Winter Loon(3)

Her dark silhouette staggered down the path, a balancing act, amber liquid wobbling in a glass on one side, her empty hand outstretched on the other. The wind had shifted, swooping down in a wave, warm for winter. The crust of snow was quickly disappearing, leaving mud bogs, pitted ice, fossilized hoof and paw prints. My mother looked west, like she expected to see the wind itself, a hot phantom with black eyes leading its pack down the hilly slope. I caught up with her and saw she was wearing my father’s buckskin slippers.

“Mom. Your shoes.”

Faint surprise registered on her face, as if someone else had dressed her. “Never mind my feet,” she said. “Look.”

She used her glass to point at a howling moon, full over a dip in the pines where the lake wound away in the distance. She locked her arm in mine and we stood still there, breathless, silver.

“Man in the moon can see everything,” she said. “Every goddamned thing you do.” She raised her glass, clucked, and winked a toast skyward, then took another drink. “I fucked this one up good, didn’t I, old man?”

“Let’s go back,” I said, steering her toward the cabin. I was a practiced guide. I could be conspirator, sounding board, an echo, a mirror. Whatever she wanted. I thought I knew when she needed to mother me. “I’m getting cold.”

She shook me off, gulped down the whiskey, held the empty glass up, closing one eye. “If I could just stuff him in here . . .” She rested her hand on top of the moon and pressed down. The moon didn’t budge. She dropped her arms, then hurled the glass onto the ice. It skipped away, spiraled to a dead stop. She clutched at her head. “Come on, Wes. Take me dancing,” she said, grabbing my hand, pulling me toward the ice.

I tried the voice of reason. “I don’t think we should. Dad said—”

“Your dad doesn’t give two shits about us.” She tipped her head to the side. “Come on.”

“Did he go into town? Let’s wait for him.”

Her drunk switch flipped from flirty to angry. “You know what, Wes? You know what you are? You’re a party pooper, that’s what. I’ll go by myself.”

Her footing was loose and sloppy as she sidled onto the ice, mocking me, calling me chicken and baby. She told me I was just like my father, no goddamned fun at all. She became tiny in the distance, the off-kilter spindle of a twirling top. “I’m okay,” she yelled. “See?” And she jumped up and down, knees together, a toddler in a puddle.

I put my hands around my mouth and hollered for her to stop but she kept at it, testing the ice, proving her point. The shifting ice moaned and twanged, kettledrum then tension wire whiplashing across the lake. And then another sound, a cry—tonal and pitched—a summer sound, one mate calling to the other, I’m here. Where are you? What would a loon be doing so far north? My mother whooped, “I told you so,” and flapped her arms, spinning her dark hair in the silver moonlight.



I WAS SIX YEARS OLD the first time my father took me to Bright Lake, where his friend—Charlie Something—had this fair-weather cabin good for fishing and hunting weekends, for men, booze, and cards. I was all ribs and freckles and banged-up knees back then, toasted hair poking up off my head in a coarse meringue tangle, my skinny arms crossed hard as I stood on shore, sun beating down on my mottled shoulders, wicked black bugs circling my head. Summer kids had erected a rickety diving board from scrap wood nailed willy-nilly into a scaffolding perched on the end of an old boat dock. Boys in cutoff jeans flailed and jackknifed and cannonballed into the lake while the girls tried not to be impressed.

I was in a standoff with my father. I could jump, he said, but only if I wore one of the bleached life jackets that wintered in a box with spiders and centipedes. I’d refused, thinking if I stood my ground, he’d relent. Instead, he and Charlie sat on the little bluff, drinking beer, watching me watch the other kids. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and snatched the life jacket off the ground, brushed it off, and strapped it on, glaring the whole time at my father as if he gave a shit whether I jumped or not.

The rungs of the ladder were spread so wide I was knees to chin with each step. My father yelled, “Let’s see what you got, Little.” He tipped his beer, laughing with the faceless Charlie as I made my way, heel to toe, out to the brink. I stared straight down into the bottomless water, consumed by thoughts of fish with teeth and billowing knots of drowned weeds. The older kids jeered, lolled their heads, rolled their eyes, even pelted me with pebbles. “Go on, Wes,” my father said. He was standing now, finishing off his beer, resigning himself, I suppose, to the fact he’d have to come down and coax me off the board or into the water. I steadied myself, unclipped the vest, dropped it onto the dock. I’ll show him, I thought. He hollered my name, urgent this time, and started down the gravel trail. I took one look at him, plugged my nose, and jumped. I remember the feeling of cutting through the water, of chuting down deep and fast, heavy like a log. I opened my eyes, expecting to be circled by sturgeon and lake trout, serpentine monsters and great schools of fish. Instead, in the murky distance, I saw a diving loon, glistening black, layered in pearls. Its red eye caught mine and saw right through me—every bit of penny candy I’d ever stolen, the times I practiced swearing into the mirror, other six-year-old sins. Floating there between sinking and rising, I thought myself dead and that loon my deliverance. Panicked, I kicked toward sunlight and my father’s water-warped face. He pulled me out and up to his chest in a single motion, hugged me good, then gave me a half-hearted licking I knew was mostly for show.