Fly by Night (45 page)

“I hollered 'til I was out of breath, saw stars, and could barely get out a sound.”

His chest remembered.

“Once I reached the road, something kicked in.” He paused, remembering how his heart banged against his ribs, about to burst. “I bolted after him, yelling to stop so that I could hug him or get into the truck and go with him.” He turned to Amelia. “Not caring which.”

The desperation of the moment quieted him. He remembered wanting to touch the giantness of the man's heart to make him turn around.

“But he didn't hear.” He turned to her.

She looked into his eyes for the first time, imagining him as a little boy, the photos up on their wall in the dining room of him and their father. Photos of them harvesting rice, or manoomin as Charlotte had called it, in a canoe on Lake Superior, another of them fishing and holding up a salmon. Amelia wanted to touch TJ but didn't dare breathe lest he change his mind, stop talking, or walk off.

“Funny,” he chortled. “For years I blamed noise from the fish tugs revving their old engines down in the harbor, tuning up for spring. Thought that it was their fault he hadn't heard.”

TJ turned back to watch the deer. “Hated their eagerness to get out on the lake that was still so far from being open, believed they'd drowned me out so that I'd lost the chance to remind him of us, to remind him that he couldn't leave.”

His boyhood cries had grown louder as his father's truck accelerated and kicked up red dust. A deep shivering had caused the boy to give chase, feeling his skin flash ahead to catch the truck, to seize it, anything to stop his father.

TJ then laughed to himself in a quiet way. “After a few years I realized that it wasn't the fish tugs.”

He stopped talking and regarded another deer that'd joined.

“Hard to believe when you're a kid that life can change in a second—that all the years you drift off to sleep in your father's lap, smelling his cigarettes or the feel of his strength when he'd hoist me out of a riverbed that was always easier to climb down into than up and out of—that in the end, it had all weighed nothing on his heart.”

TJ breathed as he recalled. To never hear the constancy of the man's breathing or the heavy sound of his father's workboots coming up the front steps after a long day was a fate from which he wondered if he'd ever recover. Parts he'd share with no one, not even Charlotte. And it was only in the woods, in the presence of wolves who never questioned their bonds or broke their promises that Ma'iingan Ninde was home. And that too, he'd never tell a soul.

TJ glanced at the pile of snow on the deck. A reminder he'd forgotten to shovel it off that morning. Yet how clearly he remembered the ache of believing he'd not been enough for his father to stay and then the sting of discovering that there'd been another child who was.

“So much I didn't know,” TJ dismissed and sat back in his desk chair. His throat constricted with tears he refused to allow. Recalling how he'd leaned over on his thighs, struggling to catch his breath as Gloria caught up, holding his jacket. They'd waited for what felt like hours until his mother had said, “He's gone.”

He'd felt Gloria crouch beside him, watching for signs of red road dust indicating that someone was driving back. He'd wanted to stay until his father remembered and the pull of their love was stronger than his love of the ocean or of the printing presses and the newspapers he used to print.

“Come on, Ma'iingan Ninde.” He remembered the gentle way that Gloria had draped his jacket over his shoulders just as the chill that comes from having broken a sweat in such cold sets in. How he'd resisted slipping his arms into the sleeves as if it would be an admission.

Once he did, together they'd stood and walked back to the house.

*   *   *

“Let's go finish dinner,” TJ said as he stood and held out his hand.

Amelia looked at his outstretched palm and then up at him, confused. Was his hand for her? To help her up? Should she touch it? Her stomach tickled.

“The shell,” he said. His fingers wiggled.

“Oh.” She placed it on his palm and stood, feeling foolish and embarrassed for thinking otherwise, glad she hadn't touched his hand.

“Charlotte's probably waiting on us,” he said and walked away.

She paused, lost in the toss of emotion, back on the hill with that little boy, with Gloria, a few moments before Amelia realized that TJ had already headed back out the office door and toward the house without waiting.

 

36

It was impossible to go home after that. Amelia pulled over onto the shoulder of Blueberry Road, playing with her bottom lip as she sat thinking, the Jeep idling. The whole thing made no sense, yet she'd only known her father as a child knows a parent.

Amelia put the Jeep into gear and veered off onto County Road K, heading toward Whitedeer's place to see if the old man was still up.

Pulling over onto the shoulder opposite his driveway, Amelia leaned over the passenger's seat, peering down through birch trees and saw the hint of a dim interior light. She took it as permission to approach. Twice in one day. She had no coffee cake this time.

Turning into his driveway, she parked near the barn and sat; waiting for a greeting from the yellow Lab mix, but no dog. Maybe he was tucked away for the night inside with Whitedeer. Amelia sat, knowing that her presence was known.

The outdoor light switched on. She watched as the screen door opened and Whitedeer stepped out, walking to the edge of the stoop, looking at her car.

She rolled down the window.

“Hi, it's me again, Amelia.”

“Oh, Amelia, come on right in.” He waved for her to follow as he turned to go back in.

She called, “Mind if I bring in the puppies again?”

Whitedeer then waved more emphatically to follow, as if too cold for discussion. She wondered if he'd heard.

“Sorry to barge in on you like this,” she said, stepping up to the door with a pup balanced on each hip. Lacey and Junior looked around in wonder as she stepped inside, each sniffing.

The old man turned to face her. “Something musta happened,” he said and reached for Junior. “Bet it's that TJ,” he said in a scolding voice and held Junior against the side of his neck.

“How'd you know?” she said in a sarcastic way.

He winked at her, enjoying the sarcasm as she followed farther into the house. Whitedeer began a conversation with Junior. “Second time today, buddy.” He touched the pup's head. “And you look just like your papa.”

Whitedeer motioned for the stove. “Help yourself to coffee,” he said. “Or that shit herbal tea Cherise says I should drink for my bowels. You can take the whole goddamned box home if you want, she'll only bring more.”

“Thanks but I'm fine,” Amelia said. “Can I get you something?”

“Already got.”

He walked into the living room and then turned to look at Lacey.

“Them guys hungry?” he asked as the yellow Lab mix began sniffling and pushing against Lacey.

“They just ate.” Amelia held Lacey closer.

“Aw, that's Trixie, he's okay, would nurse them if he could. Former owner gave him a girl's name, thought he was a female. No cure for common stupidity. I kept the name, figuring he don't know he's got a girl's name.”

Amelia smiled and nodded.

“TJ just told me about the day our dad left.”

“Oooo,” he commented and then carefully positioned himself in front of his chair, and then released his body to plop back.

“Wouldn't think it's such a goddamned effort to sit, but when you're eighty-six and you've worked a good long day it's hard work.”

He then listened as Amelia recounted the events of the evening before speaking.

“You know, Amelia, sometimes people get stuck.”

She blinked hard. Same words from Diane at the Biomes three months ago in Rhode Island.

“They can't shake something off when it's time,” the older man said. “TJ's tried, Gloria did too. But they both got stuck. Your dad and her were stuck, neither would budge. Not good—somebody's gotta give. Sometimes one gives more than the other, one's the lion, the other the lamb,” he said, playing with his lip as he thought. “I'm not too sure that's good either, too much bending makes a person break.”

Junior began dozing in his lap. Her father always bent to Penelope; Amelia couldn't remember it being any other way.

Whitedeer looked at her and sighed. “Maybe when people marry from such different worlds, Amelia, one of 'em's always suffering.”

Both were quiet.

“Do you know why my dad left?” she asked.

“Oooo. Been a while but I got a coupla theories.” He brushed thin strands of white hair back with one hand. “At the time everyone around here had an opinion. Gloria's brother, Frank, everyone on the rez, people in town who knew both of 'em. Sometimes married folks have their differences, we'd figured they'd iron 'em out.” He paused, recollecting. “That's what we thought when your dad left for New York.”

Whitedeer took a sip of something in the same ceramic coffee mug and set it down. Lacey looked up as he did.

He wiped his lips on his sleeve. “Mind you, nobody expected your dad to leave for good, don't think he did either.” He raised his eyebrows. “Figured he'd be gone a month or two, rake in some cash, but then late one night Gloria got a strange phone call. Shook her to the bone. Your dad begging for her to take TJ, get on a plane, and come right away. I remember Gloria telling me he sounded frightened enough to make her change her mind.”

“Frightened?” Amelia asked, having a hard time imagining that.

Whitedeer slowly nodded as if seeing young Gloria before him. “She told me she'd only seen Ted like that one other time, when TJ was six and between you and me, I don't think your dad ever got over it.”

Amelia held Lacey up to her chest as she listened.

“It started with a call from a stranded fishing vessel whose engine quit out in the waters close to Outer Island, the farthest Apostle.”

“I've seen a map.”

“Think it says a lot about the kinda man your dad was,” he said to Amelia and then was quiet. He had that look of being not sure how much to tell. “But that experience changed him, I believe for good.”

He was quiet for a while, looking at the pups, thinking. Amelia sat up, leaning her chin into her palm to encourage him to go on.

“He'd told Gloria and me about it the instant he was back on shore.” Whitedeer looked at her before going on. “Think maybe you oughta know this about your dad.”

“Okay,” she said to encourage him.

“He worked as a marine engine mechanic. Young family, they needed money, Ted jumped all over the call. Venturing out so early in April like that is a huge risk,” Whitedeer said. “There's still icebergs floating the size of minivans. They'll tear into your hull and sink you before you can say, ‘Boo.'”

“So why go out?”

He smiled at Amelia and sighed as if emptying unwanted memories from his lungs.

“Winter's long up here. Leaves everyone itching to get out on the lake, especially those that make their living from her. That captain was no different. But when ya push too far out, bad luck often follows. Combination of hard times and a kind of cabin fever sets in when ya been snow- and ice-bound so long. It makes a person lose all sense of risk.”

Except for swimming out past the lifeguard zones, her father had eaten the same thing every day, watched the same news station, worked the same job, and lived a life of such monotony that Amelia often wondered why it was he never lay down on the railroad tracks near the commuter station by their house just for a taste of different.

Whitedeer looked at her. “You mind throwing on another log?”

“Sure.” She hadn't noticed the room getting chilly, and added Lacey to his lap as she sorted through a woodpile until finding a log that looked dry.

“Good girl,” he said. “Just throw 'er on, it'll catch straightaway.”

Amelia then brushed bits of wood off her hands and went to pick up Lacey.

“She's fine.” He guided Amelia away with his elbow, enjoying the feel of the two pups piled together.

“The captain and crew was adrift in Superior,” he continued. “Largest body of fresh water in the world that, pardon my language, you don't want to fuck with.” The old man gave her a look. “The crew'd been pushing off ice floes with a boat hook before your daddy showed up. Ted had heard down at the Rumline that this captain always paid cash.”

Amelia looked up in surprise. “Same tavern?” She'd driven by it just the other day.

“Damn straight,” Whitedeer said. “Known 'em for a coupla generations. Their kids run it now, one of 'em's okay, the other a piece of shit if you want my honest opinion. Took three hours for your dad to reach Outer. Their anchor'd been dragged by the wind and current.”

“That happens,” Amelia said.

Whitedeer paused to look at her. “There's two times you don't want to be out on Superior.” The man held up his hand to count. “November, December,” his thumb went up, “and early spring when the ice is opening,” his index finger went next. “Good chance you'll be dead either way.”

“I'll remember that,” Amelia joked.

“So their hull springs a leak under the engine block the instant your dad gets out his tools. Sprayed in the face with ice water, it takes his breath—he's thinking of his young wife and child then hears the son-of-a-bitch captain mumble, ‘Christ, not again.'”

Whitedeer coughed. Amelia moved to take the puppies but he waved her away.

“Then what?” she asked.

“She's taking on water faster than the bilge pump can empty, electrical fails and so does the bilge.”

“Knew it.”