Summary

In the chapter “Thursday,” the first-person narrator, Evie, waits for her fiancé, Liam to come back from his long-haul fishing trip in the days right before their marriage. They live on Winter Island, a small, rural island that is a short distance from Los Angeles and California. Evie goes to the docks to pick up tuna, which she takes back to the house to gut. She is surprised to find her mother at the house, who she has not seen in years. As they spend the morning together, Evie is frustrated by her mother’s correcting ways, as Mom critiques Evie’s choice in Liam, and her career, in teaching oceanography. The two women observe a dead whale that is visible from the house on a nearby beach. As the evening comes, the wind directs the terrible smell of the whale...