Tumble & Fall (15 page)

Caden looks around the inside of the barn, the hard dirt floor and the rows of empty stalls. Some are large enough for full-size horses, and some are shorter, wider pens, more suitable for goats or sheep. “What happened to the animals?”

“We haven’t kept any since my father died,” Arthur explains, walking past the stalls and standing in front of a tall closet door.

“That’s dumb,” Caden huffs. If it were up to him, if this really was his house, his barn, he’d sure as shit keep animals in it. Horses, for riding up and down the mountain trails. Sheep, for shearing. And maybe some miniature goats and donkeys, just for fun.

Not that it would ever be his house, or his barn.

“So what are we doing here?” Caden asks again, as Arthur opens the closet. He pulls a cord and a dim yellow bulb lights up, hanging from the thick boards at the ceiling. Suddenly, they are face-to-face with three high walls of guns. “Whoa,” Caden says, before he can catch himself.

“There used to be an armory in the cellar,” Arthur says, reaching for a shotgun by his hip. “But my father preferred to keep the guns out here. I think he thought it kept the livestock in line.”

Caden stares at the rows of hanging racks. Shotguns, rifles, even a few ancient-looking muskets, like something straight out of the Revolutionary War.

“What’s your pick?” Arthur asks, replacing the shotgun on the wall.

“My pick?” Caden asks. “For what?”

“The hunt,” Arthur says. “The season doesn’t technically open for a few months, but I can’t imagine anyone would be turning us in. We’ll be lucky if we see anything. Probably just a few cottontails, if we’re lucky.”

Arthur holds out a long, narrow rifle, examining it from end to end. “You take the .22,” he says, passing it off to Caden. He’s never held a real gun before. He’d gone through a short-lived BB phase, but mostly he just hung back while the older kids shot at unsuspecting squirrels and then ran away, whooping and howling like they’d taken out a tribe of enemies on the front.

The rifle is heavier than it looks. The stock is tan with flecks of black and gold, and the barrel looks shiny and new. Arthur selects a shotgun for himself, a bigger weapon with a fat double barrel and a hanging wooden pump, and finds a box of shells at the back of an open shelf. He rests his gun against a stall and locks the closet door.

Caden watches as Arthur takes the rifle from him, quickly loading the chamber with a handful of golden, missile-shaped bullets. Each one pops into place with a satisfying click. Arthur moves fast; it’s clear he’s done this many times before. Caden feels an overwhelming sense of envy as he watches his father repeat the process with the shotgun shells. Plenty of kids are into hunting on the island, and Caden has never had any desire to be one of them. But now he wishes he at least knew how to load his own gun. Maybe he would have learned, if Arthur had stuck around. Maybe they would have spent weekends building deer stands, high in the trees, staking out their spots before the sun came up.

Arthur holds the rifle by a thick, leather strap and loops it around Caden’s shoulder. They walk through the barn and back into the sharp morning light.

“There’s a trail through here.” Arthur nods at an opening in the woods. Caden falls into step behind him. The woods feel different on a mountain, the ground is soft and the air crisp and dry. The trees are the same white-barked birches, tall pines, and maples he’s used to at home, but here they’re overgrown and clustered in dizzying rows on either side of the trail. Caden focuses instead on the backs of Arthur’s high hiking boots, the green, square tab on the heel. He imagines how they would look from space, two antlike figures shuffling sideways, lost in a blanket of green.

Arthur holds out a branch dotted with red berries, carefully passing it back so it doesn’t slap Caden in the face. The butt of the gun jumps against Caden’s thighs, the barrel tickles his shoulder blades. He has to admit, it feels singularly badass to be traipsing through the woods with a gun on his back, even if it is a puny rifle, and even if they are just out to shoot a couple of poor, defenseless bunnies.

“You can call your mother when we get back to the lodge,” Arthur says suddenly, following the trail down a gentle dip. Caden jogs to keep up, the momentum carrying him nearly onto his father’s heels. “There’s a phone that works in the kitchen.”

Caden wishes he had pockets. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He grips the leather strap that cuts diagonally across his chest. “Okay,” he says. He almost says, “Thanks.”

He swallows hard. He’s been gone three nights. He imagines Carly hanging up posters, or organizing some kind of search party through her friends at the Community Center. One thing about living on an island is there’s only so much you can do, only so many places to look. Like last winter, when one of Carly’s band mates, Ted, lost his dog, a chubby black Lab only a few years old. They’d made signs and announcements on the local radio station, started Facebook groups, even hired a dog psychic. Weeks, then months passed, and people started to guess that the dog had “gone wild.” He was living deep in the woods; he thought he was a deer. He wouldn’t recognize his owner if he saw him.

The story kept spirits up, but Caden knew it was unlikely. There were woods on the island, but it was still an island. Eventually, the dog would run back to the road, or the ocean. If he didn’t show up, it probably meant he’d been hit by a car, or, as it turned out, fallen through the cracks of a half-frozen pond. His body was found in the spring.

Everything turns up on an island. Would Carly keep looking until the end?

“There.” Arthur stops suddenly, pointing across an open field. “See that? Just beyond the blueberries.” Caden follows his father’s arm to a low patch of wild berry plants. Half-hidden by a snarl of low branches, a pudgy brown cottontail stares off into the distance.

“He knows we’re here,” Arthur whispers. “Be very still.”

Caden nods, and they stand in silence for a long moment, watching the rabbit watching them. It’s turned in slight profile and one of its dark, round eyes glistens, unblinking, almost calm. Arthur nudges Caden’s elbow and Caden realizes he’s supposed to take the first shot.

He fumbles awkwardly with the gun on his back, holding the stock away from his body to keep it steady and quiet. His hands are trembling and he hopes Arthur doesn’t notice. He holds the gun up with two hands, like he’s seen it done on TV. Arthur reaches around his shoulders and steadies the butt above his collarbone. “There,” he whispers. “You’ll need the leverage.”

Caden levels the barrel and peers with one eye through the sight at the very tip. There’s a subtle movement in the rabbit’s ears, a perking back, and Caden pulls the trigger.

The shot sounds like it was born inside him, and at the same time far away, like an echo. His palms are wet and his pulse drones in his ears.

“Not bad.” Arthur claps him on the back. Caden trips forward, steadying himself against a tree as Arthur stalks into the field. He holds the fallen rabbit by the tail and waves it for Caden’s approval.

Caden wants to look away, but he forces himself to keep his eyes on the bunny as Arthur shoves it gracelessly into a brown burlap sack. Once it’s out of sight, a shapeless lump in the bottom of the bag, Caden takes a breath.

*   *   *

“Isn’t there anything you’d like to ask me?”

It’s after noon and the sun is high. The morning’s catch has been handed off to Russell, who was charged with cleaning and butchering the rabbit meat for dinner. Caden’s first shot had been his only kill.
Beginner’s luck,
Arthur had said, but there was pride in his voice. Arthur easily knocked off three or four on their way back to the barn, just enough, he’d said, for a stew.

“Like what?” Caden asks. The back porch is covered and the air is still cool. Dry goose bumps pop up around his elbows.

Arthur pushes himself out of his chair—he insisted they take the two rockers by the railing, where the view of the mountain is clearest—and walks toward the outdoor bar. As far as Caden can tell the porch is the most modern part of the house, with a built-in electric grill on one wall and a stainless steel mini-fridge below. Attached to the fridge is a temperature-controlled wine cooler, which Arthur now opens and kneels beside. “Do you prefer white or red?”

“Neither,” Caden replies. What he prefers is not drinking at all. He’ll smoke a little weed when it’s offered, but he’s never gotten into the beer-guzzling or shot-racing that has all but dominated most weekends of his high school career. Maybe it was because he grew up with Ramona, who made drinking look more like a medical condition, and less like something you’d do for a good time.

Arthur reappears at his elbow with a deep, full globe of red wine. “Try it,” he says. “It’s from a vineyard in the south of France. I think you’ll like it.”

Caden plants his feet firmly on the porch and takes the glass in his hand. For a moment, he thinks of Sophie. He wonders if she’s ever been here, sitting in the chair that he sits in now, sipping fancy French wine and enjoying the view. “Thanks,” he says, and takes a small sip. The wine is much thicker than he’d expected, and less bitter, too. It tastes like nothing he’s ever had before. He wouldn’t even call it a taste. More of a texture, like liquid felt on his tongue. He swallows and feels it warming his insides, all the way down to the hollow of his stomach.

“What do you think?” Arthur asks, swirling the wine to the edges of his glass. He holds it at an angle and watches the liquid pool on one side, as deep crimson veins trail slowly down the other.

“I don’t know.” Caden shrugs. He can’t bring himself to admit that he likes it, that he likes anything about what is happening here. The “cottage,” the hunting, the father he’s seen only in his dreams for over a decade, now sitting in a rocking chair beside him. “Tastes like wine, I guess.”

Caden takes another sip, this one smoother and silkier than the first, and leans back in the rocker. The glass is thin and delicate and feels like a challenge in his hands, like it’s daring him to crush it. He sets it down carefully on the low wooden table between them.

Arthur clears his throat. “I guess I figured there would be things you’d want to talk about,” he says, staring out at the tops of the red spruce pines that blanket the mountain far into the distance. “I’d hoped you would see this as an opportunity to get to know me.”

Caden laughs. “Seriously?”

Arthur looks at him sideways. “Yes, seriously.”

Caden shakes his head. “You really are, like, pretty oblivious, aren’t you?”

Arthur clears his throat again.

“Do you honestly think I don’t know you?” Caden asks. His voice is quiet, but it feels stronger than it has in a while, like it’s coming from a part of him that’s been underwater, or high on a shelf, impossible to reach.

“I don’t know,” Arthur stutters. “I just thought—”

“I know you,” Caden interrupts. “I know you used to think you were somebody you weren’t. You thought you’d come live on the island and marry my mom and just be a regular guy. But you couldn’t. The money, the cars, the ‘cottages’ … how could you give it all up? Right?”

Arthur takes another sip and rocks gently, the uneven floorboards creaking beneath his shifting weight.

“I’d say that’s pretty much all I need to know.” Caden takes another hearty sip of the wine. He’s starting to like the way it’s making him feel, the richness on his tongue.

“What about you?” Arthur asks. “Is there anything I should know about you?”

Caden leans forward on his knees and twists his fingers together at the knuckles. His pulse is racing suddenly, like he’s being chased, and he can’t tell if it’s from the wine or the conversation. “Anything you should know?” he repeats. There’s a tickle in his throat and he coughs.

He wants to say:
Everything
. He wants to say:
You should know everything, because I’m your son. You should know everything about Carly, your daughter, and my mother, Ramona, your wife. You should know what every day has been like since you left. Every time Mom passed out on the porch because she couldn’t figure out the latch on the screen door, you should know about that. Every time I cleaned her puke from the floorboards in the bathroom, even after she thought she’d gotten it all. Every night I stayed late at the library, not just because she forgot to pick me up but because I didn’t want to go home. The library was quiet and clean and people could take care of themselves. Home was like preschool, except without kids, or games, or snacks. Home sucked. And so do you, for leaving.

Instead, he says: “Nothing comes to mind.”

Arthur doesn’t move. Caden pulls lightly at the roots of his hair. He suddenly feels like screaming.

“What about friends?” Arthur asks. His voice is detached, like the questions have been preprogrammed. It reminds Caden of the therapist he had to see in eighth grade. One of his teachers decided that the reason Caden never spoke in class and rarely did his homework was because of “unresolved issues at home.” Instead of recess once a week, he was forced to sit in the Resource Room with Dr. Frankel. Dr. Frankel asked questions that were supposed to be deep and powerful, questions like
“Do you ever feel like you’re totally alone?”
But she would ask them quickly, automatically, as if she were a disgruntled waitress at some crappy diner, taking her hundredth order for french fries that day. Caden always felt like he was being tricked. He tried not to say anything at all.

“Yeah, I have some friends,” Caden says. He has a feeling his friends aren’t exactly the caliber of people that Arthur expects. Not that he cares what Arthur expects. He takes another sip of wine.

“And girls?” Arthur asks. He stares at the pointed tops of the pine trees, and Caden realizes that this is new for him, too. He’s not detaching on purpose, he just doesn’t know any better. For all of the years that Caden hasn’t had a father, Arthur hasn’t been one. He’s making it up as he goes.

Caden swallows hard. There’s a burning inside him, a fire that he’s feeding with every hot, wine-soaked breath. “Nobody special.” He tries to sound light, inconsequential. But he knows the truth when he hears it, and he has a feeling that Arthur does, too. For some reason, it feels almost like a relief, talking this way. Even if he doesn’t say much, it feels good to be asked, by someone who almost, maybe, cares.