Life for Life
by R. H. Miller
Helen Halstead buttons her blouse, steps into her skirt, straightens it, and fastens the waistband. It strikes her, what an affirmation of going on with life there can be in the simple act of dressing. Somehow, because of the strait-laced conventions of these exams she always feels ill at ease. The doctor must have done hundreds of them, yet she picks up on his uneasiness–the averted eyes, the fumbling for instruments, and the conversations with the nurse that never include her. As she looks around, she is dazzled by the whiteness — the walls, the furniture, the cabinets.
Ben died in a room like this. White for death. Doctor’s, nurse’s white. Priest’s white. She can still recall, in all its detail, the white photocopied form and pick out the highlights: HALSTEAD, Benjamin George –AGE AT DEATH: 16 yrs., two mo.–DIAGNOSIS: COVID-19 — CAUSE OF DEATH: Respiratory failure.
You would have been twenty this year, Benjamin, child of my right hand, and joy. The consolations of a gold-plated education–you can always find the right words to deepen the pain. To erase the image, she forces herself to focus on a brochure she’s been looking at to pass the time, about an upcoming outing George has been planning for months — a fishing trip for salmon. Salmon, the Queen of Fishes. It is true, Izaak Walton calls salmon the “King of freshwater fish,” but well he should have known that in the case of fish it’s the female of the species that’s truly spectacular.
The doctor appears out of nowhere. Helen scoots around on the edge of the examining table, like a kid on a stool. He confides, “Unfortunately, Mrs. Halstead, it’s still not the best news. The tests confirm my diagnosis. But as I’ve said before, you’ve had your children –.”
He’s only a few feet away but seems to be trying to sidle off into the farthest corner of the room.
Who are you to say what part of my life is over? His words remind her of Vince Lombardi’s line, Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. Kids aren’t everything, they’re the only thing. She remembers it because it’s one that George quotes incessantly.
“Once I get the results of these last tests we’ll go ahead and schedule the surgery. Of course, you’ll want to talk this over with Mr. Halstead.”
Of course.
She replies, “Why?”
The doctor is startled, and responds, “Excuse me?”
She continues, “Why would I want to discuss this with Mr. Halstead?”
He answers, “Well, I just thought, him being your husband and all, it would be a good thing to talk it over with him.”
She states, with finality, “Well, Doctor, there are some things you don’t know about Mr. Halstead. Anyway, he’ll be disappointed. We had plans for a fishing trip next week. I guess I’ll have to cancel it.”
“I don’t see why you can’t go,” he answers. “But any delay beyond that –.” He continues, as he edges toward the door, “Unfortunately, we also need to be thinking about the long-term implications.”
“’Long-term implications’?” she asks.
“We’ll talk more later, after you’ve had a chance to discuss it with your husband.” He
shuffles out, like someone leaving in the middle of a bad play.
She calls after him, “I see. Yes. Well, thank you–I guess.”
Better not to think about implications at all. Better to place myself in the hands of my doctor — shuddering thought. George would approve, however. George would see it the doctor’s way. In fact, George would love this doctor.
George’s response to Ben’s death has been complete denial, but then George and Ben were never a match. George loves to pass himself off as a sportsman, but Ben, an excellent athlete, saw through his pretenses. As Helen had come to know George better, she realized that he is a sports nut because he’s been mediocre at sports all his life. He worships the skill of professional athletes, but he has none of the perspective they have on the game, none of the healthy cynicism. She has avoided all the macho madness, even though she was an outstanding athlete in school. She still plays tennis, once in a while a round of golf, but whatever love she has for sport she has channeled into fishing, more exactly, fly fishing. As she watched George fish over the years, she kept toying with the idea of getting into it. Finally, she plunged. To her surprise she found it became an obsession. The rhythms of fly-casting came naturally to her, and now she fishes with finesse. Fishing also carries her off to beautiful forests and valleys, and they provide a haven from her pain, now that the children are on their own and she has the time to indulge herself.
She knows that, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not, George will find some little way during the trip to put her down. There will be the dull, dead scenes, smelling of the carcasses of rotting fish, the weather will be unrelentingly cold and gloomy, she will have to fish with a heavy rod and reel and wear herself out slinging weighted flies that bump and bounce along the bottom. She won’t find there any of the delicacies of trout fishing, the gossamer rods, the dry flies floating like wisps until they are sipped into the mouths of rising browns or brookies. Instead she will be trying to land brutal fish, fighting to fulfill their sex drive in the face of certain death. And she’s sure she’ll do something wrong, and George will be sure to point it out. Well, better to be on with it. Better than regretting, better than sitting around thinking about dying.
* * * *
Now that daylight has broken, Helen has a chance to appraise the situation. She is cold, the water she is standing in is bone chilling. Even in heavy neoprene waders she can still feel it swirling round her legs. Yet she is braced, alive. The early morning sunlight reveals a golden October woods. The wind is beginning to stiffen, and a spitting snow sticks to her jacket. The freshness of the day makes up for waking in the overheated motel room in the dark, for the bone- jarring ride in the guide’s SUV, and the clammy doughnuts and lukewarm coffee they downed as the boat drifted through the inky water. She is alive, and the cold and the incessant wind make her ever more aware of that essential fact.
She always finds the technique of tossing the salmon flies out into the current and following their drift a little baffling at first, but now she’s caught the rhythm of the fishing and is soothed by the routine. It isn’t her thing, but still it has its appeal. She can see the greenish-black salmon, hovering in the riffles, the large hen fish flipping over on their sides every so often, and the darker, slightly smaller cock fish urgently in attendance beside them. Sometimes, as her fly drifts through the run, it sends the torpedo-like shapes scattering, but after a few minutes they return to their stations directly behind the redds.
From time to time George calls out advice — “You’re not letting your line straighten out behind” — “Take up the slack” — but when he does his own rig tangles up and distracts him. Most of the time the guide avoids them both and slouches off into the trees to have a pull at his bottle or relieve himself.
As the fly drifts along she pulls in a bit of slack, then tightens the line on what she thinks is a snag. Slowly her rod dips, the line stretches like a cable under stress. She feels the crank handle slip out of her fingers, and the reel begins to chatter away.
“Fish!” she yells.
All hell breaks loose. George comes running along the path, the guide splashes up toward her station with his net at the ready.
Suddenly, about fifty feet downstream there is an explosion of water and fish. A bright cock salmon hurls himself into the air.
Then she hears a ping, and the line goes limp.
“Aaah, too bad! You lost him! Should have given him some slack,” George consoles, trying to hide a blush of satisfaction.
“Always bow to a silver king, Ma’am,” the guide counsels, meaning she should have lowered her rod to anticipate the impact of the jump.
Dejected, she goes back to her position at the tail of the run. Soon she hears George’s cry–“Fish on!”– reels in her fly, and wades over to watch him land a smallish cock fish of about four or five pounds. The guide scoops him into the net, dumps him on shore. She pulls out her little waterproof camera for the victory shot. Just as she hits the shutter, the salmon squirts a stream of milt down the front of George’s vest and waders. “Ahh, how am I going to get this stuff off me?” George complains. Helen winces.
In hopes of drawing George’s attention away from the mess, the guide crows, “Way to
go, Mr. Halstead,” and the men exchange high fives like a couple of high-schoolers in a pickup game.
“We’ll rope this one,” George says.
“Gee, I don’t know, Mr. Halstead, he’s kinda on the small side,” the guide replies.
“Really, George, give the poor fish a break,” Helen says. As soon as the words are out of her mouth she knows that she’s as good as killed the salmon herself.
“Jim, I want this one roped,” George replies tersely.
The guide spits an acrid stream of tobacco juice, hesitates, then says, “Whatever you say,
Mr. Halstead.”
Within minutes of having the thick rope thrust through his gills the fish rolls over and shows his white belly to confirm his death.
Helen returns to the run. In spite of the wave of nausea that comes over her, she falls into the casting routine again. Above her, sated from feeding on the dead and dying fish strewn along the banks, a bald eagle screams and circles from time to time, blocking the sun with her huge dark wings. Helen is mesmerized by the display. As she watches the bird wheel round and round, she drifts off into a reverie.
I guess I’ve had my Wonderful Life. Caroline has done well; her kids are strong and growing. Charles — well, Charles — Charles will find his own way. Charles will manage.
She looks around.
Where are you, Ben? Are you near? Better to abandon a world where mourning is impossible and escape to one where tears can be everything. Why not come here to the river where I can weep for you, Ben?
In the face of the wind her tears make gelid tracks down her cheeks.
I know, I have always known, I am here because I love the lakes and rivers, the places where I feel you beside me. You are the Genius of the shore.
The rod jumps in her hands. Instinctively, she strikes. The fish is off on a searing run, headed directly for a deadfall. She thinks, No way to turn this one, when it stops, wheels leisurely back toward the center of the river. This allows her to retrieve a good share of the line she’s lost. Then the fish races off downstream, and she holds the rod high, splashing toward George and the guide, pursuing her catch as best she can. The fish leaps twice and twice she lowers her rod in acknowledgment.
“Fish!” she calls out.
Twenty minutes later the hen salmon, bulging with roe, is brought to net. She turns on her side as the guide holds her carefully in the current. She measures a good thirty-four inches. Helen bows to her, looking deep into a single bright, staring eye, which glares at her, as if to say, I defy you, I defy you all, I demand my life, I demand what is mine. She can see the brilliant orange-pink eggs seeping from her. The eye continues to glare, the gills continue pumping rebelliously.
“Want me to rope `er, Ma’am?” the guide asks.
Without hesitation, Helen replies, “We’ll release her.”
George is aghast. “Release her? Really, Helen, the biggest fish you’ve ever caught in your life, and you want to let her go?”
She answers, coolly, “Yes, we’ll let her go.”
George defers to her. Why be embarrassed by having to explain things back at the lodge, when Helen lays her trophy down on the measuring table next to his?
“Yes, Ma’am,” the guide replies, with a grin and a quick nod of approval.
He rights the fish, pumps her back and forth in the run, holds her for a moment or two until she gives signs that she can make it on her own. She glides off into the dark water with a farewell slap of her tail, to live, to give life, and then of course to die. Helen watches her, in a silence broken only by the rushing river and the rustling dead leaves of a nearby pin oak.
Tomorrow to fresh woods –.
Lake Superior Writers 