The Edge of Winter

by Luanne Rice

  “Disgusting,” his father growled. “Money-grubber, that’s what Landry is. Nothing makes me sicker than idiots using the flag, the war, to advance their own agendas. Landry’s exploiting our history, taking it away from us, all in the name of patriotism; and if he makes a nice pretty museum to the battle, that’ll just glamorize war. Can’t you stop him, Tim?”

  “I’m trying,” Tim said, wondering whether his father ever thought maybe he’d glamorized war to Frank.

  “What?” his father asked, as if he’d just asked a rhetorical question, not expected a real answer. When it came to his father, Tim’s heart was encased in iron—but right then, hearing the hope in his father’s voice, he realized this meant more than Tim had been admitting to himself.

  “I said I’m trying,” Tim said.

  “Let me help,” his father said. “I’m up here in the woods, with nothing but hurt birds and Frank’s picture for company. Tim, please let me help you.”

  “I’ve got to go,” Tim said. “I’ll call you if I think of anything.” He hung up the phone, sweating, his heart pounding. He’d been about to give his father something to do—a task that no one could do better—but then his father had mentioned Frank’s picture, and that was that.

  The phone rang, and Tim was tempted to just let it go. Maybe it was his father calling back, wanting to talk more, wanting to make things right. Well, there was no making things right. Tim had photos of Frank, too. He also had the flag that had been draped over his coffin.

  The telephone was as shrill as screaming, and Tim couldn’t stand it anymore, not one second more.

  “Hello,” he shouted, grabbing the receiver.

  “Tim?” a woman’s voice.

  “Yes,” he said cautiously, his blood pressure still right up there.

  “It’s Neve,” she said.

  “Neve, hi,” he said. He took a deep breath, tried to calm down.

  “I was wondering something,” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “What?”

  “Is that dinner invitation still open?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, a slow smile spreading across his face, “it sure is.”

  “Because I was thinking, I’d really like to hear about Berkeley after all.”

  She was calling him for research? “Anything you want to know,” he said, trying to keep his disappointment from showing in his voice. “Tonight?”

  “Would tomorrow be okay?” she asked.

  “I’ll pick you up,” he said. “Just tell me what time.”

  “Seven?” she asked.

  “I’ll be there,” he said.

  He hung up the phone, put Mickey and Shane’s papers back in the folder, pulled on his jacket and went out onto the winter beach, into the cold sea air, to head toward the jetty and mend snow fences and try to block out the constant sound of the water and blowing sand.

  15

  Joe walked down to the far end of the flight cages and stood looking through the mesh at the wounded snowy owl. He claimed to like all birds, or at least all raptors, equally, but the truth was, he felt closest to the owls. They had a mystical quality that went along with their reputation for being wise—whenever he looked into their bright, still eyes, he felt as if they knew more than he did.

  Staring at this bird huddled at the back of his cage, Joe crouched down so he could be at eye level. Mrs. Halloran had done him a great service, bringing him this owl. Not just because he hoped the bird, once healed, would become part of a breeding pair, but because the owl reminded him of his brother. He hadn’t felt this close to Damien in many years. Right now, standing in the frigid barn and shaking, shivering with cold and something more, a feeling deep inside, Joe stared across the dark space and started talking.

  “He called me,” he said to the snowy owl. “Tim did. Said he had a question for me. It had to do with the U-boat, maybe it did. The reason doesn’t matter, does it? The point is, my son called.”

  The owl stayed perfectly still. Joe wasn’t crazy; it wasn’t that he thought this bird was his brother. No, it wasn’t that at all. Joe was nearly eighty-six years old, and he had his faculties intact. But he stared at the snowy owl and remembered the trip he and Damien had taken after they’d both come home from the war.

  Oh, that time. Their first chance to see each other and spend time together. Their first chance to assess the damage. Joe had felt hungry for contact—for the easy brotherly times, the comfort of family, the rhythm of joking and storytelling and finishing each other’s sentences.

  They’d taken a train, then hitchhiked, then bummed a ride from a Canadian Mountie to the tundra. Damien was shell-shocked, and the only thing Joe could think of, to bring him back, was to take him on a trip to see a bird, a rare bird, one they’d never seen before. The snowy owl.

  They’d made it to the tundra, up by Hudson Bay. Joe had let the icy air and the northern lights leech the smell of gunpowder, diesel, and salt off his skin and out of his spirit. He’d let the long darkness lull him into dreams, away from nightmares. He’d look over at Damien, just to see him.

  And he’d looked the same. But, equally, not the same. There was a certain darkness behind his eyes, but that wasn’t necessarily it—Damien had always been deep, sensitive, a thinker. The biggest difference was that he looked older. And not just as if he’d aged in years—as if he’d hardened inside, as if he’d turned from a boy into a stone man.

  Joe had needed his brother—his own experiences during the war had rocked him, shocked him. He’d seen things he’d never imagined before, heard sounds that haunted his sleep; these were events too terrible to talk about, at least with normal people, friends and family who’d never been to war. All he’d wanted to do was talk to Damien, exchange stories, pour it all out to each other up here on the tundra permafrost so they could leave it all on the ice, let it freeze over just like hell, forget the war forever and get back to their old lives.

  So Joe had waited. He’d smiled at his brother, but no smiles came back. The stories got started, but they went nowhere. No finishing each other’s sentences. He’d sat with his brother in endless silence for hours on end, in that black cube of a cabin they’d found, staring out at nothing.

  No war, no death, no fallen buddies, and no talking about any of it. Just deeply frozen snow and ice. Sitting in the cabin, scanning the white landscape, Joe had heard insistent scrabbling beneath the frozen surface: lemmings. Food for snowy owls. There was hope, but Damien just stared, never once reaching for the binoculars or even his pencil and pad. And not talking, not telling stories, none of the brotherly banter or humor they’d always had. Just the sound of those lemmings scratching under the snow.

  White arctic foxes came over the low hills, dug for the lemmings. The foxes stalked the prey, along underground corridors in the densely packed snow. Joe had a nightmare that night—that he was a white fox, hunting creatures that lived under the surface, fifty-five of them that would die there without ever breathing air again, without ever seeing sky.

  “Damien,” Joe said out loud now, and pretend as he might that he was fine and all was well, and that he wasn’t losing his grip, he was directing his words at the injured snowy owl. “Tim wants a memorial. I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. He asked about my men—Johnny and Howie, the ones who died there at the beach.”

  That dream—there had been fifty-five trapped creatures. Should have been fifty-seven, counting Johnny and Howard. What had he been doing in that dream—acknowledging the Germans, the enemy, while his own went uncounted? The snow was the sea, and beneath it lay the dead.

  “Tim’s making up for what’s been left undone,” Joe said to the owl.

  Damien would appreciate that. Maybe if he’d lived longer, he’d have gone back to Alsace, to the spot where his B-24 had been shot down. Or to Helgoland, the island in the North Sea where his first crew had died. Joe thought back to that cabin on the tundra, how still Damien had sat for hours and hours, waiting for just a sight of one snowy owl, not speakin
g, barely even breathing. Ptarmigans and hares moved against the white hills, but Damien’s gaze never wavered: he wanted only to see the snowy owls.

  Joe had tried to ask him about other things. About his missions, flying by day so deeply into Germany, seeing so many planes go down in flames. Joe had wanted Damien to tell him what he had seen and heard. They were brothers—two Irish-American Catholic boys who’d been raised to believe in God and care about their fellow men. And they had both killed. Killed so many.

  Did it make it less a sin, to take the life of another person, when it was done in the name of country? It wasn’t that their war wasn’t right, it wasn’t that they weren’t fighting on the side of good, it was just that Joe had to know. And he had needed Damien to tell him.

  He’d imagined that trip to the tundra as a catharsis. They’d talk about things in that cabin that they’d never tell another soul. They’d pour it out to each other; Joe could tell Damien about that last sound, the one he’d never told and would never tell anyone else on this earth, the noise he’d heard coming from U-823 after the oil slicks, and the debris, and the German commander’s hat came floating to the surface.

  “See,” he said to the snowy owl now, “you were always the kindest person I knew. Ma said you were too sensitive for war, but I told her no, you were tough. You could take it. That’s what I said.”

  The tundra had been quiet. Not like the calm before battle—something Joe and Damien knew so well—but like the calm before heaven. Maybe this was heaven, Joe had thought, alone with his brother and the binoculars and the hope of seeing snowy owls. Dawn broke gently over the snow, a lot like sunrise at sea.

  Oh, that most blessed time of day.

  “So sensitive,” he said to the owl now. “I’m not sure even I knew how much. Even I, Damien. Those sunrises on the tundra, when we’d open our eyes and see the day, I’d see your eyes all crusted over. Your tears had frozen to your lashes in the night. I started wondering whether you could take it, hearing about that last sound.”

  Joe swallowed, staring into the owl’s yellow eyes. His brother’s tears at dawn had been such stark contrast to Joe’s joy. He’d wake up so glad to be alive, on solid ground, his brother beside him. He’d see that first arctic light and remember standing on the bridge of the James, the arrival of dawn signaling a new day, a night they’d made it through without getting killed—for nights were prime time for U-boats to attack.

  “The smell of baking,” he said to the owl. “Down below in the ship. The smell of fresh, sweet rolls and the slight warmth on my face of the sun just coming up, the pink of the eastern sky, it was wonderful. Wonderful. That’s what those arctic dawns made me think of.”

  The owl shifted its injured wing, and Joe stopped pretending he didn’t think he was talking to Damien. His brother, his beloved brother there in the cage.

  “I was just so tired,” he said. “All the time. For months I hadn’t had four consecutive hours of sleep, never more than six in any twenty-four-hour period. I was young, Damien. Too young. You know when I saw that, realized it for sure? With Frank. With Tim’s boy. We were his age. When I saw him go off to war, I thought my God—he’s too young! And so were we.”

  The female snowy owl rustled behind the wall of mesh, and Joe saw the male blink and turn its head slightly. The sight filled Joe with emotion; he couldn’t say why.

  “To have all the doubts of any young person that age, but to have responsibility for my ship and crew—that was an awesome responsibility. Twenty-four, and a commander. Same age as the U-boat commander. I lost two; that was too much—but he lost everyone. Oberleutnant Kurt Lang. It was a battle, a fair fight. But Damien, that sound I heard. God, Damien…”

  The broken bird flexed its damaged wing; in this dim light, Joe could see its splintered beak, the broken edges stark beneath the shine of Neve’s epoxy. Joe closed his eyes, thought back to the Arctic. He and Damien had finally spotted a snowy owl—in its own battle.

  Yes, what a triumphant moment it had been for Joe—to be in the frozen North with his brother, seeing a bird they’d only dreamed of, a chance for them to free themselves of the war and return to life, their love of birds. Joe had watched, spellbound, as if it were a movie:

  A snowy owl hovered in flight just above and behind an arctic fox. The fox leapt onto a snow mound, started digging, emerged with a lemming—and the owl swooped down, raking the fox with its talons. The fox bared its teeth, dropping the prey. The lemming must have been in shock—it ran in a tight circle, then stopped dead-still while the owl and fox battled it out. But you could see its whiskers quivering—alive, alert, looking for a chance to get away.

  Just then the owl dove down, claws out. The lemming made a run for it, but the owl grabbed it by the back of the neck, white wings flapping, speed building, the lemming’s legs pedaling air. Damien tore out of the cabin.

  “No!” he yelled. “Let it go, drop it! Let it go! Don’t kill it, don’t kill it, don’t kill it!”

  Joe had had to run out after his brother, the two of them black shadows against the stark whiteness. He’d caught up with Damien, reaching into the sky, sobbing as he watched the snowy owl fly away with the writhing lemming. Joe had held Damien, and his brother’s face froze to his, covered in tears.

  Staring at the downed bird now, Joe saw his brother. They had both loved to fly, owl and man, flying killers. And they’d both been broken in flight, destroyed in more than just body. All those dead, all those dead. Joe’s sensitive brother hadn’t been tough enough at all. And neither had Joe. Joe’s response to war had been bad enough, but his response to seeing Damien turned to stone had been even worse.

  People always joked about the Irish loving to drink. Maybe there was something to that—a genetic predisposition. Certainly when the O’Caseys got together, beer and whiskey had always been part of the party. But after the war, both brothers had learned how to drink in a new way: to escape. From the memories of what they had done, and from each other. If they were drunk enough, they wouldn’t have to notice that they were talking but not saying anything.

  Joe had always taken seriously his status as older brother, and the more he saw Damien messing up, the worse he felt. Sometimes he’d go out to a bar with Damien just to keep him from getting into trouble—but that was really an excuse. By that time, Joe had his own reasons for being there, his own craving for escape. Their families had suffered. Joe’s son and Damien’s daughters.

  Sometimes Joe thought about his own wonderful father—how he’d always talked to Joe and Damien, taken them on hikes and fishing trips, taught them to be open to the world and the people they loved. When Joe thought of how he’d turned out as a father, he wanted to hang his head in shame.

  The heat in the barn must have started going on, because suddenly Joe heard the first tap-tap in the pipes. He knew he had to get out of the barn before the sound got louder.

  “Damien,” Joe said, reaching toward the owl, “Tim’s going to make it better.”

  The owl shifted in its cage.

  “For all of us,” Joe said. “He’s going to make it better.”

  Tim. The war had done something to Joe and Damien, but even so, Tim was going to make it right. That’s the kind of man he was.

  And so Joe walked out of the barn, into the field, to breathe the fresh cold air and look into the wild blue sky and forget about the tundra and his brother and how both he and Damien had looked at that lemming and thought of the men they’d killed and the sound of someone tapping on the inside of a U-boat, trying to get out, begging to be set free, asking to be allowed to live.

  Mickey got a message on her cell phone. It was from her father. He was drunk; or maybe not totally drunk, but his words were all slurry, and he sounded so sorry, that awful way he could sometimes sound when he’d really messed up and knew he was in bad trouble.

  “Sweetheart, I miss you. Your dad has been busy, working, Mick. But that’s not an excuse, is it? Not a very good excuse for not seeing my girl. You know
I’m thinking of you, you know that, right? Selling houses like crazy, making money so I can get out of this hole…come back and see you. Miss you, Mickey. Never think I don’t. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. But never think I don’t love you.”

  And that was that. Mickey got the message when she turned her cell phone back on after history class, and she stood in the hall listening to it through twice. What was that catch in her father’s voice? And how could he lie to her, say he was selling houses, when she knew he wasn’t? She didn’t care—the money was nothing to her. If only he would come back, they could all talk about it. Everything would be fine.

  “You’re going to miss out on a good time,” Martine said, walking over.

  “Washington?” Mickey asked, because what else could it be? The trip to the nation’s capital was all anyone in her class was talking about these days. “That’s okay. Someone has to stay here and hold down the fort.”

  “We’re even going to get to meet at least one of our senators,” Martine said. “All because of Mr. Landry!”

  “What’s he got to do with it?”

  “Well, because we’re all from Secret Harbor…Refuge Beach, where the U-boat sank, and all. Josh’s dad is making it so we all get to meet our legislators, and have our pictures taken in front of the White House—maybe even with the president!”

  “Big deal,” Mickey said.

  Martine wasn’t one of her closest friends, but she looked shocked, as if Mickey had just slapped her. “It is a big deal,” she said. “They think we’re special. Why are you ruining it?”

  “Don’t you get it?”

  Martine shook her head. “Get what?”

  “They don’t think we’re special,” Mickey said. She held her cell phone in one hand. Her father’s message was still on it, and she thought of how he had said that he missed her, loved her, and she knew the reason he wasn’t coming home was money, that the reason she couldn’t go to Washington was money, and that the reason Mr. Landry wanted to move U-823 was money.

  “Then why are we getting to see one of our senators and maybe even the president?”