SPOILER ALERT: The
sentence below is the most untrue statement in MOURNING DOVE:
“Dammit,
Jen! You didn’t have to die to get me to grow up!”
Jen’s grandfather’s lifelong
mission has been to save life on Earth from climate disaster and then join his
extended family in Antarctica rebuilding human civilization. Jen’s Mom, a
physician and biological scientist, believes they can do no more to prevent
humanity’s extinction. She takes over ther mission to make sure the family travels from their
Alaska mountaintop station to their family’s community in Antarctica so Jen and
her siblings can finally meet people their own age. The mission is dangerous.
They must get past desperate people who barely manage to survive by killing
others to take everything they have.
That afternoon, Mom and her
oldest child, Fred, get caught in a freak snowstorm, slide over a cliff and die.
The following day is Jen’s sixteenth birthday. As her mother’s body is lowered
into the ground, Jen vows to her mother’s soul she will fulfill her mother’s
mission herself. While Grams, Jen’s grandmother, conducts the service, Jen notices
her younger brother, Ttuuee, has his tablet computer at the funeral. He’s an
“evil little devil,” and she’s angry until she realizes he’s using it to hide
his tears. Grandpa, their grandfather, is a rocket scientist and says Ttuuee is
the smartest member of the family, even smarter than Grandpa. For her mission,
Jen will have to work with Ttuuee, help him grow up, and repair his
relationship with Dad, with whom he has never gotten along. After the funeral,
Jen is on her bed, crying. Ttuuee knocks and comes into her room with his
iguana, Caulfield, on his shoulder. Jen hates the lizard. But Ttuuee insists Jen
is the sweetest and most beautiful person in the family. Having a tough, strong,
and beautiful pet will help her be tough and strong. He says he loves Caulfield
but loves her more, so he must give her his pet for her birthday. Jen’s heart
melts and she accepts. She reaches to give Ttuuee a hug. Caulfield runs off but
the door is closed. The iguana turns around and looks at Ttuuee and Jen
quizzically. Jen and Ttuuee laugh, and cry, and hug each other.
On the day after the funeral,
Jen’s Dad, Phil, refuses to get out of bed. He also refuses to even consider
their trip to Antarctica. Grandpa tells Dad a pair of mourning doves made a
nest in the carport of the home Grandpa lived in as a child. In their first
year they had two eggs. The birds cared well for their eggs and hatchlings, and
eventually all flew off healthy. The pair returned a year later. They had three
eggs this time. But shortly before the eggs were to hatch, the mother bird was
killed by a neighbor’s cat. The father bird refused to sit on the eggs.
Instead, he stood a foot away and shouted, as loud as he could, the call of the
Mourning Dove, koo kurikoo koo koo. He continued for eighteen hours straight,
and then flew away. The eggs eventually rotted. A year later, the father bird
returned. He stood in the same spot, a foot away from the nest, and cried the
same cry. He mourned for four hours this time before flying off never to return
again. Grandpa tells Dad not to let his own children rot away without ever
seeing others their own age. Jen walks up to Dad. In his face she cries, “Koo kurikoo
koo koo.” She knows it’s the strongest thing she can do. Saying anything will
detract, so she turns and runs back to her bedroom, hoping she succeeded. She
did.
Grams insists to Jen and Ttuuee
she and Grandpa will not leave. Grams is Jen’s best friend. They watch movies
together nearly every night. Jen asks how she could possibly live without her
Grams. Grams says that is why they must separate. She refuses to be a burden on
Jen, in Antarctica or Alaska. Jen must fly off, leave the nest, and not be a
caretaker for her old grandmother who becomes more frail every day. Jen is
stunned. Grams gets foot cramps, and Jen loves massaging the pain away. It is a
special time for them together. Who will do that for Grams if she left? Grams insists
Ttuuee and Jen go and prepare for their trip. Ttuuee runs off. Jen hesitates. She
so much wants to turn back to Grams, give her a hug, and say she will stay and
always care for Grams in her old age. But Jen swore to her mother’s body as it was
lowered into the ground. In the toughest decision of Jen’s life, she forces
herself to keep walking, moving away. She begins to sob, as she is abandoning
her Grams.
The family jokingly calls Grams,
“The Colonel.” Her father, who was a four-star general on the U.S. Joint Chiefs
of Staff, helped make sure their Alaska station is lavishly provided for. They
have a military cargo plane, but not enough remaining fuel to reach Antarctica.
As they fly to Chicago to get fuel, Jen becomes airsick. She stands up when her
stomach starts to hurt. Concerned, Ttuuee stands next to her, holding his
tablet computer. The plane encounters turbulence and bounces. In a reflex
reaction, Jen’s arms shoot out to keep her balance. Her hand hits Ttuuee’s
tablet. It smashes into a sharp object in the plane’s storage area. The screen is
cracked and the computer is dead. He starts to cry. Then he runs to his
co-pilot seat in the plane’s cabin. He already is angry because she did not
take Caulfield with them. She needs her brilliant little brother’s support, but
she keeps making it worse. She collapses into her seat, reaches for a barf bag,
and barely manages to open it in time.
Grams and Grandpa’s friends, the
Nytlees, are not at the Chicago landing strip. Dad fears desperate climate
refugees might have killed them. Taking weapons, he, Ttuuee, and Jen walk to
the Nytlee’s apartment. Max Nytlee is slumped over his desk, dead. A paper near
his hand is addressed to Grams and Grandpa. He has written that his wife,
Rochelle, died a few weeks earlier. He has buried her and asks to be buried
next to her. He describes how to find the fuel they need and that there no
longer are desperate, evil climate survivors in Chicago. Other papers are love poems
he wrote to Rochelle after she died. Jen reads them and changes the goal of her
mission from meeting others their own age to finding romance that lasts a
lifetime and more.
In the air, a warning light shows
flying at fuel-efficient altitudes is dangerous and they cannot reach Antarctica
without repair and refueling. Storms prevent them from returning to Chicago.
Dad insists they fly to a Denver climate station for repairs and fuel. Before
they left Alaska, Grams told Jen not to let Dad fly to Denver. The love of his
life, Jennifer, died in his arms there. Grams thinks Denver might make Dad, her
son, suicidal. Jen knows he named her after Jennifer. She is very confident in her
father’s love for her, and it will keep them safe. Jen believes her decision
concerning Denver is the strongest leverage she will ever have over him. She
will use it to fix the relationship between Dad and Ttuuee. Mom was unaware of
Jennifer until she was nine months pregnant with Ttuuee, more than a year after
Jen was born. Jen tells Ttuuee that Mom, who was from Finland, gave Ttuuee his
Finnish name as revenge against Dad, and Dad has resented Ttuuee because of it
ever since. Jen negotiates. She will allow the trip to Denver only if Dad apologizes
to Ttuuee and agrees to try to love him as much as he loves Jen. She persuades
Ttuuee, out of his love for Mom, who forgave Dad, to also forgive Dad and consent
to Denver. Dad and Ttuuee eventually agree. But before landing, they notice the
Denver station is now occupied by murderous climate migrants. They continue to
fly South.
They touch down in a small joint
military base town near a bay in southeastern Brazil but the untended, aging
landing strip damages one of the plane’s wheelsets. The rough landing also damages
the shortwave radio they use to communicate with Grams and Grandpa. Walking to
the bay to desalinate water, they pass through the town center but see no
evidence of living inhabitants. In one of the few intact storefronts, Jen
notices boxes containing tablet computers similar to the one she knocked out of
Ttuuee’s hands. Early the next morning, she straps guns on her hips and sneaks
out to get him a new tablet as a birthday present. Ttuuee gets up, realizes Jen
is gone, and awakens Dad. As they exit the plane, a woman points a rifle at
them. Dad shoots her and a teenage boy with her. Grams was a decorated Army
sharpshooter and trained her son well. As he and Ttuuee approach the town
center, they see from a distance Jen with an older teen on top of her,
attempting to rape her. Others are nearby with guns. Dad starts shooting, while
Ttuuee runs to Jen, dodging bullets. Dad shoots a boy holding one of Jen’s
guns, which falls next to the left arm of the rapist, who reaches for it. Jen grabs
his arm and bites it, at the same instant Ttuuee shoots the gun away from him. In
desperation, the rapist grabs a knife from his belt with his other hand and
stabs Jen in her naked chest, through the heart. His head explodes with a
bullet from Dad, a moment too late.
Dad carries Jen’s body to the
town’s church cemetery. He and Ttuuee find a pair of shovels waiting for them,
and an open door to a shed containing caskets and headstones. Emotionally and
physically exhausted after burying her and very hot, Dad sits in the Church’s
shade. He falls asleep. Hours later, Ttuuee falls asleep as well. When he wakes
up, Dad hands him a pistol and begs Ttuuee to shoot him, and then shoot
himself. Ttuuee slams the palm of his fist into Dad’s chest. He says “No! Jen
had a mission she died for. At Mom’s and Fred’s funeral, Grams talked of life
after death. Even if you only barely believe in it, could you face Jen in an
afterlife and say you gave up on her mission and killed yourself? Could you
look her in the eye and tell her that?”
Dad says, “No,” and his eyes tear
up. Ttuuee grabs him and hugs him. Dad returns the hug. They are father and
son, and still have each other. Ttuuee feels love in that hug. It is something
he has been craving, needing, for his entire life and especially now.
Repairs and refueling are
possible but will take months. They again desalinate water. It is a very hot
day. Carrying heavy bags of water back to the plane, Dad feels sick and
collapses, unconscious. Ttuuee shouts, “No! You can’t die here.” He cries for
help, and just cries, until he feels a hand on his shoulder. She wears nothing
but impressionist camouflage paint, a bikini bottom, and a toolbelt. She uses a
knife from the belt to cut Dad’s shirt into rags, dips some of them into a bag
of water and wipes Dad’s face and chest with the wet cloth. She drips water
onto Dad’s lips. He wakes up coughing and asks Ttuuee for water to drink. There
is no common language, but they understand her name is Gerta. She and Ttuuee
half walk, half carry Dad to her home, which she shares with an old, fat,
dark-skinned man named Manny, who has a terrible cough. Ttuuee and Gerta set Dad
down on her bed. Dad insists Ttuuee run to the plane for a laptop with a
simultaneous translation app so they can communicate.
Ttuuee searches the plane’s
medical files and medical supplies for a cure. Back at Manny’s, Dad insists on using
the translation system before taking Ttuuee’s medications. Dad asks, should he
die, that Manny and Gerta take care of Ttuuee. Manny agrees on the condition
that should Dad survive, they take Gerta wherever they go. Dad’s illness
worsens. Ttuuee fears he is killing Dad rather than curing him. While Dad
sleeps fitfully, Manny tells of his marriage to his childhood sweetheart. They
adored each other, but could not have children. She was visiting her brother’s
family as they were attacked by desperate climate migrants. Hearing gunfire, Manny
ran to help. He saw his wife shot and killed by a woman holding a toddler girl
in her arms. Manny shot the woman. The girl was unharmed. One of the few words
she knew was her name: Gerta.
Dad’s fever breaks but he is very
weak. Fixing the plane depends on a quick and full recovery. Manny’s mother was
part of a military intelligence team building a highly advanced spy ship
disguised as a factory fishing vessel. One week before its launch, the military
recalled her team to protect major Brazilian cities. She arranged to stay and
secure the ship in drydock to survive the passage of years. She tinkered with it
for the rest of her life. Manny offers her ship to Dad, Ttuuee, and Gerta, as a
better and easier way of getting to Antarctica. Ttuuee convinces Dad to at
least look at it. The drydock building is huge and very hot, without water nor electricity.
The ship is electric powered. Dad believes the batteries can never be charged. The
ship is not an option. Ttuuee studies the considerable documentation Manny’s
mother left behind and disagrees with Dad. He climbs to the drydock’s roof and
replaces every solar panel and electrical cable. He restores the building’s
plumbing. He turns on the building’s light, air-conditioning, elevators, and
working bathrooms. The ship’s name is the Bucephalus, after Alexander the
Great’s horse. Because of Ttuuee’s efforts, Dad and Manny mount working commodes,
with soft toilet tissue both fondly remember from childhood. Ttuuee goes to the ship’s helm and mounts his steed.
Manny coughs up blood. He tells
Ttuuee that in Antarctica without paint, Gerta will be seen by other teens as a
pretty seventeen-year-old who cannot read nor write in any language, nor even
count past ten, someone ripe for abuse. He asks Ttuuee to care for her as a
sister. When the Bucephalus is out of dry dock and in port, Manny paints its
name onto the hull. Then he dives off his scaffolding, swims out into the bay,
and allows himself to sink. His wife was buried at sea nearby. Ttuuee imagines
them swimming side by side for all eternity.
At sea, Dad repairs the
short-wave radio and connects with Grams and Grandpa. Speaking to his mother,
he cries like a baby from guilt that he failed at saving Jen. Despite his
mother’s lessons, he hesitated to take the kill shot that would have prevented
her death.
Sailors from a South Orkney
Island fishing fleet protected by a well-armed police boat mistake the
Bucephalus for a factory fishing vessel and attempt to seize it. At Ttuuee’s
encouragement, Dad takes command, uses the Bucephalus’s advanced munitions to
destroy the invader’s weapons, and chases them off. Dad’s mood is greatly
improved.
Grandpa’s cousin, Catherine,
built the Darlton colony with inherited money. She acts friendly and welcoming.
She rules the colony as queen and even jokes with Ttuuee about it. She
introduces Dad to engineers and scientists. Ttuuee notices a girl in a far corner
that has strong sunlight and dark shadows. With the lighting and her
mischievous smile, she reminds him of Rembrandt self-portraits. She is his
“Rembrandt Girl.” As Ttuuee begins school, he befriends her. Her real name is
Snana, which comes from her Native American Lakota heritage. In a short-wave
call, Grams tells Ttuuee that Catherine pretends to be friendly but actually is
rather evil. Her money, Grams says, rightfully should have been Grandpa’s.
Grams also says that Ttuuee should not trust Snana, who very likely is a pawn
Catherine uses to do harm to him and Dad. Grandpa blames Grams’s mood on Jen’s
death.
Ttuuee writes a program to have the
Bucephalus weaponry redirect a melting glacier’s tributary stream so when it calves
off it doesn’t destroy the hydroelectric power plant on the Colony’s river. A
Darlton cousin and his bully friends try to grab Ttuuee moments before he hears
the sound of a Bucephalus laser cannon. Ttuuee escapes and outruns them. As he
nears the water, he sees evidence that the Bucephalus shot a blowtorch out of
the hands of a man trying break through locked gates to board the ship. In the
distance, Police officers are holding Dad in handcuffs. Ttuuee instructs the
Bucephalus to immediately run his program to divert the glacier’s tributary. When
the noise dies down, he instructs the Bucephalus to amplify his voice. He
announces that the Bucephalus just saved the colony. The ship cannot be boarded
without his strongly password-protected approval, and never again will it assist
the colony unless they immediately release his father. He avoids the word
“weaponry,” knowing his demonstration scared everyone who saw it. Catherine has
Dad released. Showing bravery and spirit, Snana runs aboard the ship to talk with
Ttuuee and Dad. She relays Catherine’s order that Dad meet with her that
afternoon. Ttuuee insists that he, not Dad, will meet with Catherine and Snana
must be there. Dad will command the Bucephalus’s weapons should they be needed.
At the meeting, Ttuuee issues non-negotiable demands: no one will ever contest
that the Bucephalus is owned by and is the home of himself and Dad; he and
Gerta will continue in the Darlton Colony educational system; and Catherine no
longer will use Snana or anyone else as a pawn against him. Ttuuee tells Snana
he knows he has just accused her of pretending friendship at Catherine’s
command. If she hates him now, he understands. But he asks her to forgive him
and remain friends. He tells her how much he likes her. She appears confused, struggling
to suppress anger. She glances at Catherine who indicates she should remain
friends with Ttuuee. Looking defeated, she says she will. Ttuuee ends the
meeting over Catherine’s strong objections.
Snana does not avoid Ttuuee, but
her anger is evident despite his best efforts. Then her very old, very beloved dog
dies. Ttuuee visits her at home. She is waiting for a veterinarian to take the
body. Ttuuee volunteers, instead, to dig a grave under a tree and help her conduct
a proper funeral. While he is digging, she shouts, “Why are you being so kind
go me?” They talk. By the time the last shovelful of dirt is placed on the
grave, her anger is gone. During the discussion, she mentions that Catherine
brought mourning doves to the colony. A few days later, they spend a day
together in the woods and enjoy each other’s company as they see and hear the
doves. He watches her practice piano and she gives him lessons. She teaches him
and plays for him. After romantic sonatas, he walks back to his ship. The
weather is beautiful and he sees a comfortable grassy patch. He rests on it and
thinks of how much he is attracted to Snana. Then he leans back and shouts to
the sky, “Thank you, Jen, wherever you are.”
He hears a very distant response.
He is sure it is Jen’s voice. It says, “Koo kurikoo koo koo.”
I am very confident that a top literary agent will represent me and will sell MOURNING DOVE to a great publishing company. To follow the progress of MOURNING DOVE, and see whether my confidence is justified, please friend me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and connect with me on LinkedIn. Thanks.
