Safe from the Sea (3 page)

“I didn’t plan this, Nat.”

“You haven’t seen your father in more than five years, Noah. You’ve hardly talked to him.”

Noah thought of the pictures in the museum. He thought of his father’s distant voice on the phone just yesterday. “He’s sick.”

“I know.” The strain in her voice lessened. “The timing is terrible, that’s all. It’s incredible.”

“You’re right about that,” he said.

Noah watched the rain strengthen, saw sheet lightning up over Minnesota Point. He knew that the root of her terseness lay in her overwhelming sadness, one that consumed her often. He feared that his coming here was unforgivable as far as she was concerned, but he
also knew that when he’d told his father he was coming, he’d had about as much sway over his own words as he now had over the thunderstorm outside.

“Just call me again after you get there. It’s late and I have an early morning,” she finally said.

“I’ll call tomorrow.”

“I have an appointment with Dr. Baker tomorrow, in case you forgot.”

“I didn’t forget, Nat.”

A meaningful silence passed, as though both had more to say but neither could articulate their thoughts. Finally Noah said, “Good-night, then. I love you.”

Natalie said, “Good-night.”

Noah remained at the window. When finally the rain let up the light he’d been watching out on the lake came into focus. A freighter, her deck lights radiant with caution, lay at anchor. It was a fitting view for his faraway feelings.

N
OAH THOUGHT OF
the map of the north shore he had framed above his desk at home, a lithograph of the Minnesota arrowhead circa 1874. There were no roads then—either on the map or in reality—but the Lake Superior shore was dotted with towns, most of them now gone or renamed. Whenever he found himself sitting back in his desk chair, looking up at the map, he was reminded of passing along this shore as a child.

Highway 61 was as forlorn in those predawn hours as it had remained in his memory. The potholes and seasons-old frost heaves yet pocked the blacktop, the dilapidated wooden storefronts and signs warning of deer crossings and dangerous curves still marked the road-side,
the countless rivers and streams rushed under the highway bridges as they had for ages. But the two deadliest curves—curves that had once pinned cars on sheer cliff tops—had been replaced with quarter-mile tunnels burrowed through the bedrock.

He had left Duluth an hour ago, sleep starved and anxious, and now was toying with the radio. A disc jockey from a station in Marquette announced the time, seven twenty-five, and an old country-music song. The first few chords of a steel guitar moaned before fading to static. He turned the radio off and settled into the hum of the tires on the pavement. Occasionally the road curved to the right and the trees dispersed and the brown rocks and the brown water of the lake came into view. The lake was unusually still, especially in contrast to his memories of it tonguing up onto the stone beaches. They were a child’s memory, though, the water all froth and fury.

Just clear of Taconite Harbor and the Two Islands he saw the sun rise over the water, remembering the adage about a red sky in morning. It was red—the sky over the lake—and lowering. It reminded him of the late-season gales that had been the curse of his mother, the curse of all the ore men’s wives. He never knew what to think about the storms but that they were spectacular. There was one stewing in the distance.

He passed the Temperance River and pulled the directions from his shirt pocket. His father had called just two days ago, his voice hoarse and whispery.

“Hello, boy,” he said, the heavy pause between words freighted with circumspection. Without waiting for Noah to respond, Olaf continued, “I may need a bit of help getting the place ready for winter.”

“Help?” Noah said.
Help?
he thought. He almost said,
Who is this
?

“The woodpiles, some work around the house.”

“Why?”

His father took a deep and raspy breath. “I’m sick, Noah.”

It wasn’t what his father said as much as it was the fact of hearing him speak at all that alarmed Noah. The silence between them had become unconditional. Noah couldn’t have said whether the estrangement—from his point of view—had evolved into forgetting or forsaking, but when he said to his father, “I’ll come, I can leave tomorrow,” he was alarmed again, this time by his own impulse. “I’ll fly into Duluth. But I’m not sure I remember how to get to the cabin.” Now, approaching Misquah, he began to feel uneasy. He’d traveled this road a thousand times, but not since he was in high school.

The directions Olaf gave were those of a man who knew where he was and where he was going unconsciously:
Up in Misquah you’ll see the Landing there—it’s got a red sign. You’ll recognize it. Past the Landing the county road goes into the hills. You’ll see a stand of firs burnt red from this summer—it was a warm summer—look for those trees. Twenty minutes into the hills you’ll come on Lake Forsone Road. There’s clover still flaming in the ditch on the right. When I first saw it, I thought it was a goddamn brushfire. Turn and follow the road around the lake. You’ll remember when you get here. Anyway, it’s simple now that I think about it: Just keep the red on the right, like the harbor buoys—red, right, returning.

Among the red markers his father had mentioned, only the gas station was plain to see. He spotted no stand of red-burnt firs, no flaming clover. The county road was tucked behind a rock outcropping at a bend on the highway. He’d been expecting gravel, but it was paved now. The trees his father had mentioned were barely distinct in the forest of millions. The burnt red his father had described was an almost indiscernible rouge they wore among their green, green boughs. The road ascended quickly and narrowed into the deep timber.

Ten minutes later it veered sharply to the left and in the middle of the curve, on the right, a dirt road tunneled into the trees. At the wooden marker Noah stopped to watch a whitetail deer and her fawn breakfasting on the tall grass. They were so lithe and alert. Noah moved ahead slowly, taking a last look out the passenger-side window. There in the grass he saw a patch of red clover.

Despite his father’s suggestion that it would all look familiar, Noah had no memory of where the house might be. He followed the road left, to the north, past the public access and over a culvert. The road continued to curve away from the lake, so it surprised him when he saw a mailbox, barely attached to a rotted post, with his father’s name faded to the edge of invisibility. He stopped again, opened the mailbox, and found mail postmarked as long as three weeks ago: supermarket flyers, real estate offerings, magazines, and a handful of envelopes from the Superior Steel Company. He took it all with him.

Noah turned onto the trail. Long grass grew between the tire tracks, and overgrown trees brushed the top of his car. For a quarter mile he crept toward the lake under the shade of the trees. Then the road widened and began to go downhill. Rain runoff channels a foot deep grooved the hill, and what little gravel remained on the trail was unpacked. After three sharp turns, the cabin appeared before him.

He parked beside the rusted Suburban that his father had bought the year Noah went to college. Noah’s Grandpa Torr had been a meticulous man and had kept the house shipshape. The woodpiles—like bunkers along two sides of the house and in the middle of the yard—had always been expertly stacked. His grandpa used to boast that they could withstand a tornado. He kept the trees trimmed, too, and the small lawn mowed. His Grandpa Torr’s fastidiousness was redoubled in Noah’s own father, so the disrepair of the house shocked Noah.
The rough-sawn cedar siding had taken on a green-gray hue, and the grainy, knotted siding had been weathered smooth. The roof bowed and had bunches of moss and spry grass growing between the shingles. Either his father had become a different man or he’d not been well enough to maintain the place for years.

Not knowing whether to knock or just walk in, Noah hesitated before pushing the screen door open and stepping into the house. “Dad?” he said. “Dad,” he called again, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. No one answered. After looking in each of the two bedrooms he stepped back out and walked to the shed at the edge of the yard. With its fieldstone foundation sinking into the earth, cracked windows, and peeling paint, the shed looked as bad as the house. A padlock secured the door, and curtains covered the windows inside. He turned, stood for a minute watching the privy up the trail, and when his father didn’t appear, he started toward the lake.

As he walked down the footworn path he recalled countless days when as a child he’d followed his father up this same trail. He could picture his father’s broad shoulders, the stringer of lake trout hanging from his thumb, the purposeful stride. Noah could never keep up with him and was always out of breath when he reached the top of the hill. There he’d find his father standing over a tree stump on the edge of the yard, his fillet knife ready. Noah would pause every time, watching from a short distance the man he hoped someday to become. Those memories were coming back to him sadly now, and as he neared the shore he stopped suddenly.

Was that man really his father? He had a rod in the water, fishing in the shallows alongshore. His spine was bowed and knobby. His stark white hair framed his head. He cut a lonely silhouette against the lake, so lonely in fact that the steely resolve Noah expected of himself gave immediately over to sadness. Noah stood there for a moment,
then coughed and said, “Hello, Dad.” He took a step in his father’s direction.

Olaf turned and looked up. “Ah, he’s here.”

Olaf reeled in his line and set the rod in the bottom of the boat. The rusted and bent dock poles evidenced the many winters it must have spent in the water. The missing planks were more confirmation of the sad state of the place. The dock swayed with his father’s clumsy steps as he came ashore.

Olaf stood before him for a long moment. He had become so slight that Noah was able to look squarely into his eyes. Finally Olaf said, “How was the trip?”

“Okay. Fine.”

“All right.”

“How are they biting?” Noah pointed at the fishing rod.

Olaf turned to the lake. “There’s fish out there, just none for me. You eat breakfast?”

“Not yet.”

“I’ve got some oatmeal.”

“I’d eat oatmeal.”

Olaf looked up the hill, took a deep breath, and combed his beard with his hand.

“How are you feeling?” Noah said.

Olaf looked at him as though he were surprised by the question. “Like a hundred goddamn bucks.”

“That’s good.”

And Olaf started up the hill.

Noah trailed him, watching his father’s slumped shoulders, listening to his heavy breathing. The old man could barely lift his feet. When they stopped midway and Olaf rested against a boulder Noah said, “You sure you’re okay?”

“It’s a long goddamn walk nowadays,” Olaf said and then started up again.

When they reached the top of the hill Olaf leaned on the corner of the house. His flannel shirt hung on him like a drape, his pants sagged. The deep wrinkles around his eyes lent them a hollow aspect and accentuated the look of fatigue on his face.

“I can make breakfast,” Noah offered.

Olaf stood up. “Come on inside,” he said.

Olaf put a kettle of water on the potbellied stove, which stood along the wall between the two bedroom doors. He stoked the fire and walked back to the kitchen. The box of steel-cut oats sat on a shelf over the sink. Olaf filled two bowls and placed a spoon in each.

“Can I help?” Noah asked. “You just sit.”

After the water began to boil, Olaf carried it to the kitchen with a grubby mitt, poured it over the oats, and then asked Noah if he wanted coffee.

“Whatever you’re having.”

“You want nuts? Raisins?”

“Sure,” Noah said.

Olaf stored the nuts and raisins in Mason jars. The almonds were sitting on top of a bookcase, and Olaf went into his bedroom for the raisins. He mixed the bowls of oatmeal as if they were filled with cement, carried them one at a time to the table. Finally he brought two mugs of coffee over.

“You want anything else?”

“No. Thanks. This looks great.”

“Well, then, come on while everything’s still warm.”

They ate silently at first, blowing on spoonfuls of steaming oats
and sipping their coffee. Neither had much flavor, and the raisins and nuts were hard as stones. Olaf thumbed through the mail Noah had set on the table, taking measured bites, determined to show that whatever ailed him hadn’t gotten too far along yet. Noah couldn’t bring it up, not yet, so instead he said, “You’ve been doing your reading.” Two bookcases in the dark corner of the cabin teemed with paperbacks. “Since when are you such a bookworm?”

“What else have I got to do up here?”

“Looks like you’ve been fishing,” Noah said.

Olaf paused over a spoonful of oats. He looked at Noah. “Fishing? Sit on the dock and catch a perch and call it fishing?” He put the oats in his mouth. “I haven’t fished the steps all year. I thought we could go over there after breakfast.”

“It’s been a while. But fishing the steps sounds good.”

Olaf said, “All right, then. We’ll go fishing.”

N
OAH OPENED THE
cabinet and saw half-a-dozen rods hung carefully on the inside of the door. Among the collection he recognized his old fly rod—the one he had used as a high school kid almost every summer day—and his favorite Shakespeare spin caster with the cork handle. He had seldom used the spin caster after he’d discovered fly fishing.

“My god,” Noah said as he stepped out of the house. “This is the same rod and reel I had as a kid.”

“That’s a good setup. I just changed the line and oiled the reel. It’s all ready.”

Noah imagined his father’s huge, bumbling hands, arthritic and pained, putting a new line on the reel. He must have spent a full afternoon on it. “So we’re all set, then?” Noah asked.

“And we better get moving. By sunset it’ll be raining like the end of days.”

They descended the hill and climbed into the boat, Olaf straddling the forward thwart, leaving Noah to row. Noah untied the stern line from the dock and pushed out into the shallows. The oarlocks shrieked as he made his first stroke. With each stroke after, they quieted until he turned the boat north and the oarlocks quit complaining altogether.