The Journey Prize Stories 24 (22 page)

W
e’re a long way out on the lake when the ice breaks. It’s late, after three, probably. The sun is low in the sky. We’ve driven past a dozen men squatting on their three-legged stools over small round holes and staring into the blackness. We haven’t found our spot yet. We haven’t even seen Uncle Rick.

Everywhere I look outside there’s the lake and the sky, both the same grey-white, blurred together so you can’t see, way out there, what is lake and what is sky; and here and there in the middle distance men hunched on stools, dark silhouettes; and up close the dashboard, dark blue, covered in a thin layer of dust except for the handprints I left when Dad turned too quickly off the gravel road onto the lake, and I grabbed on, handprints like claws.

Earlier, Dad had asked Mom to come.

Mom said no. She always said no. She was doing some work, some financial stuff she needed to catch up on. She’d already told him it was late in the season, the ice might not be good; what did Uncle Rick say. Dad told her they knew what they were doing, they’d been doing it for years, they always assessed the risks before they went out. So she didn’t talk about the ice anymore.

Now she said, “I know how much you love it.”

It was after noon. We’d slept in, my sisters and I, and we’d been reading the coloured comics and doing Saturday morning chores. Mom looked over at us – Marla, Dawn, Janie – all in a row on the kitchen bench, eating brunch. Tallest to shortest. Oldest to youngest. Each in our own spot.

“Sam,” Mom said, “You could take Dawn.”

Sometimes they did that, one parent, one child. Every six months, it seemed, we had a family meeting about it, and it worked okay for a week, one or maybe two of us doing something alone with Mom or Dad, and then they forgot about it till the next family meeting. Or two of us wanted to do whatever it was Mom or Dad wanted to do with just one of us. So it never really worked.

Dad looked at me. “You’ll have to get ready quick. Uncle Rick and the cousins are probably already there. They won’t put up with any dawdling.”

Marla finished chewing and took a swig of milk. “No going to Jack’s without me.” Sometimes we stopped at Jack’s Drive-In for ice cream, if we were good. Marla couldn’t come today. She had a babysitting job down the street.

“No one said anything about Jack’s,” Dad said. “Hurry up, Dawn.” Dad got up and went outside. He looked grumpy.
Probably we wouldn’t stop at Jack’s today because he was in a bad mood.

Mom said she’d pack a thermos of hot chocolate and some cookies.

In the truck, Dad hits my left shoulder hard. It doesn’t feel hard, not now anyway. He hits me again and I turn to look at him, slowly. It takes ages to move my head.

Janie and I cleared the table. Marla went to the bathroom to get ready for her babysitting job.

“Janie,” I said. I’ve piled the dishes into the sink and run water into it. I plunged my hands into the sudsy water. “Want to come?”

“Naw, I don’t want to,” Janie said.

“Dad’ll probably stop at Jack’s.” I didn’t know if he would or not, but it was worth a try.

“Dawn!” Mom poured hot water into a thermos. “Don’t push. She can go if she wants to, but she doesn’t have to.”

“But you’re making me go.”

“Not making you.” Mom looked out the window. Dad backed the truck out of the garage. “It’s a good chance for you two. You don’t do much together.” She twisted the cap on the thermos and went downstairs to the laundry room.

“I don’t want to go anyway,” Janie said again.

“I’ll give you a dollar,” I said.

His face is red and his mouth is moving like he’s shouting, but I can’t hear anything. I’ve gone deaf. His eyes are close to my face and bulging.

“I know something you don’t know,” Marla sang when she emerged from the hallway. Her eyes were dark with eyeliner and mascara, and her hair was done up in a pony.

“What?” Janie and I said. We were still doing the dishes.

Marla smiled in her teasing way and said, “Tell you later.”

“No, tell us now!” I said.

We heard Mom come up the stairs.

“Remember Mr. and Mrs. Pichowsky down the street?” Marla said in a loud whisper. She went to the back door and put on her boots and coat. “See ya!” she called out. “Bye, Mom.”

The screen door slammed behind her.

His lips are fat and his cheeks are rough and stubbly. He didn’t shave that morning. He doesn’t shave to go ice fishing.

“What?” Janie asked me. But Mom was in the kitchen now and I didn’t want to say. Mr. and Mrs. Pichowsky got a divorce last year and moved. We never saw the kids anymore. They stayed with the mom, who moved to Deepest Darkest Mill Woods. Nobody ever went there because it was miles away, and if you did go there you’d just get lost. That was what Dad said. Marla must mean that Mom and Dad were going to be like Mr. and Mrs. Pichowsky. Marla was just being cruel. She always did
that, said a little bit of something, and then left. I wasn’t going to tell Janie what Marla meant. It was too mean.

Mom went down the hall to the big bedroom.

“Mr. Pichowsky went away, didn’t he?” Janie said. “And Mrs. Pichowsky went somewhere else.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Now I had another reason for Janie to come. If Marla was right and Dad was leaving, then for sure Janie should come today. To have one last visit with Dad.

“I’ll give you a dollar if you come,” I said again.

“A dollar?” Janie made a face. “That all?”

Dad yanks at my seatbelt, and I pull at it. I’m not just deaf, I’m slow and stupid. I can’t unclip the buckle. My body is weighing it down. The front wheels have gone through the ice, the truck is tipped forward, and I’m leaning into the seatbelt. My fingers are stiff and fat and useless. They could not take a five-dollar bill and fold it in half and half again if they had to. They could not do anything so delicate and so careful.