Caribou Island Read online

  Mm, she said, and pushed back into him, something so natural and easy. He closed his eyes, not wanting to lose this, a moment increasingly rare between them. Basic comfort, the two of them needing each other. Why wasn’t this enough?

  His first attraction to Irene had been instinct. He was in grad school at Berkeley, becoming a medievalist, but he was outclassed and he knew it. Couldn’t keep up with the others. He was fine on the primary texts but couldn’t keep up on the secondary documents, long histories and registers, almanacs, journals, all in Middle English. Religious documents in Middle English, Old English, and Latin. Then all the criticism, keeping up with current books and articles. It was just too much. And he didn’t have French or Old French, which was a big problem.

  A friend in the program introduced him to Irene, at a group dinner in a cheap restaurant. She had long blond hair then, blue eyes. She looked like something from an Icelandic saga. She didn’t talk in jargon. A preschool teacher, still in education, but not intimidating. He felt he could breathe, finally. She was safe.

  Gary held Irene and tried to remember back to who they had been at twenty-four years old, tried to feel what he had felt then, but it was a long way back. Irene moaned again, moved away from him and tried to clear her throat, threw back the covers suddenly.

  I can’t swallow, she said. I can’t breathe, and now I can’t swallow. How am I supposed to get any air?

  She walked into the bathroom and Gary sat up. Is there anything I can do?

  Make it stop, she said. I can’t breathe. I can’t sleep. The pain won’t go away. And now I’m dizzy. The Vicodin. She gargled, tried to clear her throat.

  Come back to bed.

  I’m drowning, she said. Maybe food will help. And some tea.

  So she dressed and they went to the kitchen. Rhoda had food on the table, a cup of hot tea ready.

  Thank you, Irene said, and she gave Rhoda a kiss on her forehead. Gary wadded up newspaper at the fireplace, stacked small sticks in a tepee, a few thicker pieces and a log, lit the edges and fanned it until a good fire was going.

  Irene started crying. She was trying to eat some mashed potatoes and beans, but then she was just crying.

  Mom, Rhoda said.

  Irene, Gary said, and they sat on either side of her, put their arms around her.

  It really hurts, she said. It just won’t stop. But she wasn’t crying only about the pain, she knew. She had an excuse, finally, to cry without hiding, and it was impossible to stop. It had a volume and depth, a physical space inside her, vaulted, a carving out of everything. Gary leaving her, after thirty years spent in this cold, unforgiving place. She didn’t know how to stop that, how to slow the momentum of years, how to make him see.

  By the time Jim returned from dropping Monique at the hotel, Rhoda was already home. At the sink, doing his dinner dishes.

  Hey, she said. This was a hell of a spread. How come I don’t get Baked Alaska? She was smiling. Making up. And she looked pretty good to Jim. He kissed her and pulled her close.

  Hey, wait. Let me get the soap off my hands first.

  Jim was taking off Rhoda’s jeans right there at the sink.

  I take it the meeting went well? Rhoda asked, but her voice was getting lower.

  Jim kneeled before her on the kitchen floor.

  Never mind, she murmured.

  Afterward, they played Yahtzee at the kitchen table. Rhoda got a Yahtzee with ones. She gloated and he groaned. Then, her next turn, she got another Yahtzee with ones, on only two rolls.

  Whoa, Jim said. The gods are out there.

  He got a crap roll, everything but a three, went for twos, got one more but that was it.

  Okay, he said. And then Rhoda rolled a third Yahtzee, again with ones.

  Aah! They both yelled. Rhoda put her hands to her teeth and began bouncing in her seat. Jim was screaming, seriously freaked. They both got up and ran around the room, brushing themselves off instinctively and shivering, as if luck, with its little batlike hands, were still clinging to them.

  Irene could feel every bump in the road on the way to town. Every rut and ridge, washboard and pothole, all of it sending arcs of red spinning into the world behind her right eye. A sunny day, a summer’s day, but even the light hurt, so her eyes were closed.

  We’ll be there soon, Gary said. Just hold on a little longer.

  The Vicodin’s making me nauseated.

  Only a few minutes, Gary said.

  At the office, they took the X rays and Frank read them on a lit whiteboard. Here’s a frontal view, he said, and it was Irene’s skull, eye hollows and fleshless jaw, rows of grinning teeth, just like in a skull and crossbones. A vision ahead to her own death.

  Creepy, she said.

  And here’s a side view, he said. And the other side.

  Where’s the infection? Irene asked. What does it look like?

  Well, that’s the problem, Irene. There’s nothing here.

  What do you mean, there’s nothing?

  You don’t have any locked-in infection according to the X rays.

  But I do have one.

  You certainly have a cold, with maybe a bit of an infection. If you really want, I can give you an antibiotic for seven days.

  I don’t understand.

  The X rays just don’t show anything.

  Irene started crying, rocked forward in her seat, her head in her hands.

  Irene, Frank said, and he patted her shoulder awkwardly.

  I have something, she said. Something’s wrong.

  I’m sorry. I’ll give you the prescriptions. But there’s just nothing there.

  So Irene waited until she could pull herself together, tried unsuccessfully to blow her nose, then took her prescriptions, paid, and had to tell Gary in the waiting room. Nothing showed up on the X rays, she said.

  What?

  I know there’s something, she said. It just didn’t show up.

  Irene, he said, and pulled her into his arms. I’m sorry, Irene. But maybe this is good news. Maybe you’ll get better soon.

  No. I have something.

  I’ll take you home, he said. We’ll set you up by the fire.

  So they did that. Filled the prescriptions, drove home, all the ruts and bumps, Irene in agony, and Gary brought blankets out to the couch by the fireplace, laid Irene down, built a good fire.

  A stone fireplace, a good home, her husband making her comfortable. Maybe this awful pain will turn out to be a good thing, Irene thought. Maybe it will bring us closer together. Maybe Gary will remember me. A strange time in life, her children gone, her work taken away, only Gary left, and not the Gary she began with. She didn’t like retirement. Until only a few months ago, she had danced and sung every day with the children at school. Three- to five-year-olds, learning through play, following their interests from worm gardens to dinosaurs to building trains that could cross to Russia and continue on to Africa. They would come sit on her lap, make themselves at home.

  Gary made her tea, and she sipped at it, held the hot mug in her hands. She had taken the new medications in the truck on the way home, and she was still waiting for an effect.

  The pain’s not going away, she told Gary. I don’t feel anything from the medications. What painkiller did he give me?

  Gary opened the bag from the pharmacy. Looks like Amoxicillin for antibiotic, some decongestant I can’t pronounce, and Aleve for painkiller.

  Aleve?

  Yeah.

  That little shit. Aleve is just Advil. Call Rhoda. I need more Vicodin.

  Irene. You should take what he prescribed. He said nothing showed up on the X ray.

  The X ray is wrong.

  How can an X ray be wrong?

  I don’t know. It just is.

  Rhoda stayed at work late, until Dr. Turin and everyone else had left. Just finishing up some paperwork, she’d told them. In the cabinet of prescription samples, she took the rest of the Vicodin, which had been sent mistakenly. Only a week’s supply, and they woul
d never be getting more. She would need something else.

  She found Tramadol, another painkiller, and looked it up online. It seemed to be okay for humans. She could lose her job for this, maybe even face some sort of criminal charges. Frank should have prescribed something. She could ask Jim for a prescription, but she didn’t want to put any pressure on things with Jim.

  Driving to her parents’ house, she thought about her wedding. Jim hadn’t proposed yet, but they had talked about it, indirectly. She wanted the wedding in Hawaii, and he had agreed to this, basically. She didn’t want cold, or mosquitoes, or any sign of salmon. No moose antlers in the next room, no hip waders. She wanted Kauai, either Waimea Canyon or Hanalei Bay. A ceremony on the beach, or overlooking the ocean or the canyon, something beautiful. Coconut palms, big bowls of fresh fruit, guava nectar, macadamia nuts. Some old plantation house, maybe, white with a covered porch, all the curlicues of wood and banisters. Bird-of-paradise on the tables, long slim stems and multicolored ruffles. Maybe some actual birds, too, parrots or something.

  And maybe I’ll wear an eyepatch, Rhoda said aloud and grinned. Poor Jim. You have no idea what you’re in for.

  She turned off toward the lake, rattling and bouncing now on the crap road. What she wanted, really, was something classy. She didn’t want anything cheap. She wanted dignified, and this would be tough, given her family. Mark would be high, no doubt, and her dad would want to take off his tuxedo at the first opportunity. Her mom would be all right. She tried to see the place, but all she had were parts of weddings floating around unconnected. Maybe she and Jim would have to take a scouting trip to Hawaii. She needed to see the actual places.

  When she pulled up, her father was gardening, working on the flowerpots.

  Howdy, Dad.

  Hey, Rhoda. Have the painkillers? He got up off his knees, brushed his jeans.

  I could get busted for this. We have to get her a prescription.

  Yeah, he said. I think another day or two and it’ll blow over. There’s nothing wrong, really, just a cold.

  Hm, Rhoda said, and walked into the house. Her mother was on the couch in front of the fireplace, a blanket over her.

  I feel like hell, Irene said.

  I have about two weeks of painkillers, Rhoda said. Vicodin and Tramadol, which is what we use for big dogs. It should work about the same. Maybe take two if one isn’t enough. But you can’t tell anyone where you got these. Rhoda filled a glass of water and gave it to her mother along with a Vicodin.

  Thank you, sweetie. Help me back to the bedroom. I need to sleep.

  Okay, Rhoda said, but can’t you walk?

  I feel a little dizzy. Just help me out. Why does everyone have to question it?

  Sorry, Mom.

  They walked to the bedroom and her mother lay down under the covers, didn’t say anything more.

  Rhoda did some dishes and then went outside to talk with her father. What’s wrong with her? she asked.

  Just punishing me, he said. For making us go out in the rain. Which I probably shouldn’t have done. But still, she’ll draw out this cold as long as she can to let me know how she feels.

  Dad, Rhoda said.

  It’s true. That’s what’s happening. It’s my fault, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

  I don’t think she’d do that, Dad.

  Well, you don’t know her the way I do. You have a different relationship. And that’s good.

  I think something’s really wrong. I don’t think she’s making it up.

  Whatever. I need to get back to the flowers here, and tomorrow I need to get back to work on the cabin. Your mother is supposed to be helping me with that.

  I have work tomorrow, or I’d help.

  Thanks, he said, tight-lipped, meaning the conversation was over. He’d always been like this, all Rhoda’s life. Any real conversation closed off. Any moment when she might actually see who he was, he disappeared.

  Mark returned from another long day of fishing to find his sister sitting with Karen at the kitchen table.

  How did you do? Karen asked.

  We’re freed from poverty another few days, Mark said. Enough grublings out there to keep us off the street.

  I made fiddleheads, Karen said.

  Oh, cool. Mark went to the counter to grab some, little green spirals marinated in balsamic and olive oil. I love these.

  Howdy, Mark, Rhoda said.

  Hello my sister. How goes the chase for wealth and happiness?

  Thanks, Mark.

  He circled behind her and then lunged forward quickly to put his fishy hands over her face.

  Rhoda yelled and pushed back into him, fell backward onto the floor as he hopped out of the way. Nice, Mark, she said. You’ve really changed.

  No need for change, he said, when you got something good. Karen laughed. Mark swooped over for a kiss and a quick grab.

  Rhoda picked up her chair and sat again. I hate to interrupt the love fest, and I’m sure you’re both fine with just doing it on the floor right in front of me, but I actually came here for a reason.

  Speak your pain, Sister Rhoda, Mark said, and Karen giggled.

  Rhoda ignored this. Mom is in a lot of pain, and Dad doesn’t believe there’s anything wrong, because the X ray didn’t show anything.

  Hm, Mark said.

  What I’m asking is that you go by a few times a day and check on Mom. You live practically next door. I’m forty minutes away.

  I’d love to, but I’m working. Out again tomorrow and the next day. And Karen’s working, too.

  Okay, Rhoda said. Forget it, then.

  I want to help, but I have to work.

  Okay, okay, Rhoda said. I understand. You’ve been an unreliable fuck all your life.

  Feel the love, Mark said.

  Wanna get high? Karen asked.

  Jim canceled his appointments for the day, which pissed off his secretary and the hygienist. Then he tore over to the King Salmon Hotel. Coming in on two wheels, he said to himself. I’m a man on a mission, a boy with a gun. He tried to sing the old Devo song, couldn’t quite remember the tune.

  This got him thinking of another Devo song: little girl with the four red lips, never knew it could be like this, I’m going under, I’m going under. He was grinning now. Please fuck me today, Monique. Please, please, please.

  He slid the Suburban to a fast stop in the gravel, hopped out, and practically ran to her door.

  There was kind of a long pause before she answered his knock. But she was dressed and looked ready to go. Wearing a man’s shirt. Dark green plaid, untucked, top buttons undone. Jeans.

  Wow, he said.

  Hey, she said, and stepped forward to clear the door, so he had to step back. No invite in, no kiss. She locked the door, then turned around to face him. What are we doing today?

  Um, he said. Whatever you want.

  How about a helicopter ride? I’d like to see this place.

  Okay, he said, and they got in the Suburban and drove toward where he had seen a few helicopters. This turned out to be an abandoned gravel lot. So he called information for helicopter tours, found something, and they drove past strip malls and pickups, boats on trailers by the side of the road.

  Alaska is a dump, Monique said. But I like it.

  We should go out on the water, Jim said. Go fishing. You might like that.

  Maybe, Monique said. Helicopter first. Get my bearings, Roger.

  Jim was feeling used, and a little pissed off, but he tried to keep the mood light. They’d fly around for a while, and then they’d go back to the hotel and fuck or he’d quit the whole stupid thing.

  Whoa, Monique said. You just passed it, cowboy. I saw helicopters.

  Sorry, Jim said, and found a place to turn around. He was getting distracted, thinking maybe Rhoda wasn’t such a bad deal. She was nice to him, and that had to count for something.

  Jim paid half his left nut at the office, because Monique didn’t want the quick tour. She wanted the full five
-hour tour with glaciers, Prince William Sound, a lunch stop in Seward, on to Homer, the entire peninsula. They climbed into a sleek black helicopter and donned helmets.

  Monique leaned close and grabbed his arm. Thanks, Jim, she said in the headset. This is going to be fun. And as the motor whirred up, he felt his spirits rising, too. Maybe this would work out.

  The pilot eased them into the air and started saying dumb things about Alaska. We’re almost the size of the Alaska State Bird, and do you know what that is, folks?

  The mosquito, Jim said in an unenthusiastic voice.

  The pilot paused a minute, thrown off. That’s right, he said. Are you from here?

  Yeah.

  Okay. I’ll just point out a few of the sights when we get out farther. Enjoy the ride, folks. Let me know if you have any questions.

  They rose up quick and banked off to the east. Forest and then Skilak Lake, which the pilot announced. Jim peered out the window and tried to find Rhoda’s parents’ house, or Mark’s house, but they were buried somewhere in the trees. The lake a deep jade green today in sunlight, ripples on the surface visible even from high up. A river zigging northeast from the head of the lake.

  Beginning of Skilak Glacier, folks, the pilot said. This feeds into Skilak Lake. We’ll follow it up into the mountains.

  The pilot skimmed lower over the ice, the helicopter a tiny thing in a vast expanse of white, the glacier a wide chute with steep rock on both sides.

  Wow, Monique said.

  The glacier a thing of pressure, crevassed and bent. It looked alive to Jim, and he wondered why he’d never come up in a helicopter before. This was gorgeous. Rhoda should see this, too. She’d grown up basically at the foot of the glacier, but it was around the corner a bit, not quite visible from the lake, and even if she’d seen it on hikes, he was sure she hadn’t seen it like this.

  I want to land on it, Monique said.

  The pilot had a headset, too, but he didn’t respond.

  Is that okay? Jim asked. Can we land on it?

  Well, the pilot said. Yeah. I guess we could. You’ll have to stay close, though. No wandering off.

  That’s fine, Jim said.

  The pilot continued toward the head of the glacier, then slowed his airspeed, came in lower, looked around for a safe spot. The crevasses up close were much bigger than Jim had imagined. Everything immense, the distances farther, the rock walls higher. And no sign of other humans.