by Weston Ochse
“You want something to eat with that?” the waiter says, pulling out his notepad.
We order our food.
I hope Zach doesn’t get nightmares tonight.
***
On the way back to the resort, my phone vibrates. It’s a text from my mother.
The beginning of it reads, “It’s dad. Your mother …”
My father? The king of the Luddites?
I unlock the phone to finish reading the message.
“… is in the hospital. Call me.”
My mother is prone to huge bouts of hypochondria, so we’ve been down this road before. My dad, although he’d never say it, knows how ridiculous she is about this stuff. But he’s never used her phone to text me before. Not to mention the time difference. They’re in Connecticut; it’s only about seven in the morning in Connecticut. Is it worse than usual?
Shit.
“Something wrong?” my husband says.
“I don’t know.” I tell him about the text as I call my dad.
He answers on the fourth ring, awkward and grumbling.
“… damned phone. Hello? Katie? Is that you?”
“Yes, Dad. Yes. It’s me. What’s the matter with mom now?” I don’t know why I add the word now to my question. It changes the tenor of the whole thing. And it’s kind of mean, isn’t it? I guess I’m hoping it’s just another one of her over-exaggerated sinus infections.
“Katie.” His tone in that one word tells me it’s not. “She fell. Head first, down the stairs. I saw the whole thing, Kate. The whole, damn thing, and I couldn’t do anything about it.”
His voice wavers. It’s low, weak. Nothing like the voice of the man I usually speak with.
My heart thuds in my chest.
“Is she okay?”
“No, sweetie. No. She’s in a coma.”
The shock of his statement arrests all of my senses. In that second, nothing seems real. The only thing I can say is, “What?”
“She’s in a coma. They did a scan on her brain, and they see a lot of blood. They don’t think she has much longer.”
My hands shake. My stomach churns.
“Pull over,” I say to Derek.
“What?”
“Pull. Over.”
He finds a spot and stops the car.
“What’s the matter, Mommy?”
I take off my seatbelt, open my door, and retch everywhere.
“Oh, my god, Kate,” Derek says.
“Mommy?!”
I find a tissue in my purse and wipe my mouth. Derek rubs my back, worry all over his face. I hold up a finger to him and put the phone back to my ear.
“Katie? Kate? Are you okay?”
“Sorry, Dad. I’m here. How much longer do they think she has?”
“They don’t know. But I really think you should come home as fast as you can.”
I nod my head. Up and down, up and down, up and down.
“Katie?”
“Yeah. Yes, Dad. We’re heading back to the resort now. We’ll book our tickets as fast as we can. Are you okay?”
It’s a stupid question, but I want him to know I’m thinking of him, too.
“I’ll be better when you get here.”
“Okay. I’ll call when I have all the information.”
“Love you, sweetie.”
“Love you, too.”
I hang up the phone and put it in my bag. I inhale. My stomach is still not right, but I think I’m past vomiting.
Then I tell my husband everything. I hate that my son has to hear it all, too. I usually shield him from the uglier aspects of the world, but I can’t avoid this one.
He starts to cry.
I don’t. I sit and I stare out the side window. The palm trees and vibrant flowers zip by. My stomach gurgles, chiding me for drinking that mai tai.
My son is still crying. Derek tries to soothe and calm, but I offer Zach no comfort.
I think I’m in too much shock.
My mother and I always butt heads. We are the classic oil and water. She says something, pushes my buttons, and when I react to it—as I always do—she plays innocent. For the longest time, I’d wondered if it were just me. Early on in our relationship, however, my husband saw it and said, no, indeed, it wasn’t. And even though he, and my friends, and my therapist have told me how crazy she is, how tough she is on me—which had felt so good, so affirming at the time—now I’m wondering if any of it was really that bad.
I mean, I never wished her dead. Other than that one time in third grade. But I immediately regretted it and felt guilty about it for a week and never let the thought enter my mind again.
I would never wish this fate on anyone.
Would I?
“You should have some water,” Derek says.
I nod. Up and down, up and down, up and down. I reach into my bag and grab my water bottle. I try to open it, but it’s not working.
My husband puts his hand on my arm. “Kate. That’s your glasses case.”
I drop the case into my bag and find my water bottle.
Definitely in shock.
***
We spend the rest of the afternoon trying to get a flight back to the East Coast. This is the only bad thing about Hawaii: it’s so far away from everything.
The resort, the airline, everyone is sympathetic, but the earliest we can get out of here is tomorrow afternoon.
No one is pleased: not me, not my dad, not my husband or son. I feel horrible that we have to cut our vacation short. They had been looking forward to this for months, and now we have to leave a week early. As always, though, Derek is a trooper. He does not complain and spends his time hugging me, dealing with Zach, and helping me pack the suitcases.
We try to enjoy our last night on Maui, but the mood is, understandably, sour. Zach is worried, so we distract him by eating outdoors and stopping at the shave ice place for dessert. We let him play on the iPad for the rest of the night.
Not a stellar parenting moment, but I think even the mommy bloggers would cut me some slack.
I try to fall asleep, but my brain swims with thoughts of her and my dad.
How the hell does something like this happen?
***
The shrill ringing jolts me awake.
Had I really been sleeping? What time is it?
The clock on the ringing phone says two a.m.
It’s my mom’s number, which means it’s my dad.
Oh, god.
“Katie?”
His voice is low, raspy.
“Hi, Dad.”
Hurry up and tell me why you’re calling. Spit it out. Hurry, hurry, hurry.
“She’s gone.”
I sag back into my pillows. “What?”
Derek rolls over and turns on the light.
I say nothing and hand him the phone. He talks but I have no idea what he’s saying. The only other thing I hear is the blood rushing through my ears. I see nothing. I feel nothing.
What?
***
I swim along the shoreline, taking long, slow strokes. I have my mask and snorkel on, my flippers helping to propel me along.
I feel weird being out here with so much going on, but I didn’t sleep much after last night’s phone call, and Derek thought the swim would do me some good. Wake me up. Clear my head.
But the water does not caress, does not soothe as it usually does. I am numb. The usual sights and sounds—even the taste of salt water on my tongue—barely register.
Maybe I should turn around.
How can you be out here, gallivanting, while your mother is dead?
I come up for air. I am just over Five Caves.
I take a long, slow breath and dive down. Right into a school of butterfly fish, their yellow, black, and white stripes reminding me of a bumblebee. They scatter, making way for me.
As they disappear, I see no more movement: no other fish, no turtles. Just coral and open water.
Then a shimmer appears before me. It’
s not a ray of sunlight or drip of saliva. It is a weird patch of water, lighter-colored than the water surrounding it, oblong, and about my height. I reach to touch it, but it moves away from me, sinking toward the bottom. It turns darker. I follow it.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Snorkeling when you should be mourning your mother. You are one cold bitch, aren’t you. And what about your father? Your husband? Your son? You’ve abandoned the three men in your life and for what? To soothe your soul? You’ve been reading too many self-help books, you fucking hippie. You should have been checking in with your father more frequently: offered more help, talked to the doctor, called your cousins. Was this afternoon’s flight really the best you could do? The earliest you could get home? Sometimes you’re so lazy. Did you really decide to be lazy with your ailing mother and struggling father? And what about your son? You couldn’t even bother trying to console him when he learned his grandmother was in a coma. Just left it up to your husband. He picks up a lot of your slack. Earns all the money for the house and does the bulk of the playing with Zach. It’s a wonder he even stays with you. All you do is complain, and whine, and criticize. Just like your mother. You always said you’d never be like her, now here you are. No? You disagree? Why don’t you ask your son about all the guilt you give him? The same way she gave it to you.
The purple cloud is below me, swirling and spiraling. A dark arm reaches and reaches. It coils around my toes. A sharp, icy pain seizes my foot, working its way up my leg. I try to pull away, but my limbs have stopped working. My heart thuds, my lungs are on fire.
I look for the turtle. Is that him up there? Even if I wanted to move to find out, I don’t know if I could.
Maybe you shouldn’t move. Your husband, your son … they’d be better off without your harping, anyway. And you’ve always felt at home down here. Maybe you should just stay.
Maybe I should.
Fish Launcher
MP Johnson
There are two things I know about my man for certain and for all time: He cannot keep his hands off my ass and he hates fishing. So we are going fishing. Because I want to go fishing, and my ass is coming with me.
Patrick and I hitch the trailer to our sweet wood-paneled station wagon and cruise a few hours to my favorite spot in northern Minnesota. I’m not going to tell you where specifically, but it’s up by Grand Marais. It’s nothing special anyway, nothing you’d want to seek out. Just one of those little pocket lakes buried up there in the woods. Traffic is light and the fish bite, but mainly I like to go there because it’s where my dad took me when I was a little boy.
Patrick grouses all the way. When his arms aren’t crossed, he’s worrying his forearm hair like it’s a field that’s ready for harvest. He’s got a lot of it. He’s got a lot of forearm. He’s one of those weightlifter guys. If you get him started, he’ll talk your ear off about drop sets and split stance squats. But not fishing.
We stop at the Ugly Baby bait shop, even though it’s a bit out of the way and I don’t actually need any bait. I’ve got a hot pink tackle box filled to bursting and I’m going to be sticking with spinners today, but my dad always said, “Son, it’s sacrilegious to go onto a lake without a pot of worms.” Plus I need snacks.
Inside, the proprietor locks eyes on Patrick and hobbles over. I’m invisible to this man, this high-cholesterol Northern Minnesota M-A-N. I’m not threatened though. He has no designs on Patrick. This is strictly a “Hey, you’re a man, let’s talk about man stuff” interaction. He has deemed me unworthy, but Patrick fits the bill. I get it. Patrick’s butch. I’m femme. A friend once dressed me up as Cher and I looked so good I have a framed picture of myself on my desk at work.
“What you fellas fishing for today?” the proprietor asks Patrick.
Patrick responds with one word, which he forms carefully. He shapes it like a stop sign to ensure it’s not mistaken for a joke. “Fish,” he says.
The proprietor pauses. “Well, they’re biting.”
He walks back behind the counter. He still doesn’t see me. I couldn’t possibly hold down a conversation about fishing, not with all this gel in my hair, not with my perfect eyebrows, not with my cutoffs and skinny legs for days. Goodness no. You need to have a bushy beard to talk fishing. Your skin has to be sun-wrinkled, like Patrick’s. You have to be wearing work boots.
I’ve gotten this all my life, and not only from straight people. Half the time, it’s queers stuck in our own stereotypes. Whenever I tell someone how much I love fishing, I get weird looks. Nobody expects it from a twink like me. I show them my lures, and then they think they understand. They’re like, “They’re so pretty!” and I’m like, “Ummm, yeah, I guess, but this one catches crappie and this is good for smallmouth and this is for walleye.” Then eyes glaze over and the convo is basically done until they can break in and tell me how cute my shoes are.
I punch my fist into a trough of potato chip bags just to make the foil packages crinkle loud. I swish my hand around and create a hell of a racket. When I finally pull one out, both Patrick and the proprietor are looking at me like, huh?
“Can I get a pot of worms too, pretty please?”
At the lake, we manage to get the fourteen-foot boat into the water with minimal grunts from Patrick. His shirt is already soaked in sweat and I tell him to take it off, which is the first thing he agrees to do without groaning.
He gets into the boat and gives me his hand. I take it and pretend to stumble in so he can catch me against his hairy chest. So much hair. I swear he has hair growing out of the very tips of his nipples. If we had a baby, it would not get milk. It would suck the hair out of Patrick’s teets like spaghetti. His chest hair is not quite long enough for me to twirl around my fingers, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.
The metal benches in the boat have been collecting the heat from the sun all day. Patrick puts down a foam pad with some sports team logo and guides me onto it, careful not to sear my precious ass on the aluminum beneath. Then he places a foam pad for himself and plunks down across from me to start rowing.
This is the part of fishing he enjoys. We don’t have a motor, because he likes the workout of rowing, and I certainly don’t mind watching the striations in his shoulder muscles go wild as he whisks us out onto the lake.
We’re fishing for crappie today, so we look for a messy spot. My dad always said they like to hide near fallen trees and brush. We find just such a place and I make Patrick drop the anchor. Grunt. Groan. Grunt. Splash. Sink.
When the anchor is set, he stops grousing and sidles up next to me. He puts his arm around me, and presses the side of his face against mine. Nothing makes me lose it more than having his beard against my cheek. Despite its masculine appearance, it’s cotton candy soft. My lips go into it and find his.
I pull out of the kiss before I get revved up past the point of no return. Patrick gets his massive arms around me and I have to fight to break free. I’m not only fighting him. I’m fighting myself. I want to do this. I will do this. But not yet.
“You know the rule,” I say. “No makeouts until we catch our first fish.”
Patrick makes a lemon-drop face and unleashes a solid groan, a real thick one. It makes the water around the boat ripple. But he obeys the rule. He moves back over to his bench and crosses his arms.
Before I can ready my pole – my fishing pole – a fish thumps down in the boat, flopping in the space between Patrick’s feet and mine.
Patrick looks at me expectantly.
“That doesn’t count,” I say.
Patrick grunts and kicks the crappie gently with the tip of his boot. It flips over and I cover my mouth with my hands. It’s a disaster. Scales have been scraped away. Needle-like bones protrude at random angles. An eyeball slides out of its socket like butter across a griddle. It would be choking on air, if it weren’t already choking on its own insides threaded through its gills.
I snatch it up by its tail and throw it into th
e water.
“Where did that come from?” I ask.
Patrick squints at the shore near our messy spot.
“Probably some redneck kids,” I mutter. Then I scream into the trees, “You mutants are exactly why I’m pro-choice!”
I don’t hear a reaction or see any movement. Part of me wants to go ashore and find the pieces of shit, but I’m not sure what I’d do with them. Yell at them some more? Chase them? Make Patrick put them in a headlock? Better to ignore them.
Patrick agrees. He’s got the anchor up and is rowing to find a new spot before I can even unclench my fists.
“My dad started taking me here when I was five. I’ve been coming here almost twenty years. I have rarely even seen other people, let alone had something like this happen. This is my lake! Those troglodytes!”
Patrick shrugs and keeps rowing.
“They’ll probably grow up to be serial killers,” I say. Another fish zips past my face and splashes into the lake on the other side of the boat. “What the fuck?”
With those bulging muscles of his, Patrick is a fast rower. We’re in the middle of the lake now. If that fish was thrown from shore, it was by an Olympic-level fish-hurler. I scan around to see where else it might have come from. The sun is bright and reflecting off the water so I have to squint hard, but I don’t see any other boats nearby. Is someone swimming and tossing fish at us?
Another one flies our way. I duck and cover. Patrick bats it away so hard it leaves shiny scales and guts on his hand. He points in the direction the fish came from.
In the distance, I see something floating on the surface of the water.
“What is that? A log?”
“Logs don’t launch fish at people,” Patrick replies.
“Good point. Can you row us in closer?”
He nods and does.
As his rippling muscles pull us toward the object, I realize it’s no log. It has a skull, bleached white by the sun and slick with lake slime. This is not like any animal skull I’ve seen. I haven’t spent a lot of time with animal skulls, but I grew up in Minnesota. I’ve seen deer skulls, cow skulls. This is more like something from a tucked-away corner of a museum, with a big question mark on the placard beside it.