A Thousand Whales and a Death Store

Mothers, fathers, water, and whales come together in Maui

The first time I heard the song of a humpback whale, I fell in love. My mother and I were living in a one-bedroom apartment on Lonsdale Road in Toronto, and one evening, she brought home an album of whale recordings called Songs of the Humpback Whale. We listened to the record together and smiled with excitement. I was seven years old. The two of us had just moved back to Toronto after living for a year with her boyfriend in his photo studio in old Montreal. I was happy in Montreal. I didn’t know why they broke up and why we had to leave. It was our fourth move in three years. Our one-bedroom apartment in Toronto had a dresser in the middle to separate my mother’s side of the room from mine.