Mink River: A Novel (27 page)

25.

The man who beats his son goes to the priest to see if there is some way he can stop beating his son. I don’t want to hit the boy, he says. I hate myself when it happens. I love that boy. He’s not really a boy anymore. He’s a young man. I love him dearly. He’s never had a mother. I’ve tried to do everything. I am all balled up inside. I have a dark place inside. I don’t know what to do. Can you help me? I can’t go on like this. He can’t go on like this. What can I do? I am afraid. I am afraid of myself. I am afraid of losing control. I have nothing but Nicholas. If I lose Nicholas I don’t know what I would do. Maybe I am so hard on him because I am afraid of losing him. He’s going to leave the house soon, I know it. That’s okay. That’s natural. That’s normal. I know that. That’s good for him. He’s a young man now. He’s very strong. He’s a bright boy. He’s a gentle boy. I think of all the blows I have rained on him and I am ashamed. I am mortified. I lose my temper. There are days I can’t look at myself in the mirror. There are days I hate myself. He’s all I have. He’s all I’ll ever have. I clean fish for a living. I smell like fish. I have to let him go. I know that. I just want him to be okay. I have to learn to trust him. I have to let him live his life. I have to let him leave. It’s okay to be alone. I don’t mind. I like being alone. It’s okay to be alone. It’ll be good to hear from him sometimes. Whatever he does. Maybe he’ll go to college. Maybe he’ll get a job. Maybe he’ll stay nearby. Why would he though? Probably he hates me. Certainly he hates me. How could he not? Sometimes my mind is unclear. Sometimes I have to sit down. I love that boy. I want everything to be okay. I want him to be all right. I love that boy. Can you help me?

The priest wants to say something wise, wants to say something piercing, wants to reach across the table where they are sitting in his kitchen and hold the man’s face in his hands, the man’s heavy face, the faint smell of fish and ice, the man’s salt and pepper hair, the faint smell of fear and love, the man’s heavy bowed shoulders like the shoulders of a bear, the faint smell of his loneliness and pain, the sleeves of his red sweater poking out from the sleeves of his blue coat, which he would not remove, but the priest can bring no words to his lips, nothing easy or facile comes to mind or mouth, yet he knows his moment is at hand, a heart is gaping open in front of him, his work is staring him in the face, so he reaches out wordlessly and cups the man’s hands in his hands, and brings up one word from deep in his throat, up it comes flashing and struggling like a silver fish from the murky green sea: Yes.

26.

On Saturday Sara and Michael and the girls, three of them if you count the one in Sara’s womb, have breakfast together, waffles and jam and peanut butter, and peanut butter gets all over the table, but just as Michael is about to growl at the younger girl who made the mess she bursts out laughing with such a peal of hilarious clear clean unadulterated unmodulated unselfconscious artless merriment that he has to grin, and then he takes the two girls to the beach for the morning, it’s low tide and they can piddle and putter and puddle in the tide flats, digging for mole crabs, screaming at the occasional scuttling scuttering Dungeness crab, trying to catch the infinite number of half-inch transparent mottled fish of no determinate gender or species, and Sara cleans up the peanut butter and then she goes for a long walk, along the river and then through the woods on the path where Daniel flew off, and then suddenly, without forethought, as she passes the Christies’ house, the one with the mammoth statue of a logger in front, cut and carved by George Christie as a monument to his former profession, a dying way of life, as he says, an American subculture worthy of preservation but ignored by everyone, he says, a crucial art and craft and labor of this region but no one cares, he says, we had our own language and manner of dressing and sense of humor and it’s all gone now he says, and as Sara prepares to knock on the door he yanks it open and he actually is saying these things into the telephone, some newspaper guy is interviewing me, he says to Sara, hang on a second here he says to the phone, what can I do for ya? he says to Sara.

Is, is Anna home?

Out back by the river, follow the path, he says to Sara, no, not you, he says into the phone.

Sara follows the path through fern and Oregon grape and salal and elderberry, alders leaning over the path protectively, and when she gets to the river she looks for Anna but doesn’t see anyone, and the path just stops, so she steps closer to the river, looking both ways, and then what appeared to be a rock moves, it’s actually Anna wearing a hooded brown shawl, and the two women look at each other silently.

My name is Sara, says Sara.

Anna says nothing. The river sings.

You don’t know me, says Sara, but I heard you sing years ago and I never forgot it. You were amazing.

Anna says nothing. The river mutters.

I know you sang with orchestras and operas and things.

The river hums.

I have sort of a favor to ask.

Deep basso notes from the river as it rolls rocks.

I’d like to learn to sing. Like you do. Well, not that well, but the way you do. Beautifully. Real singing. I want to surprise my husband. He loves opera, and I …

Which operas? says Anna, her voice rough from disuse.

Tosca
.

What else?

Just
Tosca
, really. That’s his favorite opera. He only has that one tape in his car. He listens to it all the time.

Anna says nothing.

I’d like to take lessons is what I mean, says Sara. Voice lessons. I don’t have much money but I thought I could trade work for the lessons. I could clean your house. Or work your garden. I have two daughters and they could work with me.

Anna says nothing. The river sighs.

It’s a lot to ask but it would mean an awful lot to me.

Is this for you or for him? says Anna.

Well, says Sara, startled. It would be a gift for him, I guess. I’d like to surprise him. But I—I’ve always wanted to sing. Sometimes when I am alone I sing. I would never sing in front of anyone else, but I sing alone.

Sing, says Anna.

Now?

Yes.

What … should I sing?

Sing the river.

The river?

There’s a high voice and a low voice in the river, says Anna. Those are the easiest to hear. There are a lot of voices in the water but those are the easiest to pick out. Sing the high voice. Find that note and just sing that note. Follow that note with your voice. Listen.

Part of Sara wants to bolt back up the path but she takes a deep breath and listens to the river and after a minute yes indeed she hears the high tone in the water, maybe it’s the edge of the river where it spins along the patient shore, that’s where the high pitch comes from, and the low tone is in the middle, over the thrumming rocks, who knows, no one knows, there seem to be a lot of tones once you really listen, and then Sara opens her mouth and starts to sing, and she sings in and around the high tone, playing with it, and Anna rocks back and forth and the river sings and Sara sings and sings, and afterwards, when she is walking home along the river, she is rattled and elevated and not quite sure what just happened, she thinks maybe she heard
three
voices singing, and as she gets close to the house she
does
hear three voices singing, it’s the love duet by Cavaradossi and Tosca in the opening act of
Tosca
; Michael is singing Cavaradossi’s part and the little girls are singing Tosca’s part together.

27.

And there is a moment there, as Sara stands by the fence humming, when everyone in town is singing: Sara is humming Tosca’s part with her daughters, and Michael is singing Cavaradossi, and No Horses, back from the beach, is humming in her studio and Owen in his shop, and Declan and Nicholas are trying to remember the fight song from their high school, of which no one can remember more than the first two lines, and Worried Man is humming a war song his grandfather taught him from the time the People went to war with those crazy Cheamhills, and Maple Head is teaching her class a song in the key of C as they study harmony and melody, and Daniel and Kristi and the doctor and the man with seven days to live are singing a song about the sea that the doctor learned from the old Navy sailor who had been twice lost at sea, and Moses is croaking along with them, and the priest is humming William Blake’s poem “Jerusalem,” and Stella the bartender is humming as she swabs and swipes the bar, and Grace is singing cheerfully as she goes back to work slicing apart the car in the field with her blowtorch, and Timmy is humming into the back of Rachel’s neck, and Rachel eyes closed is humming with pleasure, and Anna is standing knee-deep in the river and singing with the baritone groaning of the river rumbling rocks, and George Christie is singing a lewd logging song into the telephone, and the man who beats his son is walking along the beach humming the song he used to sing to Nicholas when Nicholas was a toddler and could not sleep for fear of the dark. Even the young female bear is singing, or humming, or making a music deep inside her, a long contented basso throbbing thrumming that fills the tiny cave where she has curled around her two new cubs; and they are singing too, two high sweet new notes never heard before in all the long bubbling troubled endless bruised pure violent innocent bloody perfect singing of the burly broken mewling world.

28.

No Horses stops humming suddenly and sits down on the floor of her studio amid the wood chips and bows her head into her lap and puts her arms over her head to fend off the black snow she feels falling faintly and faintly falling. She begins to weep, but she’s dry as a bone, not a tear left in her head, and after a minute she stops sobbing and kneels on the floor her forehead pressed into the wood and her hair filled with alder chips and sawdust. Her mind spins and careens. Too much snow. It’s in my hair. What’s happening to me? I can’t get out of this place. I am so sad. Snow should be white. Alder is red.
Fearnog
is the Gaelic word for alder, Owen says. Owen will help me.
Alnus rubra
is the Latin name for alder. Owen can’t help me. The birds associated with alder are crows and gulls. I have to help myself. Alder resists water. Why am I so sad? What’s happening to me? Alder is white when first cut but from it comes a sap that runs like blood. I’ve lost the me of me. Alder is usually found near running water and will not thrive on dry ground. I am so dry. Alder heals doubt. I need water. I feel withered. Alder blooms at the equinox. My seasons are turning. The catkins are female. I have been daughter and wife and mother. Alder is rebirth. The wood when young is easily worked. Alder is resurrection. Alder is healing. The bark when decocted cures swelling and inflammation and sore throats and ague and rheumatism. The wood when older is veined. The catkins are female and the sap is as red as blood. Alder is steadfast. It endures under water for many years. Alder is true. Alder is healing. Alder is rebirth. Sap as red as blood.

She stands up suddenly and shakes back the river of her hair and the alder chips float to the white floor like red snow.

29.

Owen takes Worried Man for a dry run to the holy mountain. From Neawanaka they head east along the river through endless marching lines of enormous cedar and spruce, past Panther Creek, past Rose Lodge. They stop to pee and collect hatfuls of salmonberries for the ride.

Past Boyer, past Fort Hill. Talk of forts leads to talk of soldiers, which leads to Owen singing a song Union Irish soldiers sang to Confederate Irish soldiers and vice versa at night as campfires flickered through beech trees during the Civil War and then in the morning they slaughtered each other without mercy or remorse.

Past Gold Creek, past Willamina. They emerge from the forest into open country where every tenth fencepost has a glaring hawk. It’s sunny on this side of the Coast Range hills and they stop for a minute to stretch. This is the Cheamhills’ place, says Worried Man. All the way from the forest back there to the big river ahead. Those crazy Cheamhills. They’re all gone. They liked this country because it was open. Lots of berries grew here. The berries are still here and the people are all gone. That’s what happens.

Past Sheridan. Named for another Civil War soldier, says Owen, Phil Sheridan. The Cheamhills hated Phil Sheridan, you know, says Worried Man. You could always get a rise out of them by saying something admiring about Phil Sheridan. Touchy people, the Cheamhills. Your boy’s great-grandmother was a Cheamhill woman, you know. Wocas, the bright lily. Bright woman. Touchy.

Past Dundee.

Do you think about your mom much? says Owen.

More at certain times than others, says Worried Man. When the first forsythia comes out, when the salmonberries flower, when the pond lilies open. Then again when the leaves fall. Beginning and ending times, that’s when I think of my mother. I don’t know why. She died in the autumn, maybe that’s why.

Past Six Corners and Frog Pond and Pulp and into the city of Portland, past the old train station. That’s where Cedar got on the train that took him to the world war, says Worried Man.

Cedar was in the war?

Yes.

I didn’t know that.

He didn’t like it.

I’ll be darned. I didn’t know that.