“You’re telling me! I know how much it was. She said ‘let’s go back, it’s getting cold’ so I rowed us back.”
Charlie threw his head back and laughed loud. “You proposed to her on Christmas Day, of course. I know that!”
“Yep, took me another few months to get up the courage.”
“That’s fantastic. So it’s still out there now?”
“I guess so. Pretty near to where we went fishing the other day. But, nah, you’d never find something so small, it would be in four feet of mud by now.”
Daniel looked over the lake. He looked deep into the water where the river flowed once, the snake. The soul, that writhing twisting rapid, the serpent there in the lake’s belly. Why had they killed her? Daniel shivered in the breeze coming off the water.
“Let’s get you inside. I’ll get a fire on the go if you like.”
When he was settled, Daniel looked up to his son.
“I’m glad we came up here, Charlie. Give me a week up here with you any day over a month in that damn clinic.”
The clock in the room was loud. Charlie smiled.
***
It was early when Charlie woke, before six. He sat up in bed and looked out onto the lake. A soft sunless light bathed everything in an even glow. The sun wouldn’t make its way into the valley for another couple of hours. Nothing stirred on the lake.
Charlie’s nights had teemed with those from the past all week. He’d seen the bear fleeing from his father, trailing blood. He’d flinched in bed when gnarled spectral hands reached up from the dark water, seeking young boys’ ankles. He dreamed about being dragged down, twisting and struggling, into four feet of suffocating mud.
Last night, he’d seen the residents that hadn’t left their houses when the government men had come through in their orange jackets and big yellow trucks. He’d witnessed the fights his father had told him about, the two who had hung themselves, still swinging in the water, swaying with the tides that stirred the lake. In one drowned house, pots and pans danced weightless in the air, waltzing with spoons and cups. From the roof beams, the old bearded man and his wife swung gently. And there beside them, on another rope, he saw her too.
He saw his mother, crying.
By eleven, his father hadn’t risen so he knocked on the door. He found him weaker than ever, his nightshirt soaked through. His breathing was irregular.
“Can I get you anything?”
He shook his head.
“Another shot?”
“No – no more.” He struggled to get the words out. He coughed.
“The doctor said that when, towards the end, we could increase the dose. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
Later, he carried him out to the sundeck. His father weighed nothing in his arms, his sides laddered with a furrow of ribs. He covered him with three blankets and made him a hot honey and lemon drink.
“I’ve got news for you,” Charlie said after he got his father comfortable.
“You and Jenny?”
“Yes, but it’s not what you think. She’s pregnant. We’re expecting in December.”
Daniel didn’t answer, but looked at his son.
“Are you shocked?”
“That makes me happy, Charlie. I’m almost going to be a grandfather.”
They both laughed.
“I want to tell you about your mother.”
Charlie wiped tears from his cheek. “I don’t want to know. I’d like to leave her where she is.”
“Charlie, don’t say that.” Daniel’s voice was weak.
“No, don’t you say that. I have to live with this. It’s fine for you to empty your closet of all this now, isn’t it?”
“I wasn’t going to say anything about what happened.”
“What did you want to tell me?” Charlie asked.
“So now you wanna know?”
“Of course, I knew you’d want to speak about her.”
“I wish you had known your mother before she got like that, before she got sad.”
“I did see her happy, many times.”
Daniel smiled. “Yes, I remember. She was happy here. Mostly.”
“She had everything, though.”
“I know that’s how it looked to you, Charlie. I want to tell you about your brother.”
“My brother?”
“Three years before you were born, we had another boy. He lived for three days. His heart was badly formed, there was nothing they could do, not in those days.”
“I had no idea.”
“In the end, it wasn’t important. Margaret was never the same. I thought things would be better once you came along. She loved you with all her heart. You know that, don’t you, Charlie?”
“I do, it was never anything but obvious to me.”
Daniel fell back into his chair, exhausted. It was the most he’d spoken in three days. He took a handkerchief and coughed into it. He wiped his mouth and chin.
“A light went out, Charlie.”
Charlie nodded.
“It just went out. I know it doesn’t excuse what she did...”
The two watched the lake.
They passed the afternoon exchanging few words. Charlie moved his father indoors when the afternoon breezes returned. Daniel took a last glimpse of his childhood as they left the sundeck.
“They killed that damn river, Charlie. Killed her dead.”
“Yeah I know, dad. Bloodsucking bastards.”
Daniel passed away at eleven thirty that night. Charlie was there. The father squeezed his final silent words into Charlie’s hand. And then he was gone with a sigh and the cabin creaked.
***
About the author:
Benjamin is a 40-year old Londoner who lives in the south of England with his dogs and his books in a house nearly as old as him. He took up fiction writing recently and is busy making up for lost time. You will find his stories in the Dreams & Duality Anthology, the Lowestoft Chronicle, Big Pulp, The Ranfurly Review, Inter Nova Science Fiction Magazine, The Broken Plate magazine, the 100 Lightnings anthology, Alfa Eridiani, and Hyperpulp.
Connect:
Benjamin Kensey has an author blog that you can find here: https://benjaminkensey.blogspot.com/
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