Our Love Will Go the Way of the Salmon by Cameron Pierce Page B

tea, and spent the rest of the day reading. They’d experienced a difficult year, a multitude of circumstances pushing their marriage to the brink. Each had at times threatened to walk away only to remain, as much out of fear as love. Somehow they persisted, and by Halloween they’d rediscovered parts of each other and themselves that had been lost—or at least inaccessible—for a decade. This vacation was well-earned then, and they’d both already proclaimed it the best time they’d had in all their dozen years together, maybe in their whole lives. It felt like growing old even though they were still young. So when he complained that evening of pains in his chest, they didn’t take it seriously. He took it easy on the plum wine and they called it an early night. Hokkaido was so quiet. Even the sound of the sea lapping at the shore seemed more peaceful, as if this side of the Pacific possessed some calming power that the Pacific off the coast of Oregon, where they lived, lacked. He awoke in the night unable to breathe. The constriction in his chest had swelled into his throat, like a large bird trapped inside his chest cavity thrashing about, attempting to peck its way up to freedom through his throat. He reached out for her in the dark. She seemed so far away even though she lay so close they almost touched. She stirred in her sleep. Her back felt warm as he brushed her with his fingers. Gasping for a breath, he shook her. She stirred in the starlight, turned sleepily and asked, “What’s wrong?” A more thorough darkness was compounding on the nighttime darkness of the room. And then the waves of the sea washed over their cabin, and if he was dying they’d never know, because they both drowned anyway.
     
     
     
    II. Fishing and Beer
     
    Frank knew as well as goddamn anyone that the Pacific was the Pacific. He’d grown up on it, learned to drink and fuck and fight on it. Still spent eighty hours a week on or near it, taking those who could afford it out for salmon and tuna and halibut and sturgeon and lings. Hell, he’d once stabbed a great white in the head with a knife. That’s how well he knew the Pacific. Everywhere it was the same. Dark and merciless, but willing to give back to those who sacrificed, to those whose skin had turned to leather, to those with salt in their blood.
    He went outside and pulled a beer from the icebox on the porch. The fridge had died a month before and he hadn’t bothered to fix it. The beer was lukewarm, but strong and dark. The grass in the yard was overgrown. Dandelions swayed amidst the green.
    The Department of Fish and Wildlife had eliminated all sturgeon retention for the foreseeable future and Frank had only managed to convince one client to go on a catch-and-release trip. The rest canceled. He was forced to return their deposits. The bitch of it was, he’d already spent all the deposit money. Fifteen years of back child support finally caught up to him and rather than face potential jail time, he paid it and prayed to God the state would leave those prehistoric fish for the slaughter. And it’d been a hell of a year, all right. Limits for every client, every day. It seemed everyone else had experienced similar success and the quota was exceeded. Retention would likely remain closed for several years. So now he found himself nearly ten grand in the hole, with several more weeks of nothing to do, at least nothing gainful. Aimless days of waste and wander. Drunk as fuck and restless. The least he could do was fix the refrigerator and mow the grass, maybe clean the place up, but the idea just pissed him off. Everything pissed him off these days. Everything except being out on the water. It didn’t even matter if he was on the ocean or river. He loved the treacherous nature of it all. There were times he considered buying a big enough boat to live on. The only thing keeping him anchored to land was Llewellyn Holloway. He hoped to someday make her Llewellyn Decker, even