I am thirteen when I come out to my father; he punches me in the nose and goes fishing. Later, water takes him away. Not like a Mark Twain novel. Or Heart of Darkness. No, he launches his Lund onto Dixon Lake, gets wildly drunk, and falls overboard sometime after midnight. The following morning, his boat is discovered—littered with empty Busch cans—still pulling against its anchor just downwind of the sunken point off which they pull his body. The county search-and-recovery diver confides in his wife—a town gossip whose pink lips purse like a cat’s bunghole—how he had grimaced under the strain, my father’s corpse fighting him all the way to the surface like some prize catfish.
This same morning, I sit in the breakfast nook and listen to my mother sob into the hallway telephone. I can clearly hear Sheriff Goodwin reciting her litany of consolations: A tragic accident, to be sure; drinking and boating make deadly bedfellows, but she knew him to be a good husband and father; there are, of course, no words at such times; and this is a period to grieve privately with family.
Nonetheless, the sheriff says, pausing to clear her throat, she will need my mother to come down and identify her late husband. Late husband. As if my father is merely tardy, still expected to stumble drunk through our back door, fishing gear tucked under an armpit, a stringer of walleye held out, loudly demanding his family’s approbation.
Eventually, Goodwin hangs up, and after listening for several minutes to the dial tone, my mother dries her cheeks with her fingers, grabs her purse and keys, and leaves without shutting the front door behind her.
The house is still now. I close my eyes and imagine him standing above black waters. Feel his wadded impotence. Cringe against his curses hurled at the Lord for giving him such a child. Witness him stumbling. Hitting his head. Sinking like stone. I too have been floating far below my own surface—engulfed by a dark and frigid thermocline.
I open my eyes. On the table, an untouched stack of pancakes drowns in syrup as cloudy as tannin-stained lake water.
–
gina marie bernard is a heavily tattooed transgender woman, retired roller derby vixen, and full-time English teacher. She lives in Bemidji, Minnesota. She has work appearing in Not Very Quiet, Penultimate Peanut, Meow Meow Pow Pow, Monkeybicycle, Club Plum, Anti-Heroine Chic, x-r-a-y literary magazine, and bluntly magazine. Her daughters, Maddie and Parker, share her heart. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and the Pushcart. She is pursuing an M.F.A. at the University of Arkansas, Monticello.