The Northwoods Chronicles (8 page)

“I can go away. Say the word and I will never
darken your threshold again. But before you do, please give me the
courtesy of thinking about it overnight.”

Sadie Katherine brought in her lure, hooked it
to an eye on the pole and reached for the small motor. Kenneth went
back to his rig, slowly reeled in the line, and, just as the bait
was at the side of the boat, a small crappie grabbed it.

“Hey, look at this,” he said as he held it up,
dangling and wiggling on the end of his line.

Sadie Katherine smiled at him, but there was no
joy for either of them in a harmless, previously happy creature
falling for a temptation. Not today. She knew it and he knew it. He
unhooked it and threw it back, then sat down.

She started the motor and headed back for
shore.

~~~

Doc had the barbecue fired up and steaks on when
she pulled in to the driveway. Aluminum foiled potatoes were in a
three-roll pyramid on a plate and a tossed salad with butchered
tomatoes were in her favorite salad bowl on the picnic table.
“Hey!” he said, barbecue fork in his hand.

“Hey,” she said, and went in to wash her hands.
He knew. Doc knew Kenneth was in town, and he was afraid. That she
had the power to make Doc afraid made her mad, or sad, or
something, but she had nothing to say to him that would put his
mind at ease. She had to think about it overnight. And the more she
thought about it, the more she didn’t like what she was
thinking.

She looked at her face in the mirror. Her eyes
were too big, her lips and mouth were too big, her narrow face had
too many spots and scars and wrinkles. She had no idea what Kenneth
saw in her. She looked like an old fish. She looked like she
belonged with Doc, an old fisherman, a rustic soul who knew water
and knew himself and just wanted to live a clean, clear life with
his tackle shop and his woman.

But now he lived with fear, and she couldn’t
help him. She wished she could. She wished she could walk out there
and put her arms around him and say, “Don’t worry, Doc. I’m yours
and you’re mine and that’s all there is to that.” But she
couldn’t.

“Damn you,” she said to her reflection, then
went out, with a fist twisting her gut, to pretend to eat the meal
he had prepared.

“Have a good day?” he said, then speared a nice,
perfectly seared porterhouse and put it on a plate.

“Sunspots coming on the eighteenth,” she said,
and shook the bottle of A.1. A gust of wind came up and blew leaves
across the yard. She shivered.

“Let’s go inside,” he said. “I thought we could
get a meal in out here before the wind came up, but I guess it was
just wishful thinking.”

They each grabbed plates and dishes, and
recreated the table setting in the little dining room that looked
out through sliding glass doors to the picnic table, the smoking
grill and the Leppens’ backyard. Doc went back out for his steak
while Sadie Katherine poured them both ice water and put on the
coffeepot. When he came back in, she ripped a couple of paper
towels from the roll, handed him one, and they sat down to eat.
“How was your day?”

“Good. Lots of fishermen in town. Heard tell of
a forty-four-inch muskie caught on Dupont.”

Sadie Katherine nodded and sliced open her baked
potato. She had no appetite. She wanted to leave the table and go
for a walk or something, but she knew that would scare Doc even
more, so she stayed put and tried to eat.

“Do some guiding today?” he asked.

She nodded, chewing salad, then salted her
potato.

“I was thinking come Thanksgiving, if the lake’s
froze up, we could go somewhere warm this year. Florida maybe, or
the Bahamas.”

“That’d be nice,” she said, and felt tears
pushing against her eyes and a hot ball of emotion stuck in the
back of her throat that wouldn’t let her swallow the food in her
mouth. She gulped it down with some water, then cut out the bone
from her steak. “I’m going to give this to Cane,” she said, and got
up from the table. She knew her attitude, actions and talk seared
Doc just as good as if she’d laid him on the grill, but she
couldn’t help it. She couldn’t sit across and make small talk while
so much was going on in her mind, and it wasn’t all about
Kenneth.

Yes it was, it was all about Kenneth, about the
things he made her think about. Long for. Remember. Oh god, she
wished he had never come up to White Pines Junction looking for
some fishing action. She’d give about anything to go back to the
peaceful life she and Doc had before he butted in.

She stood on the front porch and whistled for
Cane. Little gusts blew leaves in swirls across the lawn and around
the front end of the truck. The fluffy white Samoyed didn’t take
long to come from wherever he was and run up to her, all
bright-eyed smiles and happy curly tail. He took the bone from her
hand as gentle as possible and ran off to chew it in private.
“Life’s so simple for you, isn’t it?” she asked as she watched him
plop on the grass and begin to gnaw.

Sadie Katherine remembered when life had been
simple for her, too.

The door behind her opened and closed and then
Doc’s hands were on her shoulders. She loved the feel of them, big
square fingers that knew their way around delicate little knots in
two-pound-test line as well as a hardworking chainsaw, as well as
all her body’s pleasure points. “Stay with me, Sadie Katherine.
Please,” he whispered in her ear and one tear found release from
the burning emotion, skipped down her cheek and fell to the porch.
She didn’t speak, her silence thunderous, and soon she felt a kiss
on the top of her head, then the hands were gone and the door
behind her opened and closed again.

Oh god, it hurt so much. Life hurt, it hurt so
badly she didn’t know if she could endure it. She wished she had
known about the cramping pain in the gut that could come from just
living.

She gripped the weathered railing and felt the
rough wood dig into her hands. What if she had known about this
traitorous human emotion? Would she have made a different decision?
Would she have forfeited this feeling of wood in her hands because
decisions might hurt her? Would she deny herself the warmth of Doc
in their bed, his big arm around her, holding her close as he
snored? Would she give up, even once, the happiness in her heart
when he smiled at her across the breakfast table as the sunrise
pinked the sky?

No, she had made those choices, and they had
been good ones. Perfect ones. Happy ones. Satisfying, fulfilling,
normal choices.

Could she trust herself to continue to make
reasonable choices?

She had to. She had no one else to trust, given
her history.

Doc was clearing the table when she came back
in. “Think I’ll go on to bed,” she said.

“I’ve got some bookwork to do, and then I’ll
join you,” he said without looking at her.

Sadie Katherine wondered if she had already made
her decision. Otherwise, she’d be comforting him. The fact that he
wasn’t pressing her made her love him even more. Made her ache for
him even more.

She slid out of her clothes that felt too big,
and stepped into the shower, turning the water on hot and full
force. She liked how it started out startlingly frigid, and then
gradually warmed up to the point where she had to add cold to mix
in. She liked the extreme in temperatures. She soaped up, loving
the slippery feeling of the soap on her skin, taking particular
care to notice every motion of her hands, her fingers, as they
manipulated the washcloth, and she was alive to the sensations of
the water and the soap and the air. And afterward, the cold breeze
when she opened the shower door to get the towel. And then the
towel on her skin, and the comb through her hair, and the look in
her eyes that didn’t look like the eyes of any human she had ever
encountered.

Doc was downstairs a long time, and when he came
in, he wore a T-shirt and boxers to bed.

“Make love to me,” Sadie Katherine said, and
tugged gently on his T-shirt.

“I don’t know that I can,” he said.

She kissed him gently. “Please?”

He snorted a sigh that sounded part frustration,
part resignation, part inadequacy of words, but she ran her fingers
up his strong, hairy arm and lightly skidded them over the tough
beard on his jawline. “I know you’re—”

“Shhh,” she said, and lifted up on an elbow to
kiss him.

One of those big hands, those marvelous hands,
slid around her waist and pulled her to him as he turned over on
his side. He kissed the hollow of her throat, and she closed her
eyes and luxuriated in every sensation.

Pay attention, she thought to herself. Be
present every moment and listen to the music.

And as symphonies have moved people to tears for
as long as there have been symphonies, Sadie Katherine was crying
by the time Doc entered her and she felt that completing fullness
only a woman can experience. She let the tears flow, and they moved
together in rhythm and harmony. When it was over, she mourned for
the loss of it, but all good things eventually come to an end.

All good things eventually come to an end.

She would have talked with Doc about it then,
when they had disengaged and disentangled, but he cupped one of her
breasts in his big hand and began to softly snore.

Remember this, she thought, not only the
physical sensation, but the feeling of warmth, and safety, and
love.

But then, all good things eventually come to an
end.

When the gibbous moon shone through the bedroom
window, Doc turned away from her, snoring the deep sleep of the
unencumbered.

Sadie Katherine slipped out of bed and into
jeans and a sweater. She carried her shoes to the front porch,
where Cane thumped his big tail in greeting. She tangled her
fingers in his thick fur and smelled deeply of the salty scent of
him, then put on her shoes. “C’mon, boy, let’s go for a walk,” she
whispered.

They walked together through the silent town,
shrouded in a light low fog and overseen by millions of stars. They
walked past the diner, and Sadie Katherine felt a twinge for
Margie. They walked past the motel, and she felt a sadness for Mort
and Natasha, and for Kenneth Cale, their guest.

This was a community filled to the brim with
longing and grief.

Was that a fact of the human condition?

She and Cane got to the boat launch, and Sadie
Katherine swept mayflies from the picnic table in front of the
fish-cleaning shed, sat down on it and looked out over the water,
silvery in the moonlight. Cane jumped up and sat next to her. She
stroked his soft foot.

“The longing is back,” she whispered to him. “I
thought I had escaped it. I yearned for so many years to touch the
blue of the sky that I actually did it. I’ve been doing it, Cane,
for years now, and it has been wonderful, but now it’s not enough.
It’s back, that horrible longing. It’s the blue in his eyes.
They’re the same color as the sky, and I can’t stand that.”

Cane lay down and put his head on her knee as if
he understood. She scratched the top of his head and fingered the
soft fur of his thick, standup ears.

“I can’t live with this longing and I can’t hurt
Doc.” With the words came the emotion, full-bodied and forceful.
Sobs shuddered through her, and in the middle of the horrible pain,
she managed to remember to feel it completely.

She even heard the echoes of her pain as it flew
across the water and back again.

“I don’t even know what I’m longing for,” she
cried, and buried her face in the dog’s fur. He stayed still and
calm as if he understood her need. When the sobbing subsided, she
wiped the tears from her face with the back of her hand, wiped them
across her lips and tasted the saltiness. Remember that, she
thought. “I just know that when the longing starts, it doesn’t
stop. If I have to live with it, I’ll have to do it where I won’t
hurt anybody else. I certainly can’t make Doc live with it.” She
took a deep, ragged breath.

Doc. The feel of his lovemaking was still fresh
on her skin, and her heart turned over and lay on its side when she
thought of him waking up in the morning alone. “I wonder if I’ll
remember him the same way he’ll remember me,” she said.

She stood up and walked down the boat ramp to
the water’s edge, then lifted the sweater up over her head. She
took off her shoes, and then her jeans, folded everything neatly
and placed it in the middle of the rough concrete ramp.

“Good-bye, boy,” she said to Cane. “Tell Doc to
catch and release.”

Then she walked into the water, fighting the
panic as the cold liquid closed over her head.

She looked up through the greenish haze and saw
the moon, then felt her kin swarm around her in curiosity. Her
memories faded as her gills opened and she breathed deeply,
gasping. Then she darted deep down into the seaweed where she had
been spawned. She waited quietly for the daylight and the clear,
ringing blue that she both loved and feared.

And longed to touch.

Cook took care of the business of registering
them while Missie examined the lobby. It was a big log lodge, just
like in the movies.

She, of course, thought immediately of cobwebs
on those log beams twenty feet in the air, and wondered how they
were dusted, but she couldn’t see anything from the lobby floor, so
she stopped looking for flaws. The place was neat and clean, and
well tended, though the woman that Cook was talking to looked as
though she were well into her eighties.

The pine front desk had a deer in a forest
carved into its front and was topped by a dark green Formica
countertop. Next to it was a card stand with picture postcards of
the north woods. Missie picked up a nice one of a lake at sunset,
and on the back was red-stamped,
Northern Aire Motel, White
Pines Junction.
They were all stamped like that. The carpeting
was a fairly new forest green with a dark viney theme running
through it that matched the countertop and was pleasing to the eye.
Nice antique furniture in the lobby, with exquisitely shaded lamps.
A pair of old leaded-glass French doors led to a small dining room.
She wandered in.