The flavor exploded on my tongue. And yet it wasn’t too fishy. It was fluffy, like a cloud. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted in my life, I swear. That’s not just one of those things you say. I thought of pizza, and the steak my mom used to bring home from her old job at the restaurant. And the shrimp I had once at a party. They were nothing. Next to this trout, they were cardboard.
I grabbed the salt and pepper and sprinkled lightly. Took another bite.
Even better. Than perfect.
Paul sat down with his breakfast. “What do you think?”
“I think I died and went to heaven.”
“Hate to say I told you so.”
“Where’s Rigby? I’m surprised she’s not interested in the smells.”
He pointed.
Rigby was in the corner, daintily eating from her enormous food dish.
“She gets her own fish. It’s sort of a tradition with us. If I catch more than one, she gets one of her own.”
I wanted to say something about that, but I didn’t want to stop eating.
We ate in silence for what felt like a long time. I tried to remind myself to slow down. The food was making me feel real. Like I was here in the room in a way I couldn’t be when I was hungry. Like I was fully in my body and that was a fine place to be. For a change.
Paul spoke first. “Is Sophie on vacation, too?”
“No, there’s a summer-school program for the Special Ed kids. Thank God. Otherwise, the parents wouldn’t be able to work a regular job all year. Or in my case, I wouldn’t get much of a vacation.”
“She still doing well there?”
I bit down on my first small bone. I separated it from the good stuff with my tongue and pulled it out with my fingers.
“So far as we can tell. She doesn’t mind going. I think it’s a much better program than the old preschool. She hated going to the old preschool. Then again, that was before Rigby came along.”
Speaking of Rigby, she set her head on my thigh. Which was always funny, because it involved leaning down. I guess she’d finished her fish.
“Not fair, Rigby,” Paul said. “You had yours.”
She shuffled into the living room, looking a little ashamed. Even from behind.
“Will you teach me to fish?”
It surprised us both. I really hadn’t known I was about to ask.
“I’m surprised,” he said. “You don’t seem like the fishing type.”
“Yeah. I’m a little surprised, too. Because I’m not the fishing type. But I’m the eating type. And this is the best thing I’ve eaten in a long time. Well. Ever. And you just went out and cast a line into a lake or a stream, and there was breakfast. And it was free.”
He laughed, a sort of snorting laugh. I wasn’t sure why.
“Free. Let’s see. Forty-five dollars a year for the license. Probably close to a thousand on a half-dozen rod-and-reel combos. Sinkers. Live bait. Hooks. Spinners. Salmon eggs. Floats. Line. Divide that by the number of fish I’ve caught, and it probably comes out to about fifty dollars a breakfast. Then again, I’ll catch more in the years to come. Maybe I can get it down to ten a fish.”
“Oh. I knew that was too good to be true. Everything that’s this good has to have a catch. No pun intended.”
“Well, not necessarily. Maybe not for you. You wouldn’t need a license.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Sixteen and older.”
“Ooh. I have a year of free fishing left. Except for…”
“And the fact that I have half a dozen rods means I could loan you one. I’ll give you a couple of hooks and some line, and when you’ve lost that, those are the cheap parts.”
“So you will teach me?”
“Sure.”
“When?”
“What are you doing today?”
“Today? You’ve already been fishing today.”
“So? You forget I’m retired.”
“Yeah, but won’t you be sick of it twice in one day? Besides, you said dawn is best.”
“In the creeks, yes. The water’s very shallow, and it’s best when it’s nearly dark. Just enough light for them to see your bait. Not enough for them to catch your movement onshore. Or for the sun to glint off the line in the water. But we could drive to one of those little stream-fed mountain lakes. They’re just jumping with brookies. In the warm part of the day, they go into deep water, but the lakes are so small, you can wade in up to your waist and cast into the deepest part of the lake.”
I started getting excited then, because standing in a lake up to my waist catching dinner sounded like a genuine summer vacation. Almost as good as Paul’s retirement.
I’d not only have a great summer, I might even eat regularly. My whole family might even eat regularly.
On me.
In my mind, I watched rice and beans fade into the distant past.
“I could actually buy some fishing stuff,” I said. “I have a little stash of money that nobody knows about.”
He pulled a rod out of the trunk and handed it to me. I swished it back and forth, and it was surprisingly flexible. Like you could almost bend it in half. I touched the line. Held it between my fingers. It was clear, and so thin it was almost like a human hair. Well, not quite. But really thin. I thought of the fish on my plate an hour earlier. The size of him. I wondered why he couldn’t have broken it. His life depended on it, after all.
“That took some will power,” Paul said.
He slammed the trunk.
We stood there by the lake, Paul in waterproof waders, me in my sneakers and cutoff shorts. He had a plastic tackle box in one hand, a rod and a net in the other. The basket, which I’d since found out was called a creel, was strapped over his shoulder.
“What took some will power?”
I’d forgotten what we were talking about.
“Having money but not spending it. When I know you could have used more and better food.”
“I hope it didn’t seem wrong to eat at your house when I had money stashed.”
“Not at all. It wouldn’t have lasted long if you’d used it. Right?”
“Exactly. That’s exactly why I didn’t. Because it would’ve just been gone, and our problems would still be our problems. I used to give my mother any money I had, like when you paid me to walk Rigby. But it never solved our problem. The way to solve our problem is for my mom to make more money, or to figure out a place we can live for less money. If I gave her my hundred dollars, we’d eat well for a couple weeks, and then it would be gone. And if anything, I’d just have helped her not solve the problem for real. I keep thinking if things get tight enough, she’ll figure something out. But nothing so far. But this might be worth the money.”
“Save your hundred dollars. I’ll give you what you need to start. I have enough tackle to last me as long as I live. If you run out of hooks or need a new spool of line, by then, you will have put a dozen meals on the table. Tell her to invest a couple of dollars in the breadwinner.”
“Fishwinner,” I said.
“Fishwinner. Yes. But don’t get cocky. You haven’t caught anything yet. And you have a lot to learn.”
Paul leaned over closer and whispered, “I’m finally getting nibbles. Are you?”
It was important to be quiet around fish. Well, trout. Otherwise, they’d get spooky and go someplace else. We’d been standing in the lake being quiet for what seemed like about an hour.
“No,” I whispered.
I felt a little jealous, because he was getting nibbles. I was beginning to think this whole fishing thing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
I was standing in water about to the tops of my cutoff jeans, which were pretty short. I was still wearing my sneakers, because the lakebed was slippery and slimy. They’d dry out, eventually.
I looked over at Rigby, who was curled up in the shade on the shore. She hadn’t moved. She wasn’t the least bit concerned that we were someplace she preferred not to go. I got the impr
ession she’d done this before.
Then I felt something. Like someone gave my line a tiny tug.
“Yes!” I whispered.
“Remember what I told you?”
I nodded.
I was supposed to wait until I’d gotten another tug or two, then give the line a good jerk. That way, if the hook was in the fish’s mouth, that would set it nice and deep.
I felt a flurry of little tugs. Almost like a stutter.
I jerked.
Nothing.
I waited. No more tugs.
“I don’t think I got him,” I whispered.
“Reel in. Make sure he didn’t steal your bait.”
I reeled in until I saw the hook break the surface of the water. It was bare. No salmon eggs.
“Now how did he manage to do that?”
“They’ll do that to you all the time,” he said. “Just because they want what’s on the hook doesn’t mean they’ll take the whole hook to get it. Sometimes they just kind of poke at the bait. Or grab it and pull.”
“You think they know?”
“Probably not. But it’s hard to say. Since I’ve never been a fish. Here, take a few more salmon eggs.”
He reached into his tackle box, then held a jar out to me. The salmon eggs were bright red and about the size of baby peas. I put four on my hook. So all the fish would see was salmon eggs. So he wouldn’t see the hook.
“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression by coming home with five beautiful, big rainbows. Sometimes you come home empty-handed. It’s not as easy as just casting your hook into the water and reeling them in. Sometimes you get your bait stolen and nothing else. Other times, you’ll swear there’s not a single living thing lurking under that water. But they’re there. They’re just either biting or they’re not.”
“How do you know if they’re biting?”
“By casting a baited hook into the water and seeing if they bite it. If there was a way of knowing before you left the house, and I knew it, I wouldn’t have had to work in a bank all my life. I’d have bottled the secret and sold it to fishermen all over the world. I’d be a rich man, indeed. Whoops.”
I didn’t know what “whoops” meant until he set the hook and started reeling in. I could tell he had something, because I could see his rod bending under the pressure. I watched what he did, so I’d know what to do when it happened to me. If it happened to me.
“Get the net ready,” he said. “Help me land him.”
“How do I do that?”
“Just hold the net out. I’ll do the rest.”
I slipped the net off his shoulder; it was hanging by a loop of green rope. I held the net out with both hands, holding my fishing rod between my knees. I watched the fish break the surface of the water three times. Like he thought he could fly away. But he couldn’t.
A couple seconds later, he was in the net, and Paul was taking the hook out of his mouth. He didn’t even need to put fresh salmon eggs on the hook. He only had to slightly rearrange the ones that were there.
The fish wasn’t a rainbow. He was a darker color, a mottled brown with a long flash of dark red under his belly.
I watched Paul hold the fish by the bottom half of its mouth and move him to the creel basket, which was hanging down into the water. I felt bad for the little guy. He wanted so badly to get free. I could see his whole body twist into spasms, every ounce of his energy spent to save his own life. But his life was over.
“Too bad for him,” I said.
“Yeah, but good for us.”
“Ever feel bad for them?”
“Yes and no. When they die in the wild, it’s usually by being eaten alive. This has to be better than that.”
I was going to say something, but I got a nibble.
I waited. Felt two more. But they were stronger. Like big tugs.
I yanked hard. The fish yanked back.
“I got one!” I said, forgetting to whisper.
“Nice and steady. Don’t hurry. But don’t give him any slack, either.”
The whole time I was pulling him in, I could feel him pulling back. Then, sooner than I expected it, I saw him under the water. He was less than a foot from my right leg. He was bigger than the one Paul had just caught. He was a beauty.
Then I was looking down at nothing. He was gone.
“What just happened?” I asked.
“Your fish swam away.”
“How did he get off the hook?”
“You stopped reeling. When you take the pressure off the line, that helps them wiggle off the hook if they’re ever going to.”
“But it has a barb. So it’ll stay in.”
“So it’ll usually stay in. If you’re lucky. Almost any fish can twist off almost any hook if you give him too many chances. Think of it as a gamble between you and the fish. There are odds on both sides. Be glad you’re not the one betting your life.”
It made me uneasy to think of this as gambling. Because things that had gambles involved seem to hook me. I swear, I didn’t mean that like a pun.
I put on four more salmon eggs and cast again.
Paul said, “You’re getting good at that.”
A split second later, there was something on my line again, and I was reeling it in.
“Just keep reeling until it’s out of the water, and then see if you can drop it in the net.”
I watched this beautiful living thing come up out of his lake, and I jerked him up higher, trying to wait until Paul had the net under him. I could see sunlight blinking off his wet, dark red belly, and then he twisted and flipped hard, both at the same time, and came off the hook. And dropped right into the net.
“You just caught a fish,” Paul said.
“Wow.”
I stared at him while Paul was putting him in the creel. And I thought, I killed him. I’m killing him. But I needed to eat. And it did occur to me that when we ate fish filets from the grocery store, somebody killed those, too. But this wasn’t somebody killing a fish for me. This was me, doing it directly.
But I didn’t back down. Because my family needed more food to eat. Yeah, it was tough that his life was over, but that was the way it was. If a lion or a wolf ever needed to eat, my life might be over. I would just have to deal with killing a fish. And the fish… well, he had no choice. Did he?
In my head, I told him I was sorry. But also that I was not putting him back.
“What if I came out here to fish by myself? How would I get him in the net?”
“Here’s what I do. I come out into the lake and cast into deep water. Then I open the bail and let out line as I walk back to shore. And I fish from shore. If I catch something, I reel it in and then turn and throw it onto the ground as far from the lake as I can. He can flop around all he wants, but you’ve still got him. Even if he comes off the hook, you’ve still got him. But if he can flop back into the water, he’ll be—”
Then he had to stop talking, because he’d hooked another one.
It didn’t matter, because I knew the end of the sentence, anyway. I knew, if he flopped back into the water, what he’d be.
Then I caught another one.
Then Paul caught a third.
I didn’t catch a third.
Then no more nibbles. No more tugs.
We stood there for another half an hour or so. I didn’t mind the time going by. I wasn’t bored. I just watched the way the mountains looked, reflected on the surface of the water, and the way that reflection rippled when a wind gust came up. I watched long-legged birds wading around near the shore.
I was on vacation. And I was happy.
Paul said, “Funny how they won’t be biting. And then all of a sudden, they are. And then all of a sudden, they’re not again. We might just as well call it a day.”
While we were driving home, Paul asked, “You want me to gut those for you?”
“I will. I mean, I think I can. I mean, I just will. Maybe you could teach me.”
“You take three of the f
ive.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s fine. You have three mouths to feed at your house. I have two still left from this morning. So I’ll take two, and that’ll be two meals each for Rigby and me.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” he said.
When we got inside his house, something was beeping.
Paul was in the kitchen, dumping the fish into his stainless-steel sink. It didn’t seem like he heard it.
“What’s that beeping?”
“It’s my message machine. Let me wash my hands, and I’ll come see what it is.”
I leaned on the table instead of sitting. Because my cutoffs were still wet. The beeping made me nervous, but I wasn’t sure why.
A minute later, he came out, drying his hands on a dish towel, and hit a button on the machine.
“Paul,” a voice said. A woman. With a trace of an accent. “Call me. Okay?” Pause. “Call me.”
We looked at each other.
“Rachel?” I asked.
“Yes.” Long silence. Then he said, “Is it just me, or did that sound… not good?”
“It definitely sounded not good.”
“Okay, I have to call her.”
“Want me to go?”
“I haven’t given you your fish yet. I have to show you how to gut them.”
“I could wait outside.”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. You don’t have to go. I just have to call her right now.”
He picked up the phone and punched the number in by heart. Which made sense, since it had been his house, his number, for decades.
She must’ve been close to the phone.
“Rachel. Yeah. Are you okay? You sounded—”
Then it must have been her talking. For a long time.
I watched him. I just stood there and watched him listen. What else could I do? The more he listened, the older he looked.
After a while, he said, “I’ll come down.”
Silence on our end.
“No, I can put her in a kennel.”
Silence.
“Well, no. You’re right. Not if it was that long. But I can work it out. I might even have a dog sitter for her. Right here.”
More silence.
“Rachel, are you sure?”
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