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Another damn bloody nightmare. Looking around her one-bedroom Santa Monica apartment, Tessa Walker stared at the purple glow of her clock; her flight to Tokyo was in five hours. She rubbed her sleepy, gray eyes and turned on the Y-shaped alphabet light on her nightstand before getting up to go to the bathroom. She tied her ash blonde hair back to splash cold water on her face.

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Her chest felt tight, and she had trouble breathing. No, no, no, no, not another panic attack, Tessa thought. She curled up into a ball on the floor by the tub, and her ears filled with familiar sounds of distress. “Stop. Please stop,” she pleaded.

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She covered her ears to block out the cries of dolphins. In her head, she saw images of Japanese fishermen driving them into a cove to slaughter them. She heard their screams when she woke up; she heard their screams when she went to bed.

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Every year from September to March, the blue waters of Taiji, a fishing village in Japan south of Osaka, turned red from the massacre. For months, Tessa had been preparing to fly there to protest the killings. Several of her activist friends who lived and worked in Japan warned her that the Japanese consider her gaijin, an outsider, and gaijin have no right to interfere in the country’s affairs.

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Her activism began when she was sixteen after a trip to visit her widowed aunt Harriette and half-Japanese cousin Natalie, who lived in Taiji. Natalie was Tessa’s age and had stayed with Tessa and her family in California several times when they were growing up. So when Tessa was invited to Taiji, she jumped at the opportunity.

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Her first trip to Japan made an impression on her that she would never forget. Amid sightseeing in the region, she also witnessed a grisly scene. On a walk by herself, she made the mistake of wandering off into a bay where she saw Japanese fishermen luring dolphins into a cove and stabbing them to death with spears. Tessa saw the dolphins splash frantically and screech as they tried to escape. The once-blue waters turned into bloodbath. Adults and baby dolphins—all slaughtered. Some were left trapped in nets until the next day. When Tessa asked her aunt why these fishermen were so cruel, her aunt reprimanded her for sticking her nose where it didn’t belong and made her promise to never go there again or she would be on the next flight home. Harriette failed to explain that the fishermen considered these creatures pests because they ate all the fish. Other fishermen captured and sold show-quality dolphins. Tessa had called her parents to ask how she could help these dolphins, but they also told her to stay out of it. She was a guest there, and she should follow the rules.

 

Feeling helpless, Tessa repressed her memories for years. But now, at age forty, all the memories engulfed her like a tsunami. Tessa had been seeing a therapist to help get rid of her nightmares. After months of sessions, she learned that the only way to stop them was to do something about the injustice.

 

Tessa took a slow deep breath, got up off the bathroom floor and made her way to the kitchen. She thought back to that August day a few weeks earlier when she had told her father that she was going to Japan. 

 

“Why Taiji?” her father had asked her when he found out that Tessa was planning to go to Tokyo, Kyoto, Taiji, and Osaka for two weeks in September.

 

Tessa was seated on the patio of her parents’ four-bedroom house off of Montana Avenue, an upscale neighborhood in West L.A. She sipped on her lemonade as turmoil brewed inside her.

 

“I mean, we have plenty of animal abuse in our own home country,” Jeff shrugged. At seventy-four, he was a successful real-estate broker with a muscular body and a buzz cut. He didn’t like the idea of meddling in other countries’ affairs even though when he served in Vietnam, he followed orders without asking questions. He was eventually discharged due to his symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Years later, he realized that he was unhappy about some of the decisions his superiors had made.

 

Tessa stared at him in disbelief and blurted, “I like dolphins. There are many causes in the world, and I chose this one. It’s not possible to stand up for everything if you want to make a change. But if you chose one thing and see it through, then you have stood up for something.”

 

“Then tell me this, what about Iceland, Norway, or Denmark? They abuse whales and dolphins.”

 

Sure that her father was about to lecture her, Tessa set down her drink on a wicker table and got up to leave. “I was not in Iceland, Denmark, or Norway. I was in Taiji when I witnessed it firsthand, and you and Mom have never supported me on this.”

 

Folding his arms in front of his chest to register his disapproval, Jeff glared back and said, “So this is your way of rebelling?”

 

“No, this is the only way I can put a stop to my nightmares. Did you think that I would just forget it? I was sixteen,” she said, tears streaming down her face. She wiped them away. “You weren’t there to see it. I was heartbroken, and there was nothing I could do.”

 

“And now that you’re older, you’re. …”

 

“Now that I’m older, I’m going to do something about it and there is nothing you can do to stop me,” she interjected. She thought about how she was going to use her scuba diving skills to film the killings and put them on social media, even though she knew that the slaughter of dolphins was already featured in the documentary, The Cove. More than ten years had passed since the film came out, but the killings continued. Tessa felt that people needed to be reminded again of how dolphins are tortured. Since her Aunt Harriette had died long ago and her cousin had moved to New Zealand, Tessa was planning to stay with her activist friends and pursue her cause.

 

“How are you planning to do this? Walk around with signs of bloody dolphins before you get arrested? Believe me, you don’t want to end up in jail in some foreign country.” Jeff knew what that was like. He had been imprisoned and beaten in Vietnam.

 

“You know Dad, I thought you would be happy for me, standing up for something that I believe in so strongly,” she said and started to leave.

 

“I’m worried about you.”

 

“I’m a grown woman. I don’t need you to take care of me.” Tessa had long been fiercely independent. She had a rewarding career as a veterinarian at a homeopathic pet hospital. It took ten years of education, including four years to earn a bachelor of science degree, four years of veterinary school, and two years specializing in aquatic medicine to achieve it, and she wasn’t about to let that knowledge go to waste. She also volunteered at the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach where she treated rescued sea lions and other cetaceans.

 

Tessa was not the only veterinarian who felt intense empathy for suffering animals. Extensive scientific studies showed that veterinary professionals were at risk for compassion fatigue. 

Having to daily encounter death and illness, they sometimes relived traumatic events, which might occur as nightmares or flashbacks and cause serious psychological distress.

 

Her father’s harsh but loving concern did not dissuade her from pursuing her goals. He said, “You may not have a husband in sight, but you’re still my child. Nothing will change that no matter how old you are.”

 

“Oh, yes, the inevitable question on your mind: Why don’t you get married and have children? I was married, or have you forgotten?”

 

“No, I haven’t forgotten that rotten ex-husband of yours. But that doesn’t give you an excuse to give up.” Jeff had always wanted a large family with children and grandchildren. But his wife could not bear more children after Tessa was born. And with Tessa turning 40 today, his wishes for grandchildren were dissipating.

 

Her mother came out to the patio with a platter of carved watermelon. Carol was the peacemaker in the family. As if to reprimand them, she said, “What’s all this ruckus about? Are you two arguing again?”

 

“Never mind. I was just leaving,” Tessa said, huffing.

 

“But you just got here. And I made you a birthday cake.” At 5-feet 8-inches, 71-year-old Carol looked like an older version of Tessa. She had been an activist for many causes until she married at age 30 and had Tessa a year later.

 

“I would if Dad would stop picking on me.” Even though Tessa loved her father, they constantly butted heads because their thought processes were so different. He was a conservative, owned a gun and hunted. Tessa was a liberal and an animal rights activist and she hated guns.

 

“Jeff, please!” Carol said.

 

“Then you talk to her,” he suggested and then addressed Tessa. “Tell your mom what you’re planning to do.”

 

“Already know. Let it go,” Carol replied. Unlike Jeff, Carol had always given her daughter breathing room. Part of her regretted not supporting Tessa when she told her about witnessing the dolphin slaughter. She was glad that Tessa was now planning to do something about it.

 

“Fine,” Jeff threw his hand up in the air, knowing that his daughter would not listen anyway. “I’m not saying another word.”