because her mother and I were angry at each other. Alce wanted peace and she couldn’t make it, tried, couldn’t, got mad and surly. She got sick of hearing doors slam. How I blamed myself. Why she disappeared into that crowd, into the drugs, etc. Because I wasn’t big enough to make peace with her mother.
Squeeze. Irmina squeezing my hand now, relaxing. Holding it, warm, almost hot in the chilling air.
She said, “She was a teenager. Every teenager has to do that somehow. It is how you become your own person. And every marriage has those times. You know. Jim?”
I watched the current, the tailwater rolling out of the bottom of the falls, white and fast and pushing through the little haystacking waves and quieting into the darker water of the pool, the smooth stretch where I could see the pair of ducks drifting, dark against the dark silverblue of the reflected sky. That luminous night that is not yet true night. Why couldn’t we be like ducks? Make the decision to be together and be together forever without argument, flying wing to wing into and out of the seasons year after year. Drifting on some slow night current, muttering each to each.
“Jim?”
“Huh.”
“You know. You have to let her be her own person. Before and now.”
I stood and breathed. Grateful for the ice in the air. Frost tonight down here, down in the canyon, maybe already forming.
Her own person. I watched Alce in the dark. As if she were here. I saw her step down to the river and begin to cast. Letting out the line smoothly in longer and longer throws, the loop up high over her head and behind her growing longer, a graceful animal coiling and straightening, lengthening and lancing far downstream, right along the slackwater of the eddy line, fishing a streamer the way I would have. I watched her in the dark, fishing past when we could see as we did so often, the trout able to see the flies on the surface against the lighter sky, I heard us laughing and cursing as we stubbed and stumbled over the rocks of the bank when we had finally given up and were climbing back to the road.
Pop?
Huh?
I got a sixteen incher. A cutbow. I put him back
.
You’re fibbing
.
She clambering behind me, poked me in the butt with the rim of her net.
Heard rock scrape as she stumbled.
Ow. I wish I had owl eyes. Or was just an owl. We could fly back to the truck
.
Why would we need the truck then?
I said.
We would just fly home
.
Carrying all this junk? The rod. We couldn’t fly that far in our waders
.
If we were owls we could, we wouldn’t need rods, we could just—Nah
.
What? What, Pop?
Owls don’t fish do they? I don’t think they like water much, only snow
.
Miss Pettigrew told us that they can sit in a tree and hear mice in a field under a foot of snow. Those ones that turn white
.
No shit?
Fifty cents
.
Ouch. Shit
.
A dollar
.
Damn!
A dollar fifty. Pop, if you keep swearing you’ll go broke
.
Silence.
If we were osprey, Pop, we could fish and fly back to the truck and fly home because we wouldn’t need any of this crap
.
Climbing slowly. On a smoother trail now. Walking with some rhythm, she and I. The scuff of our wading boots, tick of the swinging nets, loud croak and squawk rising from the river below, a heron complaining.
Back to a dollar, you said crap
.
Crap is not a bad word
.
Are you the bad word dictionary now?
Silence. Knew she was nodding her head.
I painted that. The first and only good picture I made in the year after. She and I over that canyon, ospreys. Carrying our rods, the fish teeming below us.
I stood with Irmina and watched my daughter Alce fish into real dark. Past when we would have ever fished. Watched her fish until even her imagined shadow was swallowed by the night and the rush of water.
Good night beautiful. Fish on.
What got to me was the thought that maybe she did not want to fish on, into the full darkness alone. That she was tired and alone and cold but didn’t know what else to do. That she
Squeeze. Irmina squeezing my hand now, relaxing. Holding it, warm, almost hot in the chilling air.
She said, “She was a teenager. Every teenager has to do that somehow. It is how you become your own person. And every marriage has those times. You know. Jim?”
I watched the current, the tailwater rolling out of the bottom of the falls, white and fast and pushing through the little haystacking waves and quieting into the darker water of the pool, the smooth stretch where I could see the pair of ducks drifting, dark against the dark silverblue of the reflected sky. That luminous night that is not yet true night. Why couldn’t we be like ducks? Make the decision to be together and be together forever without argument, flying wing to wing into and out of the seasons year after year. Drifting on some slow night current, muttering each to each.
“Jim?”
“Huh.”
“You know. You have to let her be her own person. Before and now.”
I stood and breathed. Grateful for the ice in the air. Frost tonight down here, down in the canyon, maybe already forming.
Her own person. I watched Alce in the dark. As if she were here. I saw her step down to the river and begin to cast. Letting out the line smoothly in longer and longer throws, the loop up high over her head and behind her growing longer, a graceful animal coiling and straightening, lengthening and lancing far downstream, right along the slackwater of the eddy line, fishing a streamer the way I would have. I watched her in the dark, fishing past when we could see as we did so often, the trout able to see the flies on the surface against the lighter sky, I heard us laughing and cursing as we stubbed and stumbled over the rocks of the bank when we had finally given up and were climbing back to the road.
Pop?
Huh?
I got a sixteen incher. A cutbow. I put him back
.
You’re fibbing
.
She clambering behind me, poked me in the butt with the rim of her net.
Heard rock scrape as she stumbled.
Ow. I wish I had owl eyes. Or was just an owl. We could fly back to the truck
.
Why would we need the truck then?
I said.
We would just fly home
.
Carrying all this junk? The rod. We couldn’t fly that far in our waders
.
If we were owls we could, we wouldn’t need rods, we could just—Nah
.
What? What, Pop?
Owls don’t fish do they? I don’t think they like water much, only snow
.
Miss Pettigrew told us that they can sit in a tree and hear mice in a field under a foot of snow. Those ones that turn white
.
No shit?
Fifty cents
.
Ouch. Shit
.
A dollar
.
Damn!
A dollar fifty. Pop, if you keep swearing you’ll go broke
.
Silence.
If we were osprey, Pop, we could fish and fly back to the truck and fly home because we wouldn’t need any of this crap
.
Climbing slowly. On a smoother trail now. Walking with some rhythm, she and I. The scuff of our wading boots, tick of the swinging nets, loud croak and squawk rising from the river below, a heron complaining.
Back to a dollar, you said crap
.
Crap is not a bad word
.
Are you the bad word dictionary now?
Silence. Knew she was nodding her head.
I painted that. The first and only good picture I made in the year after. She and I over that canyon, ospreys. Carrying our rods, the fish teeming below us.
I stood with Irmina and watched my daughter Alce fish into real dark. Past when we would have ever fished. Watched her fish until even her imagined shadow was swallowed by the night and the rush of water.
Good night beautiful. Fish on.
What got to me was the thought that maybe she did not want to fish on, into the full darkness alone. That she was tired and alone and cold but didn’t know what else to do. That she
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