Winter Loon(67)

“Lester told me this morning that was your mom they pulled from the lake last April. She was the one who went through the ice.”

Lester scrunched his face. “Sorry, man. It kind of slipped out. She asked what we were doing here.”

“It’s alright,” I said. “Yeah, we were staying here last winter. It was temporary. My dad’s friend owns the place. Or owned it. Looks like it’s been abandoned.”

“Yeah, some fellers came up here early last summer. Cleared the place out. Was that your pop and his friend, maybe?” Darin asked.

I lowered my head, my appetite suddenly gone. “I haven’t seen my dad since my mother died, so I wouldn’t know.”

Out the corner of my eye, I saw Rhonda give Darin a stern look, flicking her fingers and wrist to her throat, the knock-it-off signal. I pretended not to see it, quietly grateful the conversation was cut short. Darin changed the subject, returning to the safety of weather and the winter nearly upon us.



DARIN AND RHONDA SAID WE could sack out in their living room, but I declined for the both of us. They insisted we take wood from their pile and their last rolled joint, so we did that and headed back to the old place and our other bottle of whiskey for one last night.

“You want to tell me what that was all about?” Lester asked. “You think your dad was up here?”

“I don’t know what I think anymore. I mean, why would he come here? Unless he wanted to have a look around, I guess. Figure shit out.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Let’s get high,” Lester said. “Unless you want to keep talking.”

I had to admit that I’d never smoked pot before. Lester didn’t mind. He lit the joint, took a toke, and passed it to me. He eked out his instructions. “Don’t cough. Wastes good dope.”

We sat on unsplit logs next to the fire, passing the bottle and the joint between us. I suspect Lester got a kick out of seeing me stoned, so he gave me more than my share. Between the pot and the whiskey, I was good and shit-faced before long. I closed my eyes in the bliss, imagining my father walking through the door, catching me stoned. When I opened them, Valerie was in the rocker next to me, smoking a joint of her own, staring calmly into the rafters, the fear gone. I almost asked Lester if he could see her, but I knew she wasn’t really there. I let her drift away in the smoke and thought instead about Jolene.

“Do you like white people?”

“You’re alright, I guess.”

“Not me. I mean, white people. Like the white race.”

“You’re white.”

“I know I’m white.”

“Then what are you asking?”

“I’m asking if you would let Jolene marry me if you were Mona and Troy or if you wouldn’t want her to be with a white guy.”

“Why didn’t you just say that then?”

“I just said it.”

“Said what?”

The thread of the conversation got lost in the weed, and we watched the flames instead. “Man, Lester. I am so in love with that girl it hurts.”

Lester took a melancholy breath and nodded. “Yeah. I loved a girl so much once my johnson hurt.”

“I’m not talking about my johnson, I’m talking about my heart. My heart, man.”

“You are so stoned, brother.”

“I am that. But I’m in love. Crazy, crazy love.”

“Love’s good,” Lester said, his words swaying out of him. “Until it’s not.”



I WAS UP AT DAYBREAK, listening to the quiet. Lester was curled asleep on his side in a position that said he’d gotten cold during the night. I tiptoed into the single bedroom, so different from the way I’d stormed into it the last time. I’d not given much thought to their argument, shut it out like all the others. The vulgarities. Him accusing her, saying she was a lousy mother. Her screaming at him to fuck her. I could picture myself on the opposite cot, the blankets wrapped around me, twisting myself around to not hear anymore. In that room again, I could barely remember it. Something about my sister. Something about family. Some family. I sat on the bare metal frame, the sagged springs poking my backside. Lester was right about love, how it could make you whole or pretty near leave you completely empty. What good had it done my parents? What had it done for me?

I left the cabin without waking Lester and went down to the lakeshore. A layer of fog hung above the surface. I fanned my cold hands out in front of me with my thumbs together, palms to the rising sun, firebirds in a mating dance. Then I folded my fingers, the wings and feathers, over each other. I blew into my thumbs, into the cave my hands created, the way my father had taught me, using one hand to baffle the lonely separation call. It skipped across the ice, trapped and back heavy like a winter loon.



LESTER WAS PACKING UP WHEN I came back in. “You about had enough?” he asked.

“Let’s get out of here.”

It was dusk by the time we got back to Loma, hungover and talked out. We stopped at Jolene’s to drop off Troy’s chains. Lester backed up to the garage, and we both got out of the Impala. I pulled open the door and Lester hauled the chains in and dropped them where we found them.

“You going in or you want a ride home?” he asked.