The Ski Jumpers, page 29
I hadn’t even noticed that Anton was sleeping. He’d put his head down on the arm of the couch, and when Mr. Torr brought the coffee in, he raised one cup at my brother. Now his voice turned impossibly soft. “Tired boy,” he said. “If you’re anything like Noah, you want some sleep yourself.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
He handed me the coffee and sat across the room. He took a sip. “You don’t need to be so formal with me.” He looked at his watch. “You drove through the night?” How could such a gentle voice come out of such a big man? Instead of pressing me, he sat back in the chair and crossed his long legs and drank from his steaming cup. After a minute, he said, “Yes sir, young Anton’s gone down like a puppy.”
Anton had folded into himself, his feet nearly up under him, and I could tell he slept soundly. I hoped dreamlessly, too.
“Does your mother know you came up here? I imagine she’s worried.”
“She’s not home.”
“Not home, you say? Where is she?”
“She had a breakdown. She’s in some hospital.”
If this news alarmed him, he didn’t let on. Olaf only turned to look out the window. “You came here because you didn’t have anywhere else to go?”
“We were staying at this school our uncle Sheb runs. But he was going to send Anton off to a place for imbeciles.”
He nodded. “Well, all right then.”
“I just didn’t know where else to go, Mr. Torr. I felt like I had to get away. Sheb’s a real piece of shit, and he’d come looking for us. He’d find us. You guys are the only friends we’ve got who don’t live in Minneapolis.”
“I’m glad you trust me, Jon.”
“We don’t want to be a bother, I’ll tell you that. Which is why I thought maybe you’d let us go stay at that lake place Noah’s always talking about. We could just camp there for now.”
“You want to go stay at the cabin on Lake Forsone?” His brow furrowed. “You know that’s way up by Misquah. You know there’s no running water? No heat but what that old potbelly stove puts out?”
“Noah’s told me about it. And there’s a ski jump, right?”
A smile came over his face. Knowingly. “You can ski jump right here in Duluth. You know that. But I have to ask you, Jon, how long are you thinking of staying? What about school? When’s your mom going to be home?”
“To be honest, I haven’t given school much thought. And I don’t know about Bett. I don’t know what happened to her. I don’t care, either.”
He scratched the back of his neck and sighed. “That’s a strong position.”
I checked to make sure Anton was still sleeping. Leaning forward, I said, “She abandoned us. And since, well, Pops, you know . . .” I collected my thoughts. “Since Pops is away, I have to take care of Anton. I know your place up north is rustic, but like I said, I don’t want to be a bother. And no one would find us there, that’s for sure.” I hesitated, but pressed on. “It’s been an awful year. Just awful. I don’t know how we’ve made it.”
He took another long drink of his coffee and another deep breath. “Someday you’ll survive much worse than this, Jon.”
Maybe his own tragic past endeared us to him. Maybe he had a soft spot for my adventurous spirit, or my brotherly affection. Maybe he admired my moxie. Or maybe, since Noah’s mother had passed away years earlier, there was just no one around to prevail with better judgment. Whatever the reason, Olaf agreed to usher us up to the cabin on Lake Forsone, and later that Sunday afternoon—after Noah and his sister woke, after we all shared eggs and bacon and more coffee, after I napped for a couple hours, after Solveig found a friend to spend the evening with—Anton and I followed Olaf and Noah Torr in their big old Suburban along the North Shore to Misquah. Before we drove to their cabin, we pulled into The Landing and Olaf bought us fifty dollars of groceries.
I bought Anton a pocket-sized notebook and a pack of pencils. And before the sun set, we drove down the freshly plowed road to the cabin on Lake Forsone. It was our first night there. The first of a hundred.
Just a Wolf
A COUPLE OF MILES THIS SIDE OF GUNFLINT, Ingrid pulls the car into the False Harbor Bay overlook. Even from fifty feet up on a mound of ancient granite, I can feel the lake pounding the cliff face. The wind is straight out of the east, rising, hurrying the gloaming and bringing the water in quickening waves each more furious than the last. In the distance, up the snowbound shoreline, following the gray fringe of the trees between the water’s edge and the highway, I can see the silhouette of town against the coming evening. The streetlights hum amber. The village buildings draw their shapes against the darkness of the hills above. I look at my watch. Sunset’s not for another half-hour, but the weather’s bringing the gloom like it’s a duststorm.
Ingrid has not said one word since we pulled out of Noah’s drive. Under normal circumstances, I’d be able to divine her mood. This, of course, is one of the benefits—if not also a hazard—of spending so many years together. That we don’t always need to tell each other what’s on our mind has spared us many disagreements and led to just as many moments of intimacy.
Her gaze is off in the distance now, willing, I imagine, the wind to deliver her something to say. But what more is there? My mind is clearer than it’s been in as long as I can remember, and if Ingrid’s is less so then I merely have to wait for her questions. In the meantime, I’ll listen to my own silent calm. It’s been a long time since I heard it.
After some minutes—enough that a bank of lowering clouds let loose its snow a mile out to sea—she turns to me and says, “This girl, your half-sister . . .”
“Helene.”
“Yes, Helene, what became of her?”
“I don’t know.”
“How’s that possible?”
Her incredulity is warranted. Over the many years since our first and only meeting, I’ve often found myself casting a quizzical look off into a distance just like this one, not quite thinking of anything, and after a while I’ll realize it’s Helene on my mind. I tell this to Ingrid, who seems as unsatisfied as I usually am after such reflection.
“How’s it possible you never knew before that day? Did your father?”
“Bett knew, but Pops didn’t. Not before that moment. He never heard from her again. Or so he claimed.”
“I just don’t understand, Jon. How could Bett know, but not your father?”
“Bett stayed in some contact with her sister. I guess it was their secret.”
“That’s incomprehensible to me. That’s reprehensible.”
“To me, too. But then again, we’re talking about Bett. The way Pops described it, for as much as he loved her—Bett, I mean—he always felt, even until the end, that he didn’t quite know all of her. He said it was like she’d locked the cellar door, and he’d never gotten down there.”
“I can’t imagine.”
I reach for her hand and hold it. “I’m sure I’ve told you they spent some months apart after he got out of prison? Separated, I guess. The first night of that separation, which was soon after I moved into that room in Dinkytown, he actually came to stay with me. I thought it was cool, having him there for a night. Like our own private camp.” I think back to that singular night, and our weird joviality, but the memory is as fleeting as the night itself was. “Later he spent a month living at Sheb’s place.”
Ingrid smiles, but I can tell her mood is shifting. From cloudy-minded to something entirely more focused. The look of sadness creeping up on her is as unmistakable as the weather’s purpose in the coming dark. I’d say something to quell it, but I know she prefers to sort it out on her own, and so we settle into another spell of quiet.
This is the sort of situation that makes me wish I were writing The Ski Jumpers. I’ve always been most intrigued by the moments on which life hinges. This is true in fact and in fiction, and though anyone passing by us on the highway, if they glanced into our car, would see a couple of folks watching the lake churn, I know what’s happening between us is something much closer to a great reckoning than it is a simple pause. In an hour or tomorrow morning or in a week, Ingrid will know it, too. But for now, she’s overcome. I see it as plainly as I do the galloping waves. We’re still holding hands, and I lift hers with mine and kiss it softly.
She starts to cry. Soft and slow-moving tears from the corner of each of her beautiful eyes. I only kiss her hand again.
“What will I do, Jon? What will we do?” She speaks softly, but there’s no mistaking the urgency in her voice.
“You’ll love me. You’ll help me until you can’t. Which is just exactly what I’d do for you.”
“And after that?” She’s holding my hand so tightly now it almost hurts.
“After that we’ll do what we’ve always done, or what you’ve always done: figure it out.”
She pulls her hand away. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I know I’ll figure out how to take care of you. I’ll figure out how to take care of myself, too. I can do all that.” She turns to look at me, reaches up and brushes my wispy hair over my ear. “What I don’t know how to do is live without your love, Jon. You’ll be alive on this earth and unable to give it to me.”
“That’s not true, sweetheart.”
“You don’t get to choose. You can’t just will it so. Your mind—your sweet, tender mind—will do whatever it wants.”
Of all the worries yesterday’s diagnosis put into motion, none have snowballed like my concern for Ingrid. My love and devotion for her, like hers for me, is the wellspring of our lives. Our years of marriage are proof. And if it had been her diagnosis yesterday, the most unsettling prospect to come of it would be my fear of losing her love. It’s been as much a part of my life as the blood coursing through my body.
When I say “You’ll have to do the loving for both of us, Ingrid,” I wish I could take it back as soon as I’ve said it. I don’t mean to lay another burden on her. How could she possibly bear twice the weight?
She closes her eyes against the view. “I’m so scared. I’m afraid of being alone. I’m afraid of how lonely I’ll be.”
Since yesterday morning, I’ve seen her loneliness a hundred times. It looks like a cold cup of coffee, lost to a morning taking care of me; or a long night wiping piss off my legs; or Ingrid cutting up a peach like she used to for the kids and spooning it into my slack mouth; it looks like wanting a kiss goodnight, or to make love in the morning, eyes too tired to open; it looks like wanting to dance after a glass of Friday night wine. All of which is to say that it doesn’t look good. Not for her and not for me. We both know this.
Of course, I don’t tell Ingrid about these thoughts. Instead I start humming a favorite song by Jason Isbell.
“How many nights did we sit over our cribbage board listening to that sweet man sing?” she says.
“We were singing, too, love.”
I can as much as see her think That’s another thing we won’t be doing anymore. But she doesn’t say anything. Only forces a half-smile before she stretches across the distance between us and kisses me like we’re nineteen years old again.
I’m so surprised that I forget to breathe, and after half a minute I have to sit back to take in a lungful of air. It’s like I’m breathing in the wind off the surging lake. Ingrid takes a deep breath, too, and looks out at that same lake. She sighs. “We’ve been married for more than half my life, Jon. And all that time you kept today’s news from me.”
I understand she’s asking for an explanation, and not about Helene. We’ve said all there is to say about her.
“I don’t know why I never told you before. I was a coward—”
“I can well imagine why you never told me, Jon. It doesn’t even seem that mysterious. Who wouldn’t want to keep it a secret?” She’s terse. Maybe even angry. She shakes her head and grips the steering wheel so I can see her knuckles whiten.
“What is it?”
“I can also imagine believing everything would be better if I knew what you did to that horrible man.” Now she swivels to face me. “But I don’t know if that’s why you told me. I don’t know if you’ve done this to appease your own guilty conscience or if you believe it’s better for us if I know. Maybe”—she pauses for a moment—“you’re thinking only of yourself. And giving me another load to bear.”
“No,” I say, but in answer to what I’m not even sure.
“This man I’ve loved for so long, now you tell me he’s a killer?”
“I told you because—”
“Oh, I know why you think you’ve told me. I do, Jon. But I’m not sure how it makes my life better. I don’t think it does.”
I feel—momentarily, and no doubt because that episode has just come back to life for me—something like I did all those years ago, standing above the dead body of Andrus Patollo in the basement of the bingo hall. Back then I had Pops to step in and not only clean up my mess but absolve me of my actions. There’s no one to help me now, and I feel a panic rising in me.
“I’m sorry, Ingrid,” I say, my voice now faint. “I’m so sorry.”
She doesn’t answer me. Only touches up her hair in the rearview mirror and says, “Let’s go see our daughters.”
I’m out of words—finally—and helpless as the child I was back then.
But before she starts to drive, she says, “I’m not going to think about this again until I can make sense of it. I’m going to try to enjoy our evening and think you should, too.” She puts the car in gear. “But I’m also going to say that I think you should have just written your last book, Jon. I really do. You could’ve put today’s admission in it and spared me the onus.” She’s exhausted. That much I can tell. But she’s also forgiving, and when she adds, “Let your daughter surprise you,” I understand she’s already moving on.
* * *
*
We’re driving past the ranger station and the edge-of-town campgrounds and cottages and then down the long hill into Gunflint, the lights below pulling us along like an undertow. I have that feeling I sometimes get after failing a morning at my desk. Like my story has lost its equilibrium. Except now it’s not some fiction, but my life. As if by telling Ingrid about Patollo I’ve made it true again—or for the first time—and now I’ll need to finally face my own trial.
Of course, the only jury I’ll ever have to endure is driving our car right now. Someday she’ll ask me more about it. But not now, and that’s fine. If we were back home in Duluth, now’s the time I’d kiss her on her forehead and shuffle into my office and open one of my notebooks and make believe I live in another world, one where the puzzlement and melancholy weren’t my own.
Instead I reach across the space between us and tuck a loose strand of hair behind Ingrid’s ear. “I’m sorry.”
“Later,” she says, glancing at me for a heartbeat.
“I don’t mean about what I just told you, though I’m sorry for that, too.”
Now she reaches over to me. She grabs hold of my hand. “I’d rather not, Jon. Not now.”
“Okay.”
How unlucky I am, to never have believed in God. To have instead put my faith in the lies Pops told me over that old kitchen table, or over the telephone late at night? To have instead written my faith in the novels I’ve penned? How much easier would it have been to simply pray? To send into the universe wailing orisons and wait for their reply?
Ingrid turns into the parking lot of Hivernants Brewing. The lot’s full of big pickups and snowmobiles, but she manages a spot in front of the thrift store next door and turns the car off.
“I’m going to get a growler for the weekend. Do you want to come in?” she says.
I take my seatbelt off and open the door and together we walk across the parking lot, which is like a blistered minefield of potholes and ice. But inside the bustle and warmth are delicious, as is the yeasty smell of the beer tanks in a room behind the bar. That room is also flooded with people, and I can see a woman whose face I recognize standing behind a music stand with a microphone, addressing her audience.
The taproom is crowded. Skiers and snowmobilers up from the Twin Cities or down from Thunder Bay. A band is setting up on a small stage, a standup bass and three-piece drum kit and acoustic guitar. The musicians stand next to their instruments and wipe their brows with back-pocket handkerchiefs. There’s a roaring fire in the enormous hearth and, taken all together, it feels like a perfect place to be.
At the bar, Ingrid gets the attention of the keep and asks for a growler of the Devil’s Maw IPA. Then she remembers I don’t like those hoppy beers, and she orders a half-growler of the Burnt Wood Lager, too.
As she pays, I ask the bartender what’s happening in the room behind him. He glances over his shoulder like he’s surprised to see a hundred people sitting on folding chairs. “That’s Greta Eide,” he says. “She’s an author. Some sort of celebration for a book she wrote.”
I thank him and drift over to the double glass doors that separate the fermentation vessels and the brewhouse from the taproom. The usher at the door opens it a crack to ask me if I’d like to come in. I shake my head, and watch Greta through the glass.
I actually know her. When A Lesser Light came out, Greta interviewed me for a feature that ran in the Strib. She wrote a kind and thorough article, talking not only to my editor in New York but also to several of my students. She looks different now. Older and younger at the same time. I watch her for a few minutes before she glances in my direction. A wave of recognition crosses her face, and she smiles. I smile back, and tap on the glass and ask the usher if I can buy a book from the pile stacked on the table. It’s called Water Sky, and the cover is a photograph of ice-choked water with the sun shining above.
“After the reading,” she whispers, and lets the door close the inch it was open.
Ingrid comes up behind me and peeks over my shoulder. “What’s this?” she asks, and before I can answer she adds, “I read a review of this in last Sunday’s paper. You know her.”
