They Almost Always Come Home (21 page)

“Wish it was a walleye. Greg says there’s nothing like the taste of fresh walleye in the morning.”

My comrades stop in their tracks. A moment of silence for my fallen husband.

“I’m just saying,” I continue, “that I wouldn’t mind fishing some more if you two want to start the rest of our breakfast. The bacon’s gone. But hash browns go well with fish.” Another wordless moment.

At length Frank asks, “Jen, you want to have the honors of cleaning this lunker, or do you want me to handle that?”
Frank, you’re adorable.
Jen relinquishes the privilege to my father-in-law and focuses on the cookstove.

With my next cast, I concentrate on the feel of the rod in my right hand, the reel handle then in my left. If I will my skin’s nerve endings to cooperate, can I feel Greg’s fingerprints, a

184

CYNTHIA RUCHTI

faint remnant of the warmth of his broad hands? This would be a good time for my imagination to pull some overtime.

I close my eyes, waiting for a tug on the line. I want to feel

something
. Life.

It comes sooner than I expect. The drag on my reel squeals

with pleasure. My rod tip is sufficiently elevated. No slack in the line. This one’s a challenge. The rod bends toward open water like a divining rod.

“Oh, no you don’t!” I pull back, calling on muscles taut

from days of paddling. I reel steadily, evenly, quick to take up any hint of slack.

Then in an instant, it’s all slack.

“Broke your line, did he?” Frank calls from the stump on

which he’s cleaning the bass.

I turn toward my companions, catatonic.

Jen says, “You should see the look on your face.”

I stumble up the gentle slope toward the center of the camp,

dropping the rod on the way. My hands press hard against my mouth, holding back the flood of a gut-deep scream. Tears blur my vision. The world’s a fun-house mirror.

“Hey, girl. It’s only a fish,” Jen comforts.

I fall to my knees near the fire circle and bend forward,

rocking as if keening, which I suppose I am. I clutch my stom- ach with both hands and cry, “Ohhhhhhh!” “Sweetie, what’s wrong?”

Both Jen and Frank are beside me.

“I know . . . I know why . . . why Greg didn’t bring his

fishing equipment.”

185

G
rief steals my words. Frank sits on a rock and pulls me into his lap as if I am twelve and needy. I can’t tell if the spin- ning motion I feel is a remnant from the lumps on his head or from me.

Jen brings my canteen. “Here, honey. Take a drink. It’ll help.”

That’s the world’s answer for everything, isn’t it? A drink of water. A cold washcloth. Sit down a minute, it’ll pass.

Frank shifts his leg under me. My weight can’t be help- ing his shin injury. I give him a “thanks for your kindness” hug and slide off his lap. Face to the sky. Still doesn’t stop the tears.

“I need another minute,” I squeak out.

“When you’re ready, honey,” Jen says.

“That’s right, Libby. When you’re ready.”

I walk toward the water, pick up the rod from where I dropped it, and lean it against the tree where the rod case rests. Then I turn my attention to the scene before us. Towering pines. Glassy water. A brave sun plowing through all obstacles. A blue canopy of sky overhead. Rocks with bad toupees of lichen. An osprey nest in a limbless tree on the far shore.

22

186

CYNTHIA RUCHTI

Why didn’t I realize? “I know why Greg left his fishing

equipment at home.”

“Why, Lib?”

“He didn’t intend to fish this time.”

Frank speaks up, “Well, we didn’t think he forgot the stuff.

That’s not like him.”

I turn to look Jen in the eye. “I know what’s missing from

his office shelf.”

Jen’s expression is a sea of pain for me and curiosity for

herself, I imagine.

“His camera. He came here to take pictures, to be the pho-

tographer we wouldn’t let him become.”

********

“Libby?”

“What, Greg? I’m in the middle of something.”

“I wonder what you’d think about my taking a couple of courses

at the community college.”

“More college? What for?”

“A hobby. An interest. I’d like to know more than I already do

about photography. Nature photography, especially.”

I leave the lasagna pan that isn’t going to come clean without a

good soak anyway and sit across from him at the table. “Photography’s
an expensive hobby, isn’t it?”

“It can be.”

I eye my pathetic countertops. He notices.

“I was actually thinking of getting into it on a deeper level than

just a hobby. Eventually.”

“What? A business? You have a job. It may not be glamorous, but

it pays the bills.”

He takes a breath, releases it slowly, then takes another. “I’m not

looking for glamour.”

187

They Almost Always Come Home

“Then what?”

“Passion. Something to get excited about. Something to . . . to
care about deeply. I want to wake up in the morning and bound out
of bed because I can’t wait to see what the day will hold. I want to
capture some of the scenes that capture me. I want to care about
something.”

And then my zinger. “If you’d cared enough about our daughter,
Greg . . .”

********

“What’d your dad say when you told him you wanted to quit the
world and go find yourself in photography?”

Greg took off his jacket and spent a few extra seconds smoothing
its sleeves before hanging it on the hook by the door.
“It wasn’t so much my dad as Pauline.”

“She agrees with me for once?”

“She’s not known as a world-class encourager.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Look, I’m sorry about what I said about Lacey. I know it’s not
that you didn’t care.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Another impasse.

“You can’t seriously be thinking about starting a photography
studio. Here?”

“Or maybe a little farther north. A nature photography studio
probably has a better chance of making it in a tourist town.”
“What about staying right here and doing weddings and senior
pictures and things on the side nights and weekends?”
“Because that’s not where my heart is.”

“Obviously.”

“That was harsh.”

188

CYNTHIA RUCHTI

“So’s life, Greg. Harsh realities. One right after another. Our

daughter’s gone. The boys will need college tuition soon. We have
bills to pay. And although it may not put a sizzle in your step, you
have a perfectly adequate job with Greene’s and no hope of making
it as a nature photographer.”

“Lib, you know what I’d say if you told me you wanted to raise

llamas or bike across the country or learn to hang glide?”
I know.

“I’d say go for it,” Greg answered.

“That’s where you and I are different, then. I have too strong

a sense of responsibility toward this family to suggest any of those
possibilities.”

********

“What was wrong with me?”

Jen’s voice breaks through my reflection. “You were hurt-

ing and didn’t know how to cope with anything the least bit upsetting.”

“What was wrong with
me
?” Frank echoes. “I knew better.

I mean, we all grieved the loss of our Lacey, but when it comes to pursuing a dream, I ought to have known better than to let Pauline at him. Nothing kills a dream faster than a woman who thinks she’s being reasonable.”

“Frank!” Jen objects.

“Present company excepted.”

The throbbing behind my eyes may have become a perma-

nent part of me. I should be grateful. One more puzzle piece is in place. Greg came to the wilderness. That piece of infor- mation floated toward our camp in the form of a splintered paddle.

We know why he came. Not to catch fish but a dream.

189

They Almost Always Come Home

I wish I’d known the difference between a dream and a whim when it mattered. If I’d encouraged him to pursue his passion openly, Greg might still be alive. And there it is.

How were either of us to have known what a few simple words would net us?

“Lacey, you’re going to school. Grab your backpack and an Advil
if you need it and get out the door.”

“Photography? Come on, Greg. You have a family to support.
Give it a rest.”

Lord, neither of us can hit rewind. What now?

********

I can’t help viewing this wilderness through Greg’s eyes or camera lens. Details that would have escaped me yesterday now whisper, “Wouldn’t this make a great shot?”

Iridescent clouds, a pancake-sized island with a lone pine “flag” claiming its territory, a blue flame deep in the heart of a campfire, a single near-microscopic indigo wildflower that found a spark of life in a crevice of solid rock.

We didn’t bring a camera. You know what that means. I have to come back here someday. Capture it all. For him. “Ready to go, Libby?”

“Jen, I—”

“We have to go home.”

“I know.”

“Alex and Zack might be there already. They’ll need their mama.”

“Mamacita.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

190

CYNTHIA RUCHTI

“We could put this off another hour, another day, but it

wouldn’t make any difference, would it?” “No.”

“Frank and I have the canoes loaded. We’re just waiting for

you.”

“How’s Frank doing?”

“Okay, I think. I didn’t hear much snoring last night. Did

you?”

“We could have taken off for home last night rather than

chase sleep.”

“We couldn’t have gotten two feet safely in that inky black-

ness,” Jen says.

“A few clouds this morning.”

“I hope they don’t decide to gang up and rain on us before

the day’s over.”

“How far do you think we can get?”

“Paddling hard? Frank must not have had a genuine con-

cussion. He’s functioning better than I expected. I don’t think we have to hold back for his sake today.”

I know she’s hoping I’ll start moving toward the waiting

canoes. My legs are steel posts driven deep into the unyielding rock.

“When Lacey was buried, it was all I could do to pick up a

handful of soil and toss it on top of her casket as it was lowered into the ground.”

“Oh, Libby.”

“Moving from this place feels like that, like tossing a final

good-bye onto the grave that claimed my husband.”

“God, help us all.” Frank’s voice joins the memorial ser-

vice. “It probably wouldn’t hurt at all if somebody prayed, would it?”

191

They Almost Always Come Home

Greg, please forgive the irreverence, but I have to laugh at your
father’s attempt at spiritual leadership. I laugh not because it’s silly,
but because it’s so precious I can’t stand it.

“Good idea, Frank,” Jen says while I attempt to compose myself. “Do you want to start?”

“You go ahead,” he says. “Then I’ll add to it if you forget something important.”

She hits everything. Our loss, our pain, our need for strength, our desire to honor the Lord through our grief, our practical need for direction for the future, the ripples of Greg’s loss throughout the community, and the ripples of his unwav- ering faith through his too-short life. All Frank adds is a hearty “amen.”

When we open our eyes and lift our heads, we watch a bald eagle land on the tallest pine in the cove. He must have been looking for a place with no people, no civilization, because he alights a few seconds later, taking off with a whoo-whoo-whoo of air forced down from his powerful wings. He soars against the cloud-clotted sky.

We trace his path with our eyes. I trace it also with my heart.

Turning in a wide arc with a grace that speaks of unbridled freedom, the eagle swings back the way he came, flying lower now over the treetops along the little slice of shoreline we can see through our narrow view of the open water.

He calls in a voice strong enough for us to hear from this distance, even with our human limitations.

Jen and Frank seem as taken by the sight as I am. I reach out to grab them both by the forearm when the majestic bird passes between us and a thin column of smoke.

192

I
can’t avert my gaze from the wispy plume of smoke rising from the far treetops like a boneless finger of hope. “Frank? Jen? Do you see that?”

“Smoke, isn’t it?” Jen says.

Frank adds, “Smoke. Campfire.”

I risk glancing their way, but only for a second. “Seems as if

it’s coming from the middle of nowhere, doesn’t it?”

Frank’s hand on my shoulder is warm, fatherly, heavier than

normal. “We’re not alone out here. We’ve seen other campers. And I told you there are no restrictions in the Quetico about where a person can camp. The middle of nowhere pretty much describes the entire park.”

“Do you think we should investigate?” Jen asks, and again