“Yes, son. I am. I find so much joy in hearing the whale songs. I find happiness in the small baskets and the boat going out into the water in the morning when the light is just perfect on the ocean.”

But afterward, she thought about things she might want. A husband. Some help. A little spending money. Days in the town away from their village. Not to worry about her mother, Aurora, who lived on the hillside and was forgetting things.

She was worried about what she’d heard: There was a behind-the-scenes plot to kill a whale. The business leaders of the tribe had met with the Japanese businessmen and made a quiet deal to sell the whale meat to them. She wanted to protect the whales. She was already speaking out against the men.

Marco seemed to read her mind, but he said, “I’m happy, too.”

One morning two old men paddled over to where Ruth lived and worked on the boat and Ruth greeted them. She already knew them. As was customary, she invited them aboard and cooked eggs, potatoes, and coffee. “There was a moon dog last night,” one man said, pushing back his gray hair, his old skin taut across his bones. “A storm is coming.” She thanked him for the information. “I better prepare,” she said. For many things, she thought. “The boat is moored strongly, but I’ll check everything.”

She served the food and they spoke about small things and large. Then she said, “I know why you are here. I knew you would be here one day. But can’t I keep him a little longer?”

“It’s time,” he said, looking at her, then at Marco, the small talk over.

Ruth looked down. She set his food before him and sat across from him.

She knew what was next. It wasn’t like she was giving her son up. He would go live with the old people. She could visit at any time, but she would miss his breath, his conversation, touching his hair, brushing it into a braid, watching the whales with him.

Marco’s school education was now over and his real one would begin. Now Ruth again cried and they smiled kindly at her and at Marco, but said, “Anu, we must take him now because the light passed through the stones just right and he is growing.”

Marco felt his mother’s hand, not wanting to let go.

All through school he knew he would leave, so he learned what he could, more than anyone else. Now it was time to learn other ways of knowing things.

Marco had learned how to think when he was still young. He had learned how to feel, how to understand a human. Listen, his mother would tell him. Listen to the world. Rocking at night on water, he listened to the sound of water against the boat, to the cry of a bird, the slap of a fish as it landed on calm ocean, the waves when it stormed somewhere out at sea. Listening, he would seem to understand the heart of the world. He was a wise boy. It was in his eyes when he was young. His mother saw it. His grandmother saw it. He laughed at things that adults find humorous when he was only six months old. He examined his mother’s face with his hand and fingers and wondered at the scars beside her ears and later joked that she’d had a face-lift, but she just laughed and said they were a natural wrinkle she’d had all her life and it was just something she must have been born with.