THIRTY-FOUR

Dear Mrs. Pelley,

My name is London Parker-Stewart, from Thunder Bay, Ontario, and for the tiniest millisecond of time in relation to the entire great history of our world, I dreamed I was in your shoes. Even though I’m sure your shoes, which are likely very expensive and hard to walk in, wouldn’t really fit me. I’m sorry. That was a bad metaphor.

Let me start again.

I drove to Duluth from Thunder Bay with my grandmother so I could meet up with your husband and help him with his mission to save the world’s sharks. Before I go any further, I just want you to know that while it might seem like I was more interested in the former than the latter, in all actuality the sharks are my main focus in life, and saving all animals in general. I believe that we as a society will ultimately be judged by how we treat those who are more helpless and voiceless than us, and that we have a responsibility to stand up for and protect those whose habitats and ways of life we have damaged with our own selfish ambition and consumerism and general antipathy towards our planet. But I’m sure I don’t have to explain this to you, Mrs. Pelley, as you are married to one of the most dedicated and respected champions of animals that the world has ever seen.

I am writing this letter in the cabin of your husband’s boat while my grandmother pilots. She also believes in the mission, and she believes in me. You may recognize my grandmother from the recent viral video of an old lady going over Kakabeka Falls in a whisky barrel. It has had over 10 million views on YouTube, and was featured on several news programs and talk shows, and was even the focus of a pretty lame skit on Saturday Night Live. I am telling you this because I want you to know that I come from a family of brave and relentless women, Mrs. Pelley, women who long to defy the odds, not only to dream impossible dreams but to turn around and make them possible. My grandmother has the magic heart of a dragon, and I can only hope that some of that has been passed down to me.

London puts down her pen and gazes out the cabin window. Outside in the cockpit, her grandmother stands at the wheel of the Rum Runner, her gaze fixed on some destination off in the distance. They have been taking turns watching for the shark, but London has a suspicion that her Nana is focused on something else, that she has set her own secret plan in motion. Or maybe London is just deluding herself. Her grandmother isn’t capable of making secret plans anymore.

No one in the family ever talks about what’s wrong with Nana. They won’t even give it a name. Sometimes London wonders if they are scared of the word, or if they just don’t think she will understand it, which makes her want to grab them and scream, “Dementia! She has dementia!” London is not stupid, she knows how to Google a few symptoms. But still, people treat her like she is just a baby who can’t handle the truth.

But maybe it’s not her they’re keeping the truth from. Maybe they are so blinded by their own hubris, they can’t even see what is going on in their own family. But London sees everything. Like how her sisters and brother hide from Nana when they are home because they are scared of what weird thing she is going to say to them. How her mom thinks that no one notices when she has to take the TV remote out of the freezer every morning on the sly and put it back on the coffee table. The way she pretends she is going to pick up some hair-colouring supplies when Nana can’t find her own way home. The way she lies to Papa when he gets home and tells him everything is fine, and the way he lies and tells her he believes her.

And yes, maybe she did take advantage of the situation yesterday afternoon when she went to visit Nana at the hospital, expecting her to still be in that coma but instead finding her awake and wandering around her room, looking for her shoes.

“Nana,” London said, putting her hand on her grandmother’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, dear,” Nana said. “I’d just like to get out of here. If I could just find something to put on my feet.”

It was pretty clear to London that her grandmother had no idea what had happened to her. But London didn’t try to explain it. “I think your Birkenstocks are in your suitcase,” she said and pulled it out of the closet. Inside, she found a pair of what looked like aqua shoes that must have been the ones Nana wore while going over the falls.

While Nana pulled the aqua shoes on her feet, she eyed the suitcase. “Are we going on a trip?” she asked.

London took a deep breath. She thought about Adam Pelley, and his important mission to save the lake shark, and his beautiful eyes, the colour of the ocean on a calm, sunny day.

“Yes,” she said. “We are.”

—

I don’t want to hurt you, Mrs. Pelley, that was not my intention in writing this letter, but I have to tell you this: your husband and I had a relationship. He told me he loved me. He told me he wanted me to be with him, to help him on his mission to save the planet. I am sorry if it hurts you to hear this, but I think it’s best that you do, for your own sake. I imagine you are close in age to Adam, so you are not too old to start again, if you wanted to. You also probably have a successful career. I bet you’re like a journalist or something, like one of those reporters on CNN who goes to war-torn areas and has to live in a tent and wear camo so you don’t get shot, or maybe a lawyer who goes to work in a high-rise every day and wears business suits with little skirts instead of pants and very tall heels that you never fall over in. I also picture you with red hair, for some reason, and kind of looking like Scarlett Johansson. When I put all that together in my head, it makes you seem very intimidating, and I will never be as good as you in a million years. There is no reason at all why Adam would choose me over you, and at times I’m not sure why I don’t just jump off this boat right now and drown myself in the lake.

Suffice it to say, I did not know that Adam was married. The entire time we were together I had no idea of your existence, and even now I don’t know what your first name is. If I had known, it probably wouldn’t have changed anything about the way I behaved, which is, I have to say, one hard truth about myself that this entire situation has revealed to me. It’s like I looked into a mirror and I saw my soul, Mrs. Pelley, and I didn’t really like what I saw there at all.

And when I went over to Adam sitting in the hotel lobby and I smiled and introduced myself, he looked right through me as if he didn’t know me. And at first I was confused because of all the intimate things we had shared over the months – I just couldn’t understand how he could dismiss me so easily, after telling me how much he wanted to be with me. But then he held out his hand for me to shake, and I saw the ring glinting there, and I thought, Ahh, now I understand. I don’t know what made him change his mind, but I like to think it was a moment of conscience. That he had decided, even though he and I are basically soul mates who see the world through the same pair of eyes, that it was more important for him to honour his commitment to you.

Except, that wasn’t true either. There was the other woman. Tall, blond, perfect in her dumb little skinny jeans and cable-knit sweater, walking across the lobby towards Adam like she was queen of the fucking world. London stood outside, her entire body filling with rage, using every ounce of her willpower to keep herself from smashing through the hotel window and throwing that stupid ugly skank up against the wall, pulling out chunks of her silky blond hair, breaking her cute little button nose with the heel of her palm. Who does she think she is? Does she even know that Adam used to make cheese and jelly sandwiches for his little brother when his mom was at work? Does she even know that Adam cried during Finding Nemo? Then another thought occurred to London: Did she really know those things? Had any of those things actually been true? Or had Adam been lying to her this whole time? He lied about being married. He lied about wanting London to be with him. He could have lied about everything.

She followed them, Adam and the girl, as they left the hotel and crossed the bridge to the marina, trying to keep herself together, to keep from screaming or crying or throwing herself off the bridge and into the cold, black waters of Duluth Harbour and, like, letting her eyes be eaten out by pickerel or something. When they got to the marina, Adam took the girl’s hand and led her up onto the deck of the Rum Runner as if she were completely helpless, a delicate fucking princess who couldn’t do anything on her own. Why would Adam want to be with someone who couldn’t even climb up onto a boat by herself? What could he possibly see in her?

London sat on a bench by the main building and watched as the Rum Runner motored out into the calm waters of Lake Superior. So much for high winds, she thought. She sat there for two hours, waiting for them to come back. She had a vague idea that when they got back she was going to confront Adam for being a lying, cheating scumbag, but she fell asleep before she could come up with any sort of plan. When she woke up, the sun was just breaking over the horizon. The Rum Runner was back at its berth, and Adam and the girl were nowhere to be seen.

London wandered out onto the dock, towards the Rum Runner, and that’s when she saw him. Adam, alone, standing at the very end of the dock, gazing out over the lake. Searching for the lake shark. In spite of herself, she felt sorry for him. She was sure it wasn’t his choice to cancel the show. And no matter what a liar he was, he had still done so much good. How hard must it be to know that you can change the world, but some insurmountable obstacle is standing in your way?

London could still help him. She could still prove herself to him. If she brought the shark back then he would have to save it, no matter what “the man” told him he could or couldn’t do.

While Adam stood watching the lake, London slipped onto the Rum Runner. She stood in the cockpit, holding her breath, looking at all the knobs and buttons and levers. This is crazy, she thought. What am I going to do, motor off while he’s just standing there? Adam would be back any minute. In a moment of panic, she snatched the keys out of the ignition and jumped lightly back onto the dock, running as fast as she could all the way back to the hotel.

—

But I digress. This is not the real reason I am writing you, Mrs. Pelley. I realize that I am a teenaged girl and we are notoriously self-absorbed, so I can understand why you might think this letter was simply a way for me to vent my anger at being spurned by your husband, or a way to get back at him for hurting me. But this is not about me. This is about a shark, Mrs. Pelley. A sad, lonely, lost shark who is slowly dying in an inhospitable habitat – “weak, confused, and mercilessly hunted by locals who don’t understand not only the magnificence of this creature, but also the important scientific discoveries that could be made by studying its physiology,” according to your husband’s website. I was moved by your husband’s words, Mrs. Pelley. After all, it was his dedication to the cause that made me fall in love with him in the first place. And even if we couldn’t be together, I still felt I had a responsibility to try to help. I could go home and curl up with my broken heart, or I could do what I came here to do, and maybe in the process, become a woman who your husband would be proud of.

“Honey, are you okay in there?” London’s grandmother sticks her head in the cabin door.

“Yup. I’ll be right out.” London folds up the piece of paper she is writing on and stuffs it in the back pocket of her jeans. It’s stupid anyway, she thinks. As if I’m going to send a real, actual letter to someone.

In the cockpit, she sits on the bench next to her grandmother. Nana looks so comfortable at the wheel, so natural, in the too-large windbreaker they found in the cabin, the wind tossing her grey curls around her head. “How do you know how to drive a boat, Nana?”

Nana takes her hands off the wheel and looks at them, as though the answer is etched there somewhere in the lines on her palm. “I don’t know, dear,” she says. She lowers her hands. “Who does this boat belong to?”

“I told you, it’s my friend Adam’s.” She had told Nana this an hour ago, but it’s like her grandmother’s brain is a sieve, and her words are like water flowing through the little holes. In fact, she probably wouldn’t remember anything London told her right now. “Actually, Adam’s not really my friend,” London says slowly. “I thought he was my boyfriend, but I was wrong.”

“Oh, well.” Nana pauses. “You’re too young to have a boyfriend anyway.”

London pulls the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands. “I’m so stupid,” she says, blinking back tears. “How could I actually believe that someone like Adam Pelley could be in love with me?”

“I believe it,” says Nana. “A boy would have to be crazy to not be in love with you.”

A confession starts bubbling up inside London, and she struggles to keep it in but it bursts out through her seams. “Sometimes I think it could all just be a lie, you know? And maybe when he didn’t recognize me, he wasn’t really pretending at all,” she says. “But I mean, what else am I supposed to believe? That someone I once considered my friend pretended to be the person I admire most in the world to trick me into telling secrets about myself? That she thought it would be hilarious to make me believe that I was special enough to be loved by Adam Pelley?”

“My darling,” Nana says gravely. “You are the most special person in the world. Look at what you’re doing.” She waves her arm out towards the lake.

London shakes her head. “All I did was steal a boat.”

“You took a chance.” Nana smiles. “You’re going to change the world, my sweet Serafina.”

“I’m not –” London stops. What does it matter? So what if Nana wants to believe that she is Aunt F? Or if London wants to believe she was really talking to Adam Pelley all that time? They are speeding across Lake Superior in a stolen boat looking for a shark in the middle of the world’s largest lake. Reality is basically, like, completely fluid at this point. They should both be allowed to live in their ridiculous delusions for a little while longer.

“Oh my,” says Nana. “What’s that over there?”

London stands up, peering out into the lake. “Is that…a fin?”

And suddenly, there it is, coming towards them. A dorsal fin, slicing through the surface of the water at breakneck speed, heading straight for their boat. Nana cuts the engine and they both run to the railing, watching as the fin submerges and a long, grey body glides beneath the boat.

“It’s the shark,” London breathes. A bull shark, named for his stocky shape, broad, flat snout, and aggressive behaviour, with a bite force of up to thirteen hundred pounds. Found in warm, shallow waters along coasts and in rivers, and known to survive in brackish and even fresh water. Sighted only as far north as the Mississippi River in Illinois.

Until now.

London and her grandmother race to the other side of the boat, staring incredulously as the fin resurfaces and swims away. “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” Nana says eventually.

“Yes,” London whispers.

She tries to remember now how she imagined she was going to save him. Had she planned on jumping into the lake and wrestling him into the boat? Was she going to tie him up with a rope and tow him back to shore? She had pictured him weak and disoriented, near death, maybe even somehow understanding that she was rescuing him and submitting to her. But the more she watches the shark, the more she realizes he isn’t weak and disoriented, he isn’t near death, he isn’t sad or lonely, and he certainly isn’t about to let a bunch of northern Minnesotan redneck fishermen take him down. He is just a shark out having an adventure, doing something that he was probably told all his life that sharks weren’t supposed to do, but he did it anyway because he is his own shark and he doesn’t have to abide by, like, society’s rules or whatever. He probably didn’t fit in at home in the Gulf of Mexico, and he was sure there was a whole incredible world out there, just waiting to be explored.

This shark has the magic heart of a dragon.

They watch the shark for a few more minutes, the boat rocking silently in the breeze, until the fin disappears under the surface of the lake and doesn’t reappear. Behind them, London can hear the distant wail of a siren. She knows they don’t have much time left. “They’re coming for us,” she says.

“That’s okay,” Nana says, hands on the rail, gazing out across the lake to the horizon. “We’re almost there.”

Sure we are, thinks London. She takes the piece of paper out of her back pocket and begins to write.

Mrs. Pelley, this letter is an apology, but also a request. Tell Adam not to worry about the shark. The shark is doing just fine without him.