Branching out, he soon knew how to whisper to a dog, how to de-clutter his bathroom cabinets, how to flip real estate and what not to wear.
Then he came across the Do-it-Yourself network, and there he stayed. Winkels, his father had liked to say, long before there was a DIY network, are Do-it-yourselfers exemplified. Kache now, finally, knew how to do many things himself. That is, he could do them in his head, because, as Janie often reminded him, head knowledge and actual capability were two different animals. So with that disclaimer, he might say he knew how to restore an old house from the cracked foundation to the fire-hazard shingled roofwiring, plumbing, plastering, you name it. He knew how to build a wood pergola, how to install a kitchen sink, and how to lay a slate pathway in one easy weekend. He even knew how to raise Alpacas and spin their wool into the most expensive socks on the planet. Hell, he knew how to build the spinning wheel. His father would be proud.
However.
Kache did not know how to rewind his life, how to undo the one thing that had undone him. His world was indeed flat, and hed fallen off the edge and landed stretched out on a sofa, on pause, while the television pictures moved and the voices instructed him on everything he needed to know about everythingexcept how to bring his mom and his dad and Denny back from the dead.
The little boy in front of him grew bored and poked action figures through the seat crack, letting them drop to Kaches feet. Kache retrieved them a dozen times, but then let their plastic bodies lie scattered on the floor beneath him. The boy soon laid his head on the armrest and fell asleep.
On Kaches first plane ride, his dad had lifted him onto his lap in the pilots seat and explained the Cessna 180s instruments and their functions. Here we have the vertical speed indicator, the altimeter, the turn coordinator. Whats this one, son? He pointed to the first numbered circle, and Kache didnt remember any of the big words his father had just spoken.
A clock, Daddy? His dad laughed, then gently offered the correct names again and again until Kache got them right. It was the only memory he had of his father being so patient with him. How securely tethered to the world Kache had felt, sitting in the warm safety of his dads lap, zooming over land and sea.
Why had it been impossible to hop on a plane and head north, even for a visit? He tried to picture it: Aunt Snag, Grandma Lettie, and him, sitting at one end of the seemingly vast table at the homestead, empty chairs lined up. Listening to each other chew and clear throats, drumming up questions to ask each other, missing Dennys constant joking and his fathers strong opinions on just about everything. Who would have believed hed miss those? His mothers calm voice, her break-open laughter so easy and frequent he could not recall her without thinking of her laugh.
So instead, once he began making decent money hed flown Gram and Aunt Snag to Austin for visits, which provided plenty of distractions for all of them. As he drove them around, Grandma Lettie kept her eyes shut on the freeway, saying, Holy Crap! The woman whod helped homestead hundreds of acres in the wilderness beyond Caboose, whod birthed twinshis dad and Aunt Snagin a hand-hewn cabin with no running water, whod faced down bears and moose as if they were the size of squirrels and rabbits, couldnt stand a semi passing them on the road. She loved the wildflowers, though. At a rest stop she walked out into the middle of a field of bluebonnetsundid her braid and fluffed her white hair, which floated like a lone cloud in all that blueand lay down and sang her old, big, persistent heart out. Come on, Kache! she called, Sing with me, like in the old days.
Instead, he kept his arms crossed, shook his head. Do you know that crazy lady? he asked Snag.
Gram was of sound mind and body at the time, just being herself, the Lettie he had always adored. Every few minutes, Aunt Snag and Kache saw her arm pop out of the sapphire drift, waving a bee away.
But in the past four years Grams health had declined and Aunt Snag didnt want to travel without her. When hed talked to Snag early that morning, shed said Lettie was deteriorating fast. And Im not getting any younger. You better hurry and get yourself home, or the only people youll have left will be in an urn, waiting for you to spread us with the others on the bluff.
Hed let too much time slip by. Twenty years. He was thirty-eight, with little to show for it except a pissed-off and, as of last night, officially ex-girlfriend, along with a sweet enough severance package for working his loyal ass off for sixteen years, and a hell of a savings accountnone of which would impress Aunt Snag or Grandma Lettie in the slightest, or do them any good.
A stop in Seattle, another three-and-a-half hours and countless thickly frosted mountain ranges later, the plane landed in Anchorage, which Snag and Lettie grumpily called North Los Angeles. But of course it was their destination for frequent shopping trips and they didnt hesitate to get their Costco membership when it first opened there. The in-flight magazine said that just over 600,000 lived in the state, and two-fifths of that population resided in Anchorage. So even though it was Alaskas biggest city, it had over three million to go before catching up with LA.
He caught the puddle jumper to Caboose. During the short flight he spotted a total of eight moose down through the bare birch and cottonwood trees on the Kenai Peninsula, along with gray-green spruce forests, snow-splotched brown meadows, and turquoise lakes. Soon the plane banked where the Cook Inlet met Kachemak Bay, the bay whose name he bore. Across it the Kenai mountain range, home to nesting glaciers, rose mightily and stretched beyond sight.
From the other side of the Inlet, Mt Illiamna, Mt Redoubt and Mt Augustine loomed solid and strong and steady. But looks deceive; Redoubt or Augustine frequently let off steam and took turns blowing their tops every decade or so, spreading thick volcanic ash as far as Anchorage and beyond, turning the sky dark with soot. His mom used to say Alaska didnt forgive mistakes. As a boy, Kache wondered if those volcanic eruptions were symptoms of its pent-up rage.
There was the Caboose Spit, lined with fishing boats, a finger of land jutting out into the bay where the old railroad tracks ended, the rusty red caboose still there.
See that? his mom had shouted over the Cessnas engine that first day theyd all flown together, his dad finally realizing his dream of owning a bush plane. The long finger with the red fingernail pointing to the mountains? I bet the earth is so proud of those mountains. Wants to make sure we dont miss seeing them. She tucked one of Kaches curls under his cap, her smile so big. As if we could! Arent they amazing?
It had always been a breath-stopping view, the kind that made him inhale and forget to exhale, especially when the clouds took off, as they just had, and left the sea every shade of sparkling blue and green against the purest white of the mountains. He had to admit hed never seen anything anywhereeven now during the spring breakup, Alaskas ugliest time of yearthat came close to this height or depth of wild beauty.
But now the view did more than take his breath away. Maybe his mom had been wrong. Maybe that strip of land was the worlds middle finger, telling him to fuck off, saying, Who you calling flat? Today that red spot of caboose looked more like a smear of blood on the tip of a knife than a fingernail. Either way, the view stabbed its way into his chest, as if it were trying to finish him off before he even landed.
THREE
Snag hadnt stopped maneuvering through her small house since Kaches call. Kache. Finally agreeing to come home. In the wee hours of that morning shed mistaken the ringing phone for the alarm and kept hitting the snooze button until she sat up in a panic, thinking, Its about Mom. But no, it was Kache, calling back from Austin. Ever since theyd hung up shed been bathing every surface with buckets of Zoom cleaner, suctioning up the cat hair and the spilled-over cat food with the vacuum, stuffing the fridge with a ready-to-bake casserole, moose pot roast, and rhubarb crunch, and wrapping the bed in clean sheets.
Snag thought she, herself, resembled a well-made bed. Polishing every last streak off the mirror, she saw her chenille robe creased under her breasts as if it were a bedspread tucked around two down pillows. They rose and fell with her deep breaths. She moved fast despite her size, wiping the counter now, putting away a pepper grinder, a bottle of salad dressing with Paul Newmans mug on it. She closed the refrigerator door.
There was the memory of Kache, sitting on the kitchen stool, dark curly head bent over his guitar, then opening that same door and standing in front of the assortment of cold food like the refrigerator was some god requiring homage. How many times had she swatted him, told him to close the damn door? A million? A billion?
Since the day she had to put her mom into the home, Snag had been talking to herself. Before that, sometimes all Lettie had added to the conversation was, Is that right, Eleanor, but it was something.
No one but her mom still called her Eleanor. Around age nine she came home from fishing the river alone for the first time, holding up a decent-sized salmon. Look, Daddy. I caught a fish all by myself.
Her daddy laughed and pulled the hook out of the side of the poor fish. Eleanor, he said, what you did was snagged yourself a fish. Glenn, jealous that he was the same age and had yet to catch or even snag anything, started calling her Snag. The name took hold and never let go. Most of the towns newcomers thought the name came from the fact that she had a gift for selling. It was true. Whether someone needed Mary Kay or Jafra cosmetics, Amway detergent, or a new house, Snag was the person to call.
Real estate had been particularly good to her. She preferred to live in her simple house, but she waxed poetic about the benefits of a sunk-in tub or a granite countertop. Lately shed stepped back from showing houses. Shed made enough, and she wanted to give the newbies a shot. The one element in life that had come easily to Snag was money and she didnt need to be piggy about it. She still sold products for the pyramid businesses, but more as a service to the citizens of Caboose than out of her own need. The only thing she couldnt sell anyone on was the idea of getting the town mascot, the old Caboose parked at the end of the spit, moving again. But she didnt have time to dwell on that now.
She climbed into the car and took a deep breath. Kache. Hes going to want to kill me, and I cant blame him one bit. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her rain jacket, surprised to see a black smear across it. She wore the mascara for the first time in years in honor of Kaches homecoming. It was the brand shed demonstrated at kitchen tables, rubbing it on a page of paper, then dropping water on it, holding the paper up so the drop ran down clear as gin. Now she smoothed her fingers under her eyes: more black. She licked her fingers, ran them over and over her face, took the balled-up tissue from under her sleeve and wiped more. She adjusted the rearview mirror to check herself. Aw, crap, she said. It looked like someone had struck oil on her face. With all her finesse for cleaning, Snag sometimes felt that her biggest contribution to mankind was making a mess of things.
FOUR
At the small Caboose airport, Kache recognized Snag before she turned around to face him. You couldnt miss her height, a half inch shy of six feet. Long-limbed like he was, hair cropped short, with much more salt than pepper now. She was his fathers twin and they bore a strong resemblancethe deep dimples, the large gray eyesmaybe thats why Kache had always thought of her as a handsome woman. Her back expanded, her shoulders hung limp in her hooded jacket. She fidgeted with her sleeves, touched her face. Many times that sad spring before hed left, Kache had seen her cry with her back to him, as if she might protect him from all the grief.
He sighed, kept standing there, observing her broad back. How was it that you could leave a place for twenty years, stay away for twenty years, and walk right smack into the very center of what you left behind, like it was some bulls-eye for which you were trained to aim?
Aunt Snag? He touched her arm and she jumped.
Kache! Of course its you. As tall as she was, she still had to stand on her tiptoes to swing her chubby arms around him. Oh hon, look at you. Your momma and daddy would be so proud.
He held her soft face, wrinkled a bit more, though not as much as hed expected, but a little dirty? Streaked with something. With Snag it was more likely mud than makeup. He smiled. Their eyes stayed on each other for a long minute. There was a lot to say but all he got out was, Lets go see Gram.
Snag blew her nose, blew some more. Shes not herself. And I tried and tried, but I couldnt keep up. Its a decent place, though. It is. We can stop on the way home. She pulled his head down, ruffled his hair, like he was eight years old instead of thirty-eight. You look so handsome. Kache Winkel, youre home. Is that your only bag?
He nodded. Hed packed the few warm clothes he still owned, along with the old holey green T-shirt he would never throw out, the one that said, No, I dont play basketball. Denny had it printed up for him because at six foot six inches, Kache had gotten tired of being asked. And hed packed the only item of his moms hed taken, her favorite silk scarf, which had smelled of her perfume for years after she died. Snag asked him where his guitar was but he shrugged, as he had whenever shed asked him in Austin. She raised her eyebrows, opened her mouth, but let the question go, just as she had before.
Even in the middle of winter Austin didnt get this cold. In the car he rubbed his hands together and felt the pull and release of resistance and surrender; the place lured him back in, then yanked him hard with long lines of memories: Denny buying him beer at that very liquor store, which still sported the same flashing orange sign; his mom rushing him into that very emergency room when he was nine and had split his knee open. That same hardware and tackle shop his dad got lost in for hours while Kache waited in the truck, writing lyrics on the backs of old envelopes his mom kept in the glove compartment for blotting her lipstick. Kache wrote around the red blooms of her lip prints.
Some things had changed, sure, and yet not enough to keep away a hollow, emanating ache.
But it was breakup. Here, early spring was the depressing time of year, when the snow and ice gave waycracking, breaking, oozingas if the earth bawled, spewing mud everywhere, running into the darkest lumpy blue of the Cook Inlet and Kachemak Bay.
Thought we might get to see Janie. Couldnt get away from work? Snag said, glancing at Kache. He shook his head. Youre awfully quiet. For you. She smiled and fiddled with the radio while she drove, then turned it off. It was true that Kaches dad had dubbed him Chatty Kachey, but that was a long, long time ago. Ah, a break from the rain.