Fly by Night

by Andrea Thalasinos

  He’d felt Gloria crouch beside him, watching for signs of red road dust indicating that someone was driving back. He’d wanted to stay until his father remembered and the pull of their love was stronger than his love of the ocean or of the printing presses and the newspapers he used to print.

  “Come on, Ma’iingan Ninde.” He remembered the gentle way that Gloria had draped his jacket over his shoulders just as the chill that comes from having broken a sweat in such cold sets in. How he’d resisted slipping his arms into the sleeves as if it would be an admission.

  Once he did, together they’d stood and walked back to the house.

  * * *

  “Let’s go finish dinner,” TJ said as he stood and held out his hand.

  Amelia looked at his outstretched palm and then up at him, confused. Was his hand for her? To help her up? Should she touch it? Her stomach tickled.

  “The shell,” he said. His fingers wiggled.

  “Oh.” She placed it on his palm and stood, feeling foolish and embarrassed for thinking otherwise, glad she hadn’t touched his hand.

  “Charlotte’s probably waiting on us,” he said and walked away.

  She paused, lost in the toss of emotion, back on the hill with that little boy, with Gloria, a few moments before Amelia realized that TJ had already headed back out the office door and toward the house without waiting.

  36

  It was impossible to go home after that. Amelia pulled over onto the shoulder of Blueberry Road, playing with her bottom lip as she sat thinking, the Jeep idling. The whole thing made no sense, yet she’d only known her father as a child knows a parent.

  Amelia put the Jeep into gear and veered off onto County Road K, heading toward Whitedeer’s place to see if the old man was still up.

  Pulling over onto the shoulder opposite his driveway, Amelia leaned over the passenger’s seat, peering down through birch trees and saw the hint of a dim interior light. She took it as permission to approach. Twice in one day. She had no coffee cake this time.

  Turning into his driveway, she parked near the barn and sat; waiting for a greeting from the yellow Lab mix, but no dog. Maybe he was tucked away for the night inside with Whitedeer. Amelia sat, knowing that her presence was known.

  The outdoor light switched on. She watched as the screen door opened and Whitedeer stepped out, walking to the edge of the stoop, looking at her car.

  She rolled down the window.

  “Hi, it’s me again, Amelia.”

  “Oh, Amelia, come on right in.” He waved for her to follow as he turned to go back in.

  She called, “Mind if I bring in the puppies again?”

  Whitedeer then waved more emphatically to follow, as if too cold for discussion. She wondered if he’d heard.

  “Sorry to barge in on you like this,” she said, stepping up to the door with a pup balanced on each hip. Lacey and Junior looked around in wonder as she stepped inside, each sniffing.

  The old man turned to face her. “Something musta happened,” he said and reached for Junior. “Bet it’s that TJ,” he said in a scolding voice and held Junior against the side of his neck.

  “How’d you know?” she said in a sarcastic way.

  He winked at her, enjoying the sarcasm as she followed farther into the house. Whitedeer began a conversation with Junior. “Second time today, buddy.” He touched the pup’s head. “And you look just like your papa.”

  Whitedeer motioned for the stove. “Help yourself to coffee,” he said. “Or that shit herbal tea Cherise says I should drink for my bowels. You can take the whole goddamned box home if you want, she’ll only bring more.”

  “Thanks but I’m fine,” Amelia said. “Can I get you something?”

  “Already got.”

  He walked into the living room and then turned to look at Lacey.

  “Them guys hungry?” he asked as the yellow Lab mix began sniffling and pushing against Lacey.

  “They just ate.” Amelia held Lacey closer.

  “Aw, that’s Trixie, he’s okay, would nurse them if he could. Former owner gave him a girl’s name, thought he was a female. No cure for common stupidity. I kept the name, figuring he don’t know he’s got a girl’s name.”

  Amelia smiled and nodded.

  “TJ just told me about the day our dad left.”

  “Oooo,” he commented and then carefully positioned himself in front of his chair, and then released his body to plop back.

  “Wouldn’t think it’s such a goddamned effort to sit, but when you’re eighty-six and you’ve worked a good long day it’s hard work.”

  He then listened as Amelia recounted the events of the evening before speaking.

  “You know, Amelia, sometimes people get stuck.”

  She blinked hard. Same words from Diane at the Biomes three months ago in Rhode Island.

  “They can’t shake something off when it’s time,” the older man said. “TJ’s tried, Gloria did too. But they both got stuck. Your dad and her were stuck, neither would budge. Not good—somebody’s gotta give. Sometimes one gives more than the other, one’s the lion, the other the lamb,” he said, playing with his lip as he thought. “I’m not too sure that’s good either, too much bending makes a person break.”

  Junior began dozing in his lap. Her father always bent to Penelope; Amelia couldn’t remember it being any other way.

  Whitedeer looked at her and sighed. “Maybe when people marry from such different worlds, Amelia, one of ’em’s always suffering.”

  Both were quiet.

  “Do you know why my dad left?” she asked.

  “Oooo. Been a while but I got a coupla theories.” He brushed thin strands of white hair back with one hand. “At the time everyone around here had an opinion. Gloria’s brother, Frank, everyone on the rez, people in town who knew both of ’em. Sometimes married folks have their differences, we’d figured they’d iron ’em out.” He paused, recollecting. “That’s what we thought when your dad left for New York.”

  Whitedeer took a sip of something in the same ceramic coffee mug and set it down. Lacey looked up as he did.

  He wiped his lips on his sleeve. “Mind you, nobody expected your dad to leave for good, don’t think he did either.” He raised his eyebrows. “Figured he’d be gone a month or two, rake in some cash, but then late one night Gloria got a strange phone call. Shook her to the bone. Your dad begging for her to take TJ, get on a plane, and come right away. I remember Gloria telling me he sounded frightened enough to make her change her mind.”

  “Frightened?” Amelia asked, having a hard time imagining that.

  Whitedeer slowly nodded as if seeing young Gloria before him. “She told me she’d only seen Ted like that one other time, when TJ was six and between you and me, I don’t think your dad ever got over it.”

  Amelia held Lacey up to her chest as she listened.

  “It started with a call from a stranded fishing vessel whose engine quit out in the waters close to Outer Island, the farthest Apostle.”

  “I’ve seen a map.”

  “Think it says a lot about the kinda man your dad was,” he said to Amelia and then was quiet. He had that look of being not sure how much to tell. “But that experience changed him, I believe for good.”

  He was quiet for a while, looking at the pups, thinking. Amelia sat up, leaning her chin into her palm to encourage him to go on.

  “He’d told Gloria and me about it the instant he was back on shore.” Whitedeer looked at her before going on. “Think maybe you oughta know this about your dad.”

  “Okay,” she said to encourage him.

  “He worked as a marine engine mechanic. Young family, they needed money, Ted jumped all over the call. Venturing out so early in April like that is a huge risk,” Whitedeer said. “There’s still icebergs floating the size of minivans. They’ll tear into your hull and sink you before you can say, ‘Boo.’”

  “So why go out?”

  He smiled at Amelia and sighed as if emptying u
nwanted memories from his lungs.

  “Winter’s long up here. Leaves everyone itching to get out on the lake, especially those that make their living from her. That captain was no different. But when ya push too far out, bad luck often follows. Combination of hard times and a kind of cabin fever sets in when ya been snow- and ice-bound so long. It makes a person lose all sense of risk.”

  Except for swimming out past the lifeguard zones, her father had eaten the same thing every day, watched the same news station, worked the same job, and lived a life of such monotony that Amelia often wondered why it was he never lay down on the railroad tracks near the commuter station by their house just for a taste of different.

  Whitedeer looked at her. “You mind throwing on another log?”

  “Sure.” She hadn’t noticed the room getting chilly, and added Lacey to his lap as she sorted through a woodpile until finding a log that looked dry.

  “Good girl,” he said. “Just throw ’er on, it’ll catch straightaway.”

  Amelia then brushed bits of wood off her hands and went to pick up Lacey.

  “She’s fine.” He guided Amelia away with his elbow, enjoying the feel of the two pups piled together.

  “The captain and crew was adrift in Superior,” he continued. “Largest body of fresh water in the world that, pardon my language, you don’t want to fuck with.” The old man gave her a look. “The crew’d been pushing off ice floes with a boat hook before your daddy showed up. Ted had heard down at the Rumline that this captain always paid cash.”

  Amelia looked up in surprise. “Same tavern?” She’d driven by it just the other day.

  “Damn straight,” Whitedeer said. “Known ’em for a coupla generations. Their kids run it now, one of ’em’s okay, the other a piece of shit if you want my honest opinion. Took three hours for your dad to reach Outer. Their anchor’d been dragged by the wind and current.”

  “That happens,” Amelia said.

  Whitedeer paused to look at her. “There’s two times you don’t want to be out on Superior.” The man held up his hand to count. “November, December,” his thumb went up, “and early spring when the ice is opening,” his index finger went next. “Good chance you’ll be dead either way.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Amelia joked.

  “So their hull springs a leak under the engine block the instant your dad gets out his tools. Sprayed in the face with ice water, it takes his breath—he’s thinking of his young wife and child then hears the son-of-a-bitch captain mumble, ‘Christ, not again.’”

  Whitedeer coughed. Amelia moved to take the puppies but he waved her away.

  “Then what?” she asked.

  “She’s taking on water faster than the bilge pump can empty, electrical fails and so does the bilge.”

  “Knew it.”

  Whitedeer looked at her in surprise. “Smartie pants.”

  “No really. Just been there,” she said.

  “Couldn’t reach the leak. Men are hand pumping.”

  “No one can under the engine block.” Amelia imagined the chaos.

  “Your dad tells me the boat starts to talk, metal noises as it lists portside.”

  Amelia blinked and held her eyes shut for an instant. “I’ve heard that sound myself.”

  “Mayday call went out.” Whitedeer sighed as he watched the logs catch on. “Time was not their friend. They fought like tigers as the portside slipped under.”

  Amelia lowered her head.

  “Your dad’s boat was too small to take ’em all without losing seaworthiness so the captain and the first mate stayed.”

  Amelia sat back in the chair; she could see it so clearly.

  “‘Come on,’ your dad yells to the captain, the men are all shouting too. He reaches for the captain and first mate but neither reaches back. ‘Grab my hand, Charlie, damn it, Charlie, Bud,’ but both stood steadfast.”

  “How far was the Coast Guard?”

  He smiled at her before speaking. “Might as well have been a million miles, Amelia. Things were different back then. No one had choppers or them power boats they got now, or even those survival suits.”

  She nodded. “True.”

  “They’d kept shouting, ‘Hold on, Coast Guard’s coming,’ but your dad knew better. They all knew better. Hard waitin’ around for men to drown.”

  “I can’t even imagine.” She closed her eyes, remembering the feeling of doom that went with every ship she’d board before heading out to sea.

  “Chattering teeth were the last sound, he told Gloria and me. The captain and first mate slipped under. Then the groan that bending metal makes when a ship is sinking,” Whitedeer said. “Haunts a person for a lifetime.”

  He looked at her.

  “Did your dad.”

  It was a kind of marine death rattle she’d heard of where a ship speaks for the last time.

  He looked up at her. “Ever hear it?”

  Amelia sighed deeply and recrossed her legs. “Thankfully no.”

  “Ted was haunted by the captain’s eyes—they’d looked up at him as the man slipped under. Clear, icy water—his blue eye color so vivid like he’s becoming the water—your dad knowing that he was the last thing that man would ever see.”

  They sat quiet for a few moments before he talked. “We believe when people die like that, sometimes they take spirits of the living with them. For company, for comfort, and we protect against that. Your dad didn’t know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The man’s eyes stayed with your dad. Puzzlement then peace as the captain drifted down. Your dad said it looked as if the captain’s feet were reaching for the bottom. Gloria’d wake him, whimpering in his sleep. Waterlogged souls reaching out to him, trying to speak but Ted couldn’t hear ’cause his ears would roar with water.”

  She was too shaken to speak.

  “Did a bunch of sweat ceremonies, trying to free Ted, to have him call his spirit back but don’t think they worked. Sometimes spirits hang on ’cause the living need them more.”

  “You think my father needed this man?”

  Whitedeer shrugged.

  “That his spirit is still down there with the man like he’s got a claim on him?”

  He looked at her with an odd smile. “What do you think?”

  “I guess I don’t think.” She didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what she thought. “With all due respect, I’m a scientist.”

  “Yes I know.” Whitedeer set the pups on the chair as he stood to stoke the logs and turned his back, absorbing the warmth. “But some things are true whether you believe in them or not. Doesn’t make a hill ‘a beans.”

  Silence had surrounded them for a few moments before Amelia spoke.

  “So how does this relate to the New York phone call and Gloria’s decision to go?” she asked.

  The old man set down the poker and turned to her.

  “Because she’d heard the same fright in his voice, like the day he’d stepped back on shore.” The old man sat back down, picking up the pups and rearranging them in his lap. “Like he was in danger but wouldn’t say.”

  “Danger,” she repeated and sat up, watching as the pups slept in Whitedeer’s chair. “So what stopped her, why didn’t Gloria go?”

  Whitedeer sat down on the raised hearth and rested elbows on his knees as he looked at her. The same odd smile spread through his face.

  “You don’t know?” he asked.

  “Know what?” Amelia shook her head, looking puzzled.

  “You don’t, do you?” He nodded, looking amazed. “Why, he’d just met your mama and she was already anjiko with you.”

  37

  Three days later Amelia listened to Bryce’s truck tires rolling down the snow-packed driveway.

  She was out on the steps the minute she’d heard sounds, to welcome him. Piercing blue sky, clear, the temperature had plummeted the night before.

  The day before she’d spent scouring Gloria’s house. Her back hurt from mop
ping the wooden floors and washing down the walls and ceilings like she’d done so many times on research vessels that were musty, and then left the windows wide open to air the place out until it was so cold she couldn’t stand it.

  Amelia stepped down and walked to greet him as he pulled alongside and parked. Wrapped in her sweater, her stomach jumped.

  “Hi,” she called to him. It sounded like someone else’s voice and she felt embarrassed. Momentary awkwardness made her smile as she stumbled over casual conversation, “How was the drive?” until she reached him. He grasped her waist and she rested her lips on the side of his neck.

  “Not fast enough.” He looked at her and kissed the tip of her nose.

  She stepped on the tops of his sneakers and he began walking both of them toward the front steps. He stopped. Both their eyes were tearing from the cold.

  “So, eh,” he joked. “You gonna invite me inside?”

  “Uh-h-h, yeah.”

  “Cold out here.” Bryce scanned the snowy hills in a way that made her laugh.

  She felt his eyes on her and couldn’t meet them. She felt shy and didn’t know why. He stepped closer. He touched and lifted her chin. It was almost too painful to look into them. Instead she ducked down and threaded her arms around his torso under his parka, feeling the warmth of his form. They stood rocking for a few moments.

  She felt him turn and guide her up the front steps. Opening the front door, he held it for her to. Lacey and Junior walked up to edge of the barricade that she’d constructed to cordon them off in the kitchen.

  “They’re huge!” he said. “Twice the size even than last week,” Bryce exclaimed, his arms out as he lifted the barrier and collapsed onto the floor, squeezing his eyes shut as the pups stepped across his chest as if he were a boat dock. Succumbing to a face wash, he squeezed his eyes shut as Junior peed on his collar.

  “Now you’ve been officially welcomed,” Amelia said. Bryce opened one eye and looked at her. He shut it as Lacey’s tongue approached. Amelia grabbed a wad of paper towels and knelt down, blotting.