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.
We dont get enough in Austin. Id like a good watering.
In a few weeks youll be soaked through to the bone, Im betting. Fingers crossed well have a decent summer. Since you dont you know, have to get back to work Youre staying a while, arent you, hon?
Im thinking a few weeks. That was the goal, anyway, if he could stick it out. It would get easier in a day or two. He wanted to hang out with Snag and Lettie. Face the things he needed to face, get out to the homestead. Snag had said a nice family was renting it. Hed try to fix whatever out there needed fixing, do whatever needed to be done for Lettie and Snag, hold it together, be strong enough to look it all in the face so he could get on with his life. Janie was right. It was way past time.
Snag pulled the car into the parking lot of the low brick and concrete building. Shes a lot weaker, Kache. She asks about you still, though. It depends. Some days shes clearer than most of us, and some days shes cloudy, and some days shes plain snowed in.
He got out and held open the glass doorflowery pink and green wallpaper and paintings of otters, puffins, and bears on the walls of the lobby.
He nodded approval. Not bad, considering.
Believe me, its much better than the third world prison camp they call a nursing home down in Spruce. She smiled wide. Hello there, Gilly.
So this is Kache. A woman probably a little younger than Snag reached out and shook his hand. Not a mere figment of Snag and Letties imagination, after all. She wore a nametag printed in oversized letters pinned on a cheery smock, had blue eyes with nicely placed crows feet, the kind that told you shed spent a lot of time laughing. If Id known last month you were coming up, I might have been able to talk my daughter into staying. I told her we have a boatload of single men up here, but she only lasted a couple of weeks. She said, Mom, Im going back to Colorado where at least the men shave. That and the fact that folks regularly get their eyebrows and noses pierced by hooks while combat fishing on the Kenai, fairly crushed her fantasy version of Alaska.
Snag touched Kaches face. Five oclock shadow.
Kache said, Cant help that. But itll be gone by morning.
See, Gilly? Your daughter missed out.
Kache rubbed his chin. It wont be long before I start forgetting how to shave, I suppose.
Even though the place was not-bad-considering, as he followed Snag down the hall it still smelled faintly of urine, medicine and decay, all mixed with boiled root vegetables.
The TV shouted an old black-and-white film he didnt recognize, wheelchairs facing it like church pews. Grandma Lettie sat off to the side with her head in a book. Literally. The book lay open on her lap, her head drooped to almost touching it. She wore her hair in the same braid she always had, but it was as thin and wispy as a goose feather. In the photos of her as a young woman it had been a thick, dark rope coiling down to her waist.
Kache knelt in front of her. A thin line of drool hung from the center of her top lip down to the page. He wiped it with his sleeve while Snag handed him one of her crumpled tissues. Gram?
She looked up, peering, and then her mouth opened in a smile.
Kachemak Winkel! The smile slipped down. Where have you been?
Ive been in Texas, Gram.
She shook her head. Whereve you been?
Working, Gram. His answers sounded feeble.
No. She started to whimper and turned to Snag, whispering loudly. Does he know about the crash?
Snag nodded. Yes, Mom, he was here. Remember?
But he didnt die.
Thats right.
She whispered again, enunciating slowly, her eyes wide, He was supposed to go on that plane.
Kache swallowed hard. Snag held his elbow, moved a lock of white hair from Grams vein-mapped forehead. Mom, Kache has been away. Just away. From here.
Gram raised her eyebrows, nodding, and rubbed Kaches long hand between her two boney speckled ones. Of course you have, dear. Oh, but She looked over her shoulder, then back at him. Her voice raised higher, almost a childs. It was like all four of you were dead. Now. At least we have you back. She picked up his hand in hers, moving it up and down to the beat of each word: And. That. Is a. Very. Good. Thing.
Thanks, Gram. How had he stayed away so long? How had he come back? He was tempted to grab himself a wheelchair and steal the remote from the guy in the Hawaiian shirt and cardigan, flip the channel to the DIY network, and let a few more decades go flickering past.
Instead, he drove with Snag over to her place. He braced himself for the onslaught of mementos but, surprisingly, Snag didnt have one piece of furniture or even a knick-knack or painting of his mothers. Sentimental Aunt Snag, who loved her brother and adored her sister-in-law. Where was all their stuff? It didnt make sense to sell or give away every single thing. And when Kache asked about heading out to the homestead she changed the subject. She wouldnt have sold it, would she? He knew shed sold his dads fishing boat right away to Don Haley, but all four hundred acres, without saying a word to Kache? It was true that Kache had given her power of attorney, back when he was eighteen and didnt want to deal. But she wouldnt have sold it without telling him. No way.
Later that afternoon he went to the Safeway for her and bumped into an old friend of his fathers, Duncan Clemsky. Duncan clapped him on the back, kept shaking his hand while he talked. Look at you, Mr. City Slicker. I still think of you when I have to drive by the road to your daddys land. Only time I get out that far is when I make a delivery to the Russian village.
The Old Believers are accepting deliveries these days? Progressive of them.
Some of them at Ural even have satellite dishes. Going soft. Wont be long until theyre wearing pretty, useless boots like those. He nodded toward Kaches feet. Change eventually gets ahold of everyone I suppose.
Suppose so, Kache said, his face heating up. Nothing like a lifelong Alaskan to put you in your place. He wanted to ask Duncan if Snag had sold the land, but he wasnt about to let on he didnt knowif it was even true. No need to get a rumor heading through town that would end up like one of the salmon on the conveyor belt down at the cannery, the head and tail of the story cut off and the middle butchered up until it became something unrecognizable.
Youre gonna need to get some real boots before folks start mistaking you for a tourist from California. Thought you were at least in Texas, my man. He shook his head and winked. You tell your aunt and grandma I said hello, will you?
Kache nodded. Will do, Duncan. Same goes for Nancy and the kids.
That opened up another ten minutes of conversation, with Duncan Clemsky filling Kache in on every one of his five kids and sixteen grandchildren, and seven seconds of Kache filling Duncan in on the little that Kache had been up to for the last twenty years. Yeah, you know working a lot.
On the way back to Snags, Kache decided that if she didnt bring up the homestead that evening, he would just come out and ask her if shed sold it. Part of him hoped she had, the other part hoped to God she hadnt.
FIVE
Snag filled the sink with the hottest water she could stand while Kache cleared the dinner dishes. Shed decided on Shaklee dishwashing liquid, since shed used Amway for lunch and breakfast, and now she was trying to decide how on earth to tell Kache about the homestead.
Staring at her reflection in the kitchen window, she saw a chickenshit, and a jealous sister, and there was no hiding it. Looking at it, organizing the story in her mind, lining it up behind her lips: This is how I let it happen. It started this way, with my good intentions but my weaknesses too, and then a day became a week became a year became a decade became another. I hadnt meant for it to happen like this, I hadnt meant to.
She squeezed more of the detergent; let the hot water cascade over her puffy hands. She laid her hands flat along the sinks chipped enamel bottom, where she couldnt see them beneath the suds. If only she were small enough to climb into the sink and hide her whole self, just lie quietly with the forks and knives and spoons until this moment passed and she no longer had to see herself for what she really was. Sometimes drowning didnt seem so horrible when she thought of it in those terms. Better than dying the way Glenn and Bets and Denny had. She shivered even though her hands and arms were immersed in the liquid heat.
It would have brought them honor in some small way, if shed done the simple thing everyone expected of her. Simply take care of the house and Kache. But shed failed at both.
Aunt Snag? Next to her, he held the old Dutch oven with the moose pot roast drippings stuck on the bottom. There were never any leftovers with Kache, even now that he was a grown man. Are you okay? Want me to finish up, you catch the end of the news?
No Well Okay. She dried her hands on the towel and started to walk out, but turned back. Ive got to tell you something, hon, and its not going to be pretty. Youre going to be real upset with me, and I wont blame you one bit.
You sold the homestead. It was a statement, not a question.
What? she said, though shed heard him perfectly.
You sold it. You sold the homestead.
No, hon. I didnt. I didnt sell it.
He smiled, sort of, a sad, tight turning up of his mouth, while his shoulders relaxed. I guess Ill need to go out. Check up on things. Ive been meaning to ask. But its hard, thinking about driving up, seeing it for the first time, you know? Do you go out there a lot? Still such youthfulness to his face. He didnt seem like a grown man whod seen a lot of life. Snag couldnt tell what it was, exactly. Trust? Vulnerability?
She said, Not a lot, no.
Just enough to take care of things. His voice didnt rise in a question.
No, not that much even. She breathed in deep, searched in her pockets and up her sleeve for a tissue. I havent been out there at all.
This spring?
No. I mean not once. Not at all.
All year?
No, Kache. Not all year. Not ever. Not once. I never went out like I told you I did. I planned to a million times, but I never closed it up, never got all your stuff, never put things in storage. I never
He stood with his mouth agape for what seemed to Snag like a good five minutes. Wait a second. You said youd been renting it out. No one has been out there since I left? Not even the Fosters? Or the Clemskys? Jack? Any of those people? They would have been glad to help. They would have insisted on it.
Snag leaned against the counter for support, inhaled and exhaled. Dont you see? I insisted it was taken care of. I told them Id hired someone to scrape the snow off patch the roof run water in the pipes.
I dont understand. Why?
Embarrassed by then. I hadnt even been out since you left, to water the houseplants, orId never planned to be so negligentclean out the pantry. She fell silent. The water dripped on and on into the sink. I left it all. I tried, I drove part way dozens of times but then Id chicken out and turn the car around.
Kache didnt scream and holler at her like shed expected. He hugged her, a big old bear of a hug. In his arms, the sense that she might not be worn down to a nub by shame after all. But grace dragged another weight of its own. He said her name, tenderly, and sighed. You know its the anniversary today, almost to the hour? She nodded because she did know without thinking about it, the way a person knows theyre breathing. He told her it was okay, that he did understand, more than he wanted to admit, that hed fought the same problem in trying to come back.
She was glad she didnt use the line shed been holding onto in case she needed it, the fact that at first, way back when, shed waited for him to return so they might go together. And thats what shed pictured happening now, the two of them braving the drive out together. But forgiving or not, hed already let go of her, grabbed the car keys, called out, Ill be back in a while. Dont wait up, and was tearing out of the driveway when she whispered, Wait. But she knew. Even though hed reacted with kindness, she could see the shock pumping through him and that he needed to put some distance between them. It scared her to have him go off upset. The tires screeched like they did when Kache was still a teenager, as if theyd woken up the morning after the crash and no time had passed at all.
SIX
Kache couldnt get to the house fast enough now. Now that too much time had passed and the place would most likely have rotted to ruins. The cabin Grandma Lettie and Grandpa A.R. built with their own hands in the early Forties, added onto in the Fifties. The place that his mom and dad added onto again, then transformed into a real house in the Seventies. The house Kache grew up in and loved and the only place he ever called home. Reduced to a pile of moldy logs.
He guessed that when he got out to the homestead it would be dark. The days were already starting to get longer and in less than a month would go on until midnight, though that didnt help him now. He had no idea if the moon would show up full or a sliver, waxing or waning. Yes, he knew the DIY network lineup by heart but hed lost track of the night sky long ago. He reached under the seat for the flashlight he figured Snag would have stowed there and set it next to him. Plenty of gashed filled it that afternoon, so hed make it out and back with some to spare.
Keeping an eye out for moose, he drove the first part of the road, the paved part, fast. Here the houses stood close enough to see each other, all facing south to take advantage of the viewthe jagged horizon of mountains marooned across six miles of Kachemak Bay.