The Back of the Turtle

Back at Mara’s house, Gabriel surveys her painting of Elvin and Thelma. Mara tells him about the day of the disaster that killed them, describing how “the river ran bright green [and] every living thing in the river’s path [was] destroyed” (248).

As they get ready for sleep, Mara asks Gabriel to hold her. They get into bed and cuddle, and for the first time in a while Gabriel feels glad to be alive.

Dorian goes home and calls Olivia. She sounds detached and distracted, so he gives up and instead reads through the rest of the Joseph Quinn trial transcript, which ends with Church’s acquittal of all charges.

Gabriel wakes at Mara’s and makes them both breakfast while recalling memories of his family. He’s especially pained by the day he and his father moved to Minneapolis for Joe’s RCMP training. They left his mother and sister behind in Lethbridge, leaving Rose furious and Little heartbroken.

Sonny is awoken by a sound like “aluminum cans being crushed” and identifies it as the ghost people singing (266). He walks to the beach, wishing his father could tell him what to do next, but is soon struck by inspiration: He’ll build a tower to guide the sea turtles back to Samaritan Bay.

Dorian has breakfast at The Bluebird Café, an old haunt. As he eats, a CBC broadcast comes on the café’s TV. Manisha Khan announces that a Domidion dam has ruptured at the Athabasca River, dumping a massive amount of toxic waste into the water. As customers protest angrily, a photo of Dorian appears on the screen, and he makes a hasty retreat.

Mara enlists Gabriel’s help to return to the Smoke River Reserve and put up her paintings, nailing each portrait to the house of the deceased resident(s) it portrays.

Dorian goes back to Domidion to hold an emergency meeting. In addition to the dam break publicized on CBC, another Domidion dam has breached at their largest holding pond. Within a month, the toxic waste will reach the ocean, wiping out all life in its path.

At the Ocean Star, Sonny knocks on his father’s door but gets no answer. He heads down to the beach alone and begins building his tower out of turtle shells and other refuse.

Mara and Gabriel continue nailing up paintings as a thick fog comes in. As they stand on the porch of Lilly’s old house, a low rumble comes from inside. Investigating, they find Soldier in the living room. Mara observes the disturbed contents of the house and wonders if that someone has been squatting there. When he sees the portrait of Lilly, Gabriel abruptly leaves.

The news of the second dam collapse quickly spreads worldwide. Dorian watches footage of the spill on mute, finding it “quite soothing.” Though he’s not concerned about the effects on the environment or human lives, the collapses are “a public relations nightmare and an economic annoyance” (303). Dorian resolves to copy the approach of the NRA after the Sandy Hook shooting and double down, refusing to apologize. He continues to ignore Olivia and Dr. Toshi as they try to reach him.

Back at Crisp’s trailer, Gabriel processes what he’s just learned. Lilly was Little, his younger sister. Her baby, Riel, was Gabriel’s nephew. He waits “for some fragment of emotion to overtake him” (309) but feels only numbness.

He recalls receiving the postcard with the picture of Riel. Though no sender was listed, he identified a postmark from Smoke River Reserve, the reservation where his mother Rose grew up. Rose refused to talk about her past on the reserve, and when he’d asked her about it as a child, she’d said “that place doesn’t exist” (315). The mystery of where Rose and Lilly went is finally solved. They moved back to Rose’s childhood home without telling him and died in The Ruin.

After Joe’s death, Gabriel called Rose and asked her to come back to Minneapolis. She rebuffed him, saying “your father made a decision […] you, too” (316). Rose and Lilly did not attend Joe’s funeral.