Fly by Night (49 page)

Amelia had taken Lacey and Junior out for an early-morning walk up the steep hill to the crooked mailbox on the ridge to retrieve yesterday's mail. She figured the hike through deep snow would tire them out but she was wrong.

As she pulled out a few forwarded scuba catalogs, on top was a letter from her mortgage company.

“Great, what now?” she muttered. She'd been current and had just mailed off a payment that by her calculations should have arrived well in advance of the due date. There was enough money in her checking account to cover it. Ever since leaving Rhode Island, every piece of correspondence from the bank elicited a rush of adrenaline that took hours to wear off. Even their junk mail credit-card promotions threw her into the cycle.

She held up the letter to the morning sun, trying to see through to the type. It was thin and personally addressed, unlike the standard stock window envelope that bore a threatening message.

“Come on, you guys, House!” She gave the command to the pups and they turned and ran toward the house. Lacey ran ahead, Junior in the opposite direction. She'd call the bank and explain how the payment had been sent.

She stopped midway down the hill and ripped open the envelope.

*   *   *

“Hey Bryce,” she called, entering to the smell of frying eggs and toast as Bryce fixed breakfast. She shut the front door.

He looked up. “Hey yeah?”

She didn't answer.

“You hungry?” he asked and motioned with his elbow to grab two plates.

She stopped in the middle of the room and held up the copy of her original mortgage note from many years ago stamped C
ANCELED
.

Her stillness made him turn.

She stepped close enough for him to see.

“It's a payoff notice.”

It made no sense.

“Did you pay off my house?”

He turned and looked at her, then back at the frying pan, averting his eyes.

“Yes.”

Holding the papers in her hand she kept blinking, not knowing what to say. She stood stunned. She let both leashes go and the pups ran over to the water bowl and began to drinking like this would be the last fresh water they'd ever be presented with in life.

“Why? Why would you do this, why would you not talk with me first—it's not like springing for an oil change on the Jeep or something.”

“Maybe because I can,” he said. “Maybe because I love you and don't want to see you worried all the time about something that I have and you don't. Something I can fix. Maybe because we're a couple and I want to share what I have.” He turned to look at her. “My life, my resources.”

“I love you too but this has nothing to do with that. We didn't discuss this—a person doesn't just go off and pay someone's fucking mortgage like this.” She began to raise her voice.

He looked at her.

“You're right. Sorry. Okay? I'm hungry, are you?” He grabbed two plates and then divided the omelet, arranged slices of toast, and walked to the table under the window and set down both plates. “Coffee?”

She hadn't moved. She could tell he was uncomfortable, even annoyed, but didn't want to pretend it didn't bother her. “Stop minimizing this, it's patronizing, at worst insulting.”

He stopped.

“I didn't mean for it to be insulting,” he said. “Maybe I wanted to surprise you, to make you feel taken care of. Nobody has ever taken care of you, Am, you never let them.” He stood and moved toward her.

“Bullshit.” She looked at the original note stamped in red: C
ANCELED
. “Maybe because no one's ever given a shit.”

“Sorry,” he backed off. “That was a bit harsh.”

“We have to discuss things like this, Bryce, the Rev House has been a big part of my life.”

“I know,” he said. “I was there. Remember? When you signed the note.” He turned to catch her eyes. “I lent you money for the closing costs. You paid me back. My brother was your lawyer for the closing.”

She knew he wasn't being patronizing, he never was. It was a sore spot with her. Aside from the D'Agostinos, no one had taken care of her. In so many ways she'd felt like she'd raised herself, which was why she and Jen had always had such a kinship.

“You can't just come in and bulldoze right over me.” She was getting angry.

“I'm not bulldozing—it's called help, Amelia.” He began to raise his voice.

“Sharing a life together.”

They were both quiet, as if each was in their corner, thinking. He sat down in front of a plate, noticing that he hadn't grabbed silverware or coffee cups. He leaned his face in his hand, his eyes watching her.

“I know.” She felt herself about to concede but knew she shouldn't roll over too quickly. “We need to talk about stuff like this, not unilaterally act.”

“True.”

She sat down at the other plate.

“We never talked about what this would mean,” she said.

“What would it mean?”

Neither spoke, both lost in thoughts.

Bryce broke the silence. “It doesn't mean anything other than you no longer have a mortgage that you have to worry about,” he said. “The Rev House is in your name. Consider it an engagement present since you don't want a ring. Yes, it was a unilateral decision that I made in the moment that made sense and I apologize if I offended you in any way.”

His apology was terse. She'd hurt him. She could feel it. Maybe she should have been more gracious rather than miffed, but there was a fine line between generosity and being bulldozed. She hated second-guessing a reaction.

“I know you did it out of love, I am grateful,” she said. “But this has nothing to do with love.”

She caught his irritation by how he moved but wasn't sure if it was aimed at her or at himself. She wanted to stop belaboring the point though she couldn't stop bringing it up.

“Just because you have more doesn't mean you can do things like this.”

He pulled her chair closer to kiss her as an apology but she leaned away.

She laughed as he made exaggerated lips and kissing sounds toward her. “Stop making me laugh,” she play batted him away. “You can't do this without talking about it first.”

“I get it, agreed, you're pissed,” he said. “I promise I won't pay off another house of yours again.”

“Oh shut up.” It made her laugh though she didn't want to. “Doesn't mean I don't appreciate what you did, but I'm still a person, Bryce.”

“Oh, so this was treating you as a nonperson,” he said.

“I didn't say that.”

“You just did.” He looked at the food. “I'm eating.” He stood to retrieve utensils for both of them from the dish drain.

Amelia made herself eat though she was too agitated to be hungry. Thinking it would be too long of a day to start on an empty stomach, she washed the eggs and toast down with coffee.

After breakfast, Amelia gathered the cold weather survival gear that Peter had dropped off the day before, too riled to discuss it any more with Bryce.

“I'm sorry,” he offered as he helped her to the Jeep with her gear.

“Thank you,” she said and pulled his collar closer. She could tell he wanted to kiss her, make it all better, but she was still annoyed.

She needed to be on the lake—if not actually in the water—and hurried to meet Peter down at the Coast Guard dock in time.

Amelia beeped as she drove off and waved.

*   *   *

“Amelia Drakos's phone,” Bryce answered early that afternoon after coming home from the Fish Hatchery. She'd left her phone on the kitchen counter before going out on the lake.

“Hi, I'm the dean of the School of Marine and Atmospheric sciences at the University of Rhode Island and I'm trying to reach Amelia Drakos.”

Bryce listened for a moment and then looked at the display.

“Phil?”

“Bryce? Holy shit, is that you?”

“Shit yeah.”

“Where the hell are you two?”

“Up on Lake Superior.”

“Tracked you down as far as Minneapolis,” the dean continued. “Frieda retired to California with her husband so it took forever to find the two of you. Called Sea Life this week, said you'd both left months ago. Talked to Jen and she gave me Amelia's cell and a quick lowdown.”

“Yeah, well, things happen. Jen stayed.”

“Been trying to get ahold of Amelia but you'll do.”

Bryce pictured her out on the ice.

“Uh—she's out on Lake Superior in the Apostle Islands helping a DNR Fish biologist with a winter fish survey before the lake melts.”

“Sounds horrible.”

“More like Siberia, but that's what we do,” Bryce said as his friend laughed darkly. “They're bringing in gill net samples of fish to test viability and health of the whitefish and trout population and the monitoring of invasive species—sea lampreys.”

“Jesus, enough already.”

“Well, you know Amelia,” Bryce said. “I can have her call you tomorrow, think they might be winter camping out there for the night.”

“Uch,” Phil said. “Sounds positively awful, but this concerns you too.”

He had Bryce's attention.

“What the hell are you two doing up there anyway?” Phil asked.

“Long story. Not much, yet everything,” Bryce said as he stroked Junior's ears as the pup panted by the woodstove.

“The reason why I'm calling is that after you closed the lab, we've been working like crazy to find a way to offer the two of you permanent positions as principal investigators,” he said. “And we have. Permanent positions, Bryce, no more soft money. Come back, restart your lab, fully funded. Health care, retirement, the whole shebang.”

Bryce was quiet.

“You wouldn't be shitting me, Phil.” The two of them had been in high school together.

“Nope, no shit here, Bry. Everyone felt terrible about what happened and though the university is scrounging for funds, like everyplace else, I managed to add this to the agenda for discussion with the Board of Regents before winter break,” his high school chum explained. “The administration wanted to drag it out until fall of next calendar year, but we were able to push it through. They just approved the addition of the two P.I.s based on your extraordinary contribution over the past two decades and a budget was just approved this week for you to reestablish the lab.”

Bryce had to sit down at the kitchen table. He looked out to the frozen lake, resting his mouth in his hand.

“Permanent,” Bryce confirmed.

“You betcha,” Phil said and laughed. “Isn't that what they say up there?”

Bryce was too stunned to speak.

“Stipends won't start until September,” he said. “Though monies will be available in August to begin the lab setup.”

Bryce kept blinking; it was hard to take it in.

“In fact we couldn't figure out where the three of you went so quickly,” the dean said. “By the time I got a strategy together, you'd run off. Nonetheless I pushed it through, along with your colleagues in the marine biology department.”

Bryce couldn't speak. He sat there, stroking Junior's ears, trying to get calm. He had to get ahold of Amelia.

*   *   *

It had been a bright, sunny March morning when they'd left Bayfield harbor with temperatures hovering in the low twenties. Peter wasn't much for conversation as they'd set out on snowmobiles towing rubber sleds and Amelia was grateful, except when they'd stop to empty the sample nets into buckets. Then he had a nonstop arsenal of funny stories about Whitedeer that not only put Amelia at ease but also had her doubled over with laughter, picturing his father-in-law's antics.

As they headed farther north into Superior's deeper channels between the Apostle Islands, she thought of Smiley's reunion with her mate, of GLIFWC's sting operation as they'd caught the poachers, and then of Bryce. She felt deep happiness and peacefulness that she never wanted to end. It was as if she was settling into a new life. Something other people were graced with and here it had been sitting beside her on the lab bench for more than twenty years and in a place she'd never been. Amelia was glad she'd stood her ground about the Revolution House, and while she understood it was well-intentioned she believed she'd made her point. She wanted to tell him how much she appreciated it. She felt a sudden urgency to do so, a desperate sense of wanting to speak to Bryce now, yet her phone was back at the house. She didn't dare ask Peter to use the satellite phone for such a call.

A month earlier, Peter Holmgren and his assistant had drilled through five, six feet of solid ice until they hit water where the fish swam freely. They'd set twenty-five gill nets, marking each with a tall blaze-orange flag, and Peter hoped to retrieve the last of them before the ice degraded.

Samples taken during winter were the most important. They contained information about native and nonnative species as well as water samples from the lake as it lay undisturbed for months by fishermen and pleasure boats alike. The gear in the rubber sleds contained augers that were powerful enough to dig through ice pack that was thick enough to support supply trucks.

The rubber sleds were loaded with enough gear and provisions for days should they get stranded in one of Superior's sudden storms. The lake was known to let loose with unpredictable fury without warning and wreak all kinds of havoc before disappearing just as quickly.

“I'm hoping to recover most of the specimens,” Peter explained as they passed Basswood and Oak Islands, the closest islands to shore. “A few nets might be hopelessly frozen in, but sometimes you can chip 'em out.”

They'd collected the first samples offshore at Basswood. Fir trees covered most of the island with two-story icicles frozen like pillars into the sides of red granite shorelines.

Peter's orange markers were set along the ice corridors between the islands including Manitou and Stockton, past Ironwood and Cat to Outer Island, which was the farthest and most unprotected of the Apostles.