with her best friend.

“Sloane?”

“Yes?” Her mind had drifted.

“Great!” Roma beamed. From the doorway, she blew a kiss from her palm. “Happy birthday!” Then just like that, she was gone.

“What did I agree to?”

Jason took Sloane’s hands. “Happy birthday.”

“Jason, what was it?”

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly. She sucked in her belly so that it wasn’t pushing into his.

“You’re worried I’m going to run out there.”

“Maybe.”

When Sloane squirmed free, Jason shot out his arms to block the doorway. She tried to pass and he enfolded his body around hers, playfully clawing at her sides.

“Jason, let me go!” Slapping at his arm, she laughed and snorted. She couldn’t catch her breath.

Finally Jason stopped tickling, and Sloane heard Roma’s car pull out of the driveway. “There,” she said, rotating in her husband’s arms. “Tell me now.”

Jason didn’t let go; he held her close. “Kiss me,” he said.

Sloane leaned back. “I haven’t brushed my teeth.”

“I don’t mind your morning breath.”

She pecked Jason’s cheek.

“Your mom kisses better than that.”

Sloane slapped his chest. “You know she has a crush on you.” She was only half-joking. Does she wish she had a son? “I think you’ve got a crush on her, too,” she added.

“I think we’re just both lonely.”

Disappointed, you mean.

Disappointment and loneliness were similar. By thirty, Jason had planned to be a video-game developer, not be sitting in a crane all day moving coils of steel so he and Sloane could cover their bills. Each summer he was supposed to be repainting the white picket fence around their house. He was meant to be a father.

“Because it’s your birthday,” he said, “I’ll give you a one-up.”

“A what?”

“A do-over. A second chance. A new life.”

Sloane sighed, loudly. “A video game term.”

He closed his eyes and puckered his lips, waiting.

Prologue: It was the kind of dream that could fill a book. In all caps the word NINEVEH appeared. Just like that. Straight out of the pit of Jung’s lungs. A menorah was there too, candle-free, out of service. Jonah’s hair is long and black, shiny like the wet skin of a killer whale. He wears sandals and has a tea-towel over his head held in place by a piece of string that I found in the shed. His skin is pale like the eyelashes of the nativity play angel that taunts me with her blonde ambition. The whale blubber in the black and white encyclopedia looks cozy enough, but if it is like the scum that rises from the pan of boiling animal parts that stinks up my grandfather’s house and makes his four dogs slobber, I would not want to live in it for three days and three nights. But a split-open whale is different to a live one ploughing through kelp and creatures, lit up by Pinocchio’s match, water sloshing in and out and up and down its breathy bones. Jonah lives in the whale’s belly for three days and three nights. A miracle! When he emerges he is gut covered, painted the colour of blood, raisined at the fingers and toes. The dream does its job. Then it leaves in its place a hole where a story can burrow in and root itself. An empty skull, shaken free of its weird and hard to explain or remember images, brain stuff scooped out. The unconscious, long whistled back to the collective pool where it can recharge and enter another newborn’s head, houses the dream story. It sits on a mossy mound open to the four winds, the thousand rains, the one sun, open to the once-upon-a-time and happily-ever-after that mate with violent persistence inside the writer’s head.