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first captivated her across the crowd at, of all places, a funeral. Professor Maddings’s wife, Louisa, had died of ovarian cancer, and Elizabeth had left Bequia and the whale season early to go to the funeral. Death always demanded new life, and shewas not the only woman who had met her future husband at the grave. Louisa had been one of Frank’s patients during his medical school training. It was rare to meet a doctor, especially a student, who cared so much about his patients, but Elizabeth soon discovered that Frank’s love was wild and fearless.
    Right outside the church, he invited her for dinner. Later that night, when the owner of the Italian restaurant locked the door behind them, it was as if their hours together had been minutes. It may have been his eyes that she noticed first, but it was his questions that made her fall in love with him. He wanted to know everything about her, about the whales, about her world. He seemed to drink her up with the bottle of red wine, and she knew in an intoxicated cocktail of love and desire that this was the man she would marry. There was no careful consideration, no deliberating of variables—just one headlong plunge. From that first night, they spent every possible minute together. They shared a passion for the ocean, and three months later, on the ferry to Nantucket Island, Frank got down on one bended, trembling knee.
    Elizabeth looked at the large diamond ring now. It was impressive but not very practical for field research. She and Frank had very little money: She was a graduate student at Woods Hole, and he was a medical student at Harvard. But they had not needed much. They spent most of their time in each other’s arms and left his apartment only when absolutely necessary.
    Elizabeth had tried to convince Frank to save money on an engagement ring and just get her one for the wedding, so they could take a longer honeymoon scuba diving in Belize. But on the advice of his father, Frank bought a two-carat princess-cut diamond. Frank’s father was a nice man, but from a different generation, when big rings, big weddings, and big families were signs of having made it in America. There were times when Elizabeth wondered if Frank wanted a wife from a different generation.

    Elizabeth plugged the audio cable of her DAT machine into the cheap boom box by her bed. The sound of Echo’s song filled the room. The night before, she had listened to the song over and over again, trying to memorize the phrases and individual units. Now she kept rewinding and listening to one particular pair of upward sweeping sounds: “w-OP-w-OP.”
    “What it mean?”
    Elizabeth looked up through the open window and was startled to see Milton’s dog, Catcher, his mouth open and pink tongue hanging out, panting. The mutt was part sheltie, with bright shining eyes and blond bushy ears that were cocked curiously at her. Elizabeth shook her head incredulously, knowing that the dog had not asked the question. Then, behind the shutter, Elizabeth saw Eldon, Milton’s eight-year-old son, and she sighed, relieved that she was not losing her mind.
    “IIt’s a social sound—a contact call,” Elizabeth explained. “The mother uses it to get her baby to come closer when it strays too far.” Elizabeth and other researchers had known about these social sounds for many years, but she was one of the first to try to correlate the sounds with the social behavior. Whales had one of the most diverse sound repertoires of any species, but while song had been studied for decades, the social sounds were just beginning to be deciphered. It was like discovering an entire alien language and trying to understand it. Even SETI—the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence—had expressed interest in her research.
    “Is a funny sound,” the boy said.
    “Whales make all sorts of sounds. Sometimes they sound like elephants trumpeting or dogs barking or birds chirping. Whales can sound like every animal you’ve ever