Casting A Line

It was freezing. The pay phone was on the other side of the lake in the parking lot of the general store which was closed for the season. There had been a major drought that summer and the lake was lower than he had ever seen it, so much so that the end of the main dock was a good fifty or sixty yards from the edge of the water. The wind howled and the water boiled with whitecaps. His father had lent him his black 1977 Jeep. It sat idling beside him, the vinyl top flapping violently. She answered on the first ring.

“Hi, sweetheart!”

The sound of her voice made him cringe. 

“Hey,” he said. 

“I miss you so much! I can’t take this.” 

“Did you pay the rent?”

“Of course. I paid off all the bills too. I wish I could call you. This is so stupid. How is it there?”

“It’s freezing.” 

 He heard voices in the background, laughter, and what sounded like a cash register bang shut. 

 "Where are you?" he asked. "Never mind, I don't care. I don't even wanna know."  

 "I'm just having lunch with Ally. Sweetheart, I promise!"

 "Look, don't call me that! I don't want you calling me that anymore!" 

 There was a long pause. A seagull drifted by and hovered wobbly in the wind above the large barren beach. 

 "Are you able to write?” she asked, finally. 

“No, not at all."

“I’m sorry. It’ll happen. How’s your father?”

“He’s good.” 

“Does he know?”

“Yeah, he knows. Everyone knows. Look, I gotta go. I just wanted to make sure you paid the rent.”

“Wait. When are you coming home? I love you so much. I’m so sorry. I can’t take this.”

“I gotta go. I’ll call you in about a week.”

It was about a fifteen minute drive through the park back to the cabin. He didn’t pass a single car. Everything looked dead and grey. Thin low clouds raced across the mountains like wisps of smoke. Maybe I’ll just stay here? he thought. Why not? What the hell's difference?

        

 It was sunny the next morning when he awoke. He laid in bed for a while, listening to the noisy flock of geese which slept each night in the field behind the cabin. He didn't even try to write when he got up. Instead, he decided he would finally go fishing like he had planned to all along, at that place beside the spillway of the dam where they stocked the water with trout, where nearly every time he had driven on the highway back to his father's he had seen the same two old men sitting in their folding chairs with their poles sticking out. He had a couple cups of coffee and a pack of instant oatmeal and then he collected all the gear his father had leant him and the pole and some other things he had bought for himself at Walmart, and he put all of this in the back of the Jeep and drove around the lake and back through the park until he found a little pull-off on the side of the road where he parked beside a large white truck. He climbed out of the Jeep and gathered all his things and he carried them down the path through the trees to the opening where the two old men were sitting just as he had seen them before, in their chairs by the water with their poles sticking out. There was a little red Igloo cooler on the ground between them and one of them was casting a line.