Winter Loon(95)

He was back an hour later, sober, which was something of a relief to me. After dinner, Mrs. Blue tapped the dead key. “I tried,” he said, his eyes on me. “I couldn’t fix it.”



MY FATHER’S WAKEFULNESS BEGAN TO run opposite to the length of days. We shifted sleeping arrangements to get me off the couch. “Too much bustle in the morning,” Aveline said, using her worry I wasn’t getting the rest I needed as cover for the fact that my father wasn’t sleeping much. He woke up early and stayed up later and later, well into the night. Annaclaire moved across the hall to share Mrs. Blue’s soft bed, though she told me privately she hated it because her grandmother farted in her sleep. I moved into Annaclaire’s little room and little bed, where my feet hung off the end. She took one look at me under her princess bedspread and decided to call me Gulliver. My father and Aveline seemed to be reconciling. She was sharing her bed with him again when he went to bed at all.

When I wasn’t watching him, I could feel him watching me. Could he get over the sight of me? I’m guessing no. His dead son who refused to stop haunting him. He lingered in a way he hadn’t before, holding still as if he lived in the pause between actions, as if between those moments of plenty, he gathered up something he would need for the times of none.

Razor stubble appeared in the bathroom sink, the toilet seat was left up. He often went without a shirt in the house, especially in the mornings, baring himself, always touching Aveline, though some frost between them remained. I did my own laundry. He left his for Aveline to do. When men’s clothes piled with the lady things Aveline folded while watching television, I couldn’t help but think of my mother and the lousy jobs she always had. I offered to help fold, which Aveline refused, smiling in a way that said I couldn’t possibly do it to her liking. I felt his eyes on me.



THE SATURDAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS, AVELINE and Mrs. Blue took Annaclaire shopping. My father was outside, trying to solve the mystery of a ticking sound the truck’s engine was making. I took advantage of a quiet house to call Jolene. I’d talked to Aveline about her some, getting advice on what to do with so much distance between us. “Don’t let too much time pass,” she offered, adding I could make calls from the house phone as long as I reimbursed her when the bill came. I’d only just gotten past Jolene’s opening gauntlet of questions, when my dad popped his head through the front door. He had an ax in his hand.

“Come take a ride with me,” he said.

I motioned to the phone. “I’m a little busy.”

“That can wait. Come on. Now.”

“I have to go,” I said to Jolene, promising I’d call back when I could. It was the worst part of every call, saying goodbye, bad enough it made me not want to call at all.

He was in the truck, revving the tick-free engine. I climbed into the passenger seat. “Where are we going?”

“Getting a tree.”

We had planned to go to the tree lot that night, all of us together. They’d argued the night before—fresh cut or a tree from the lot in the center of town? “We always get a tree from the lot,” Aveline said. “Why go up into the mountains when there are perfectly good trees right handy?”

“What’s more perfect than nature?” my father asked. “It’ll be fun. We can get our boots on, make a day of it.”

“Mama can’t go up into the woods, Moss,” Aveline said. “End of discussion.”

A ribcage of bone-colored clouds streaked the sky as we headed south on the highway out of town. He told me he knew just the place.

“But Aveline said.”

“Listen to you. ‘Aveline said.’ You don’t always have to do what you’re told. You don’t always have to cave to a woman. I know what I’m doing.”

The logging road narrowed and the curves became tighter as we climbed. A sign said we were on forest service land. “Do we need a permit or something?” I asked.

“You really are a mama’s boy. Speaking of that, I wanted to talk to you about something. It’s that box of hers. When we get home today, I want you to get rid of it.”

The snow was deeper and the road more narrow the higher we climbed. Ponderosa pines blocked out the sun. We skidded on icy patches. My father geared down but hit the gas.

“What’s it to you? It’s just a box.”

The bed of the truck fishtailed and the back tire edged into a shallow ditch. He pumped the gas, pulled hard on the steering wheel, shifted again. We slid back onto the road. “I don’t need some big discussion. I want it gone. I’m sick of looking at it.”

“Is this about Daisy? About those pictures?”

He slammed hard on the brake and the truck slid sideways. “This is good enough. Get out. Grab the ax from the back.” He left the truck in the middle of the road. “There,” he said, pointing to a tree bigger than we could fit in the house. “That one.”

The snow was almost to our knees when we stepped off the road. “It’s too big,” I said.

“Too big for you, maybe.” He took the ax from me, unsnapped the rawhide blade cover, and took a swing, then another one, at the center of the tree. The blade bounced, hardly making a notch. He checked it against his palm, took another whack. “Fuck,” he said, swinging more wildly now, taking inconsistent bites out of the trunk with each try. We heard the low engine roar at the same time. A logging truck was on the ridge above us, coming down the road with a full load. My father looked at his sideways pickup, then back to the half-chopped tree. “Fuck it. We’ll get one at the lot. Let’s go.”