Winter Loon(7)

“Little,” he said. “Wake up.” I opened my eyes and he was standing over me, his face so close I could smell the chew and black tabs of licorice he kept in his shirt pocket. I could smell the whiskey, too. He still hadn’t shaved and wore the same flannel overshirt.

“What time is it?”

He put his finger to his lips and glanced over his shoulder at the door. “Shhh. It’s late. I’m not supposed to be here.” His eyes drooped. “I went back to the cabin. I got something to ask you.”

I hauled myself up to look at him face-to-face. Nothing hurt on me. Not my bones or muscles. But I felt spongy and weak from the inside out.

“Tell me the truth, now. Where is she?” His words came out pasted together.

“Elizabeth? She was in the cabin. Couldn’t you find her?”

I’d heard that menace in his voice plenty, when he plunked each word down, saving the heaviest for last. “Not the goddamned cat. The cat’s in the truck. Your mother. Where’s your mother?”

It was the whiskey, sure, but I’d heard it when he was sober, too. He didn’t like to be crossed. My mother knew that as well as anyone. But she never could seem to stop herself. She’d start in on him right when he’d draw a line with her, daring him to do something about it.

“You know where she is” was as much as I could say.

“That’s the thing, Wes. No body.” His eyes flashed, letting me in on the mystery he’d concocted. “Sheriff says wait till spring. ’Course by that time, she’ll be long gone, won’t she? That was her plan, right? Forget that bullshit about the loon. You can tell me. She was trying to get back at me, wasn’t she? Give me a taste of my own medicine. Stick me here with you.”

I squeezed my eyes closed and wished my mother had pulled herself out, snuck back to the cabin, changed her clothes, warmed up by the fire. But I knew the truth. At the end, she looked right past me, eyes wide open like she could see heaven. She didn’t call to me or her husband. “Mama.” That’s what she said. And that was the word I echoed back to her. And I cried for my mother in that hospital room, calling to her for help, calling to her though I knew she would not come for me. She’d huffed out one last disbelieving breath and let go. That was that.

“You think I made this up? You think I didn’t watch her drown?” I was bolt upright, blood throbbing in my eardrums. Wherever a soul is—in the heart, tendons, the vital organs beneath bones, behind eyes, between the ears—it broke apart in me, splintered, became a thing that longed but did not have.

“Never know. She’s a sneaky one.” His lips smacked and slobbered against each other. His head wilted, and he let it dangle over the chair back. I figured he was set to sleep off what he’d tied on, but then he towed his head back up and stared past me. “How many times did I tell her? I’d say, ‘Don’t fuck with the ice, Valerie.’ And she was always, ‘Don’t you tell me what to do.’ Blah, blah, blah. The one time, the one time, I’m not there—”

“One time? You always leave.” Their fight. It was in my head, but bit by bit. It hadn’t made sense, but when did their fights ever make sense? “I’m not deaf. You said ‘divorce’ and she said, ‘Over my dead body.’ Guess you got what you wanted.”

He sank over the bed rail, his head buried in his arms. “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.”

“So go, why don’t you? See if I care.”

“You don’t mean that,” he said.

But I did. I wanted him to leave and to hold onto me. I wanted him to shut the hell up and to tell me I’d done all I could. I wanted his comfort. I got his pain.

Slouch turned to slump, and he fell asleep in his chair, chin to chest. An orderly found him passed out and tapped him on the shoulder. “Mister. You can’t be in here. Mister.”

My father startled awake, ready to fight. He looked around the room like he hadn’t walked through the door himself. “Dozed off sitting with my son here.”

“Mister, you’re drunk. Get out of here or I’m calling the police.”

He put up his hands in surrender. “No, no. Don’t need to make any calls. I’m going.” He steadied himself against the bed rail. “I’m sorry, Little. Maybe I was hoping you got it wrong.” He pointed his finger at me and narrowed his eyes. “Bet you never saw that loon of hers, though, did you?”

“You want to know where she is? I’ll tell you. She’s dead and you’re as much to blame as me.” His eyes creased and he swayed, trailing a stale whiskey plume.

I rolled over and turned my back to him. “Get away from me.”



IN THE HALF DARKNESS, I fell into a sick, haunted sleep. I woke unrested to a bustle of morning sounds, staff around me. I kept my eyes closed, playing possum so I could hear what they’d say to each other but not to me. I didn’t dare squint through my lashes or shudder at their talk, protest. The night nurse spoke in knowing whispers, telling her replacement about my father, stumbling and belligerent, pushing the orderly who escorted him out. She started every sentence with a “well” that turned my broken family into gossip. The two agreed that my father must be devastated, losing his wife, the mother of his child, like that. Not even being able to bury the body. “The body,” they said, like that was all my mother was now. A body unrecovered.