I love questions.

You got the jist of everything that was going on which is really gratifying because it makes me think the story want to convoluted for a reader of magic realism 🙂

I'm thinking she sang publicly just so he would come to her at the sea.

Bingo! It was kind of meant to be like a sirens call, a strange song calling him back to the sea and his lost love.

Hopefully that carcass they (their children? there are four whales, two adults, two juveniles) are dragging along is that creep Sora.

Again, you got it spot on owasco! The juvenile killer whales are their children and they are indeed playing catch with Sora's corpse. A little gruesome maybe, but poetic justice. There is a scene near the end of the story where Hinata has a memory of his wife and children being swept out to sea in a tsunami... but I kinda wanted it to be ambiguous, whether it was a killer whale dreaming being a man, or a man who turns into a killer whale to find his way back to his reincarnated family. I'm not sure the story fully achieved that goal of being able to be read two ways but that's what I was going for. There are loads of little odd pointers throughout in the imagery, the bar (the albatross), the old man (his strange warbling as he sips his cutty sark) and the people he meets, how much water he keeps having to drink etc.

I'm glad you enjoyed the story, it was one of those wonderful (and rare) ones that just flowed out and only needed a few drafts... I wish I could always write in that way