Fly by Night (27 page)

“Where?”

“Lake Superior, to the property.”

He sat up and looked at her as if she were crazy.

“Oh come on,” she said. “It's not that far.”

“Jesus, what time is it?” He looked at the window and then around for his phone until finding it on the night table where he'd left it.

“Almost six,” she said.

“Christ. It's so dark,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “When?”

“Now.” She chuckled.

“Now?” He spotted her down coat. “Holy Christ, you're not kidding, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Isn't there a winter storm warning? I heard my phone app go off about an hour ago.” He picked up the phone, examining the radar and then turned it toward her, the bright blue bands of snow swirling to cover the screen.

“Eh, alarmist,” she dismissed with a hand. “We'll be back before it hits.”

“Uhh—don't think so, Am.” His expression was one of disbelief as he held up the screen.

They'd done all sorts of crazy things before: gone out in rickety boats, flipping off all manner of small-craft warnings. In looking back she was sometimes amazed that Alex hadn't been orphaned before he'd been of legal age. And that they'd never once gotten arrested or jailed on foreign soil, always making it back to the host families who'd cared for Alex when he was too young to come along and crew.

“For Pete's sake, it's only a three-and-a-half-hour drive,” she said, which was nothing considering how they'd bomb up and down the coast of Maine in search of remote marshy backwaters, crashing overnight in the back of her Jeep with young Alex in a sleeping bag on the backseat, she and Bryce cramped in the back or else on a beach.

Bryce rubbed his eyes again, yawning as he said, “I don't know, Am.”

“What's not to know—said I'd drive,” she offered, leaning in his doorway. “Egg McMuffins on me.”

He swung over his legs, touched the floor, and stood.

“God, I hate it when you use food,” he said and remained noncommittal as he ambled past her into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and then burped.

“Jesus—you're the only person I know who burps the second they wake up.”

“It was more than a second,” he said. “God, it sucks there's never anything to eat.” Bryce shut the refrigerator door, and looked at her as if it was her fault.

She raised her hands. “Do I look like a grocery store to you?”

He sighed in disgust and turned.

“Come to Lake Superior and I'll feed you,” she said in what she thought was her hypnotic voice.

“Jen coming too?” he asked mid-yawn, looking for signs of their roommate as he scratched his side. He'd slept in his Sea Life polo shirt after the late-night shift.

“Stayed with the cop last night.”

“Girl's in love.”

“Yes, me thinks,” Amelia agreed.

“So were you hatching this little plan in lieu of sleeping?” He walked toward the leather couch and collapsed.

“Actually, no,” she said in a sober voice. “I sort of woke up with this wild hair up my ass.”

Bryce made a contemplative face and nodded thoughtfully. “I appreciate wild hairs.” He rubbed his chin and turned toward her with a certain regard.

“Offer on Mickey D's still good?” His face relaxed into what she called his sleepy-time smile.

“Canadian bacon,” she confirmed in a singsong voice. “Only the best, Brycie.”

He held out a hand to shake. Instead she chuckled.

“God, you really know how to hurt a guy,” he said, shuffling back to his bedroom.

She dragged one of the kitchen chairs over to the aquarium, positioned it. She then retrieved the food from the fridge, climbed up in her coat, and lined it up along the edge. A few frozen chunks of brine shrimp, plankton, dropping in the pieces as they floated by like melting icebergs. Then she sprinkled in flakes of vegetable matter. The leather toadstool coral pulsed; reaching its fingers toward what it had just sensed was food.

Earlier she'd considered slipping out alone but couldn't imagine not having Bryce along for the adventure. It was like taking Alex in that Bryce was never judgmental and was most importantly, funny.

He emerged wearing a gray rag-wool sweater half pulled down over his stomach, still with plaid pajama bottoms on. The blue Sea Life collar poked up beneath the crew neckline. His sandy-colored hair stuck up straight like in silent movies when an actor has a fright. Stepping into his snow boots, he grabbed his hooded down coat, phone, and slapped on his camo cap.

“Mind if I don't brush my teeth?” he asked.

“Is it that much of an effort?” she said, making a face.

He walked toward the front door, looking at the weather radar on his phone. “It's coming toward us, Am.”

“No, it's not. ‘If you can't look to the west and predict the weather for twenty-four hours you've got no right to be in a boat.' Remember saying that, Brycie?”

He turned the screen toward her, frowing, but she looked away, dropping more vegetable flakes into the aquarium.

“We're not in a boat, Brunhilda, we're in a car.”

“So what, we'll outrun it.” She smirked in a way that let him know that she knew.

“You call your bro?”

“Too early,” she said, figuring she'd crash the party, see his reaction. The old “better to beg forgiveness than ask permission”—the operating principle of crossing into international waters without authorization. “I'll call around eight. Already texted Jen we'll be back around dinnertime.”

She brushed her hands together over the aquarium, knocking off the remaining fish flakes and frozen bits of food before climbing down.

“Can I drive?” Bryce asked and stepped into the hallway that always smelled like a chlorine swimming pool despite there not being one in the building.

“I told you I would.” She pulled out keys from her coat pocket. “You just eat, sleep, and navigate—though not all at once.”

“Whoever reaches the Jeep first, drives,” he said.

She grabbed her messenger bag. The two of them raced toward the stairwell and down the stairs toward the street. They ran until they began to laugh but Bryce touched first.

“So okay, you won,” she said. “Your legs are longer.”

“Always making excuses,” he said as he brushed off a layer of snow.

“I do want to drive.” She looked up at him. “You mind?”

“'Course not.”

Amelia climbed in to warm the engine and plugged the GPS into the cigarette lighter and entered the property's legal address that TJ had let slip into the phone conversation.

*   *   *

After McDonald's, they headed toward the interstate on-ramp exchange to I-35 W, heading north. As soon as she turned to follow the signs to Bayfield/Superior, Wisconsin, her stomach jumped.

“I know this is weird, but…” she turned to him. “I have butterflies in my stomach.” She pressed through her coat. Bryce looked at her for a while and smiled.

“Butterflies?” He stopped chewing the hash brown patty and offered it to her.

“No thanks. Like I'm going to see my father after having been away for a long time,” she said. “I'm burning with curiosity but feel like I'm snooping.”

“I feel it for you, Am,” he said, stretching and looking out at the scenery. “Does feel good to get the hell out of Dodge though. Was getting some serious cabin.”

“It's a creepy feeling,” she said. “Like I'll bump into my father there, like he's lived a secret life all the while I've been thinking he's dead.”

They looked at each other. His face was serious as she shrugged.

“I hope TJ'll meet us there,” she said, thinking he might be one of those people who were better in person than on the phone. “I know it's short notice.”

“That would be cool,” he said. “Did he say he would?”

“Haven't asked; will when I call.”

“Thought you arranged it last night on the phone?”

She felt her face get hot. “No.”

“Meet your
brother.
”

“
Half
brother,” she said, holding up her index finger to remind Bryce how she'd been corrected.

“Eh—that's just bullshit.”

“It's biology.”

They were quiet, watching as the shorter trees turned into forests.

“Why did TJ know about me all these years?”

He looked at her and rested his arm on the top of her seat around her shoulder.

For some reason it made her eyes tear.

“Don't know, Ammy.”

“Strange, eh?” She smiled.

“Not really,” he said. “It's strange because it's your father.”

She wiped the corners of her eyes with one of her thumbs tucked into the cuff of her parka sleeve. “I want to smell the air, look at the land, and figure out what drew him, why he left that woman and abandoned his son.”

Bryce shrugged. “Hey, some of us
wished
our fathers would have abandoned us.”

It made her laugh.

“But seriously?” Her voice became soft. “I just hope TJ doesn't hate me.”

Bryce turned to face her full-on.

She turned and shrugged as if it might be true.

“No one hates you, Am, no one.”

She raised her eyebrows as a challenge. “I'd hate me if I was him.”

She felt him look at her. They sat in silence for a few moments as if he was trying to decide whether to speak.

“He dumped them for Penelope and me.” She felt her throat constrict.

“He didn't say that,” Bryce said.

“Didn't need to.”

“Venturing down the road of conjecture is dangerous territory, you know that, Amelia.”

“Talk about a shitty thing to do,” she said, not hearing him. “Really shitty. I mean, think about it, Bryce.”

“You don't know what happened.”

They sat quietly for a while.

“All I know is that TJ grew up without a father and I didn't.”

“I just don't want to see you get disappointed.”

“I'm already disappointed.” She pushed back stray hairs that had slipped out of the hairclip.

“I mean disappointed that you won't find answers.”

“I mean it was my dad, Bryce.” She turned to look at him. “Abandons his son—”

“If that's what he did,” Bryce qualified. “Maybe the woman kicked his ass and all his shit out.”

He made her laugh.

“Marries two women.” She glanced at him, nodding. “That part's true. Granted, the man was distant, sort of elsewhere all the time.”

“Wasn't that everyone's father?”

She hadn't once thought she wouldn't find answers but now she wondered. In marine science there are always answers. Unanswered questions are answers in science. Mysteries like bioluminescence, biofluorescence, or the discovery of previously unknown creatures inhabiting the strange underground riverlike flows beneath the ice in Antarctica were yet to be understood, loaded with unanswered questions that would someday be known.

Not so with the human heart. It remained a minefield of secrets and fears that if one trickle of truth escapes it might cause a flood in which everyone drowns. Or that life is so fragile it can only continue on through lies of omission. Like her father going out to make phone calls with nobody noticing but her.

“Don't think there's much danger of us turning into the Waltons,” she said.

She felt him look away.

“You never know,” Bryce said. “There've been stranger things.”

They sat without talking until the falling snow became heavy enough to break the spell of private thoughts.

“Just flurries.” She held up her hand, waving like it was no big deal.

“You're so full of shit,” Bryce said as Amelia smirked. He was checking the radar again and he made a face as he turned the phone's radar toward her. She looked away.

As luck would have it, the winter storm warning had expanded to include the entire northern Minnesota/Wisconsin area up to Lake Superior.

“Driving back might be a bitch.”

Bryce looked back. “You've gotta be kidding.”

*   *   *

It was finally 8 a.m. and Amelia called TJ, hoping he'd pick up but got his voice mail instead.

“Hi, TJ, it's uh, Amelia. Today's Monday. Bryce and I thought we'd get an early start and take a drive up on our day off. I know it's sort of a spur of the moment thing but I'm hoping we can connect. Maybe meet at the land and have lunch or something after. I've got the GPS address from our conversation last night and we're about an hour away from Duluth. Give me a call when you get this message, looking forward to seeing you soon.”

He didn't call back. As traffic slowed down and they were delayed, Amelia gave another call.

Two hours later she tried again. “Hi, TJ, it's Amelia again. We're sort of slogging along in the storm, it's taking us far longer than we thought but I was hoping to hear from you. Maybe we can connect later today. Give me a call, and let me know if that's going to work.”

All she had to do was to sign off on the papers and never have to see him again. Maybe he'd meant it. Maybe that's what he wanted. She hoped not.

Snowflakes swirled across the road in patterns that played tricks on her eyes. The sky darkened to navy blue. Can't make somebody want to know you, can't make somebody want to love you either.

 

25

Snow was falling in white sheets as Bryce dozed with a full McDonald's belly. Amelia slowed down as road conditions worsened and he woke up with the change in speed.

“Everything okay?” He sat up, rubbing his eyes and blinking as he looked around. “Holy cow, how'd all of this happen?” Neither had ever seen such accumulation before.

“So what do you think?” she admitted defeat with a gentle voice, still unsettled by her own emotions. “Turn around, go back before we get stranded?”