The Banks of Certain Rivers

by Harrison, Jon

  “Chris,” I say, staying where I am on the side deck. “You really had me worried.” He turns his body to his left so he’s not facing me. “I’m not mad. I understand, okay? I understand.” I move closer to the cockpit, and I have to duck to miss the swinging, clanking boom. “I should have told you. I should have told you a long time ago. I understand why you’re mad.”

  From the side, I see Chris has his lips pressed tight, and a tear slides down his face from beneath his sunglasses.

  “I love your mom, okay? I always will. But she isn’t coming back. Ever. She’ll never come back to us. I’ll take care of her as well as I can. I might even have to sell part of the orchard to take care of her. I’ve been talking to Leland Dinks about it. I probably should have told you that too.”

  Chris says nothing, but he sniffs and more tears come down his cheeks. I take another step toward the cockpit.

  “Lauren is a good person. She is kind, and funny, and compassionate. She takes good care of your Grandma. I’ve been in love with her for a while. We just…I was over there with her a lot when we first brought Grandma back from the hospital. I was lonely, she was breaking up with a guy she’d been seeing, and we liked each other. I didn’t even realize at first. She asked me to go to dinner with her, can you believe it? I could have said, let me talk to Chris, why don’t I talk to Chris before we go out. Instead, you know what? We went to dinner over in Traverse City. Instead of telling you what was going on, I tried to hide it from you. I know you were younger, but you weren’t stupid, you could have dealt with it.”

  I step down into the cockpit, and Chris makes a little sound as he wipes his nose with his hand.

  “You’re the only thing I have, Chris. When you left, it was almost too much. I couldn’t have taken it if you’d left me. You’re my only son. My only family.”

  “Then why did you almost do the same thing to me?” he screams, his voice breaking. “You don’t get it at all, do you? Why did you try to leave?” He turns to the stern of the boat and lunges like he’s going to jump overboard, but I’m there, somehow I make it around the wheel to him and get my arms around his strong body to pull him to the bottom of the cockpit. My knee throbs, and the sails flap impotently over our heads.

  “No, Christopher. No.” I say, the side of my face pressed between his shoulder blades. “Don’t leave. Please don’t leave.”

  “Why not?” he says, crying, twisting himself away. “Why not, when you were going to do it again?”

  There are things we make ourselves forget.

  What is a memory, anyway? Is it an indelible record, unimpeachable, frozen in some synaptic arrangement and stored away for some moment it might be needed in the future? Or is it subject to editing and revision, something plastic that our brains can shape into another form we can handle, something less toxic than the original, something less able to poison us?

  That night Chris found me in the pole barn, a picture of our family had shattered me. This I recall. The photograph was like a live electrical wire; my fingers contracted around it and could not let go no matter how terribly it hurt me. I finally shook it from my hands to let it fall to the floor. It fell face up, and I stared at it, I kept staring at it, I could not take my eyes from it. My eyes never left the picture—mother, father, son—even as I took drink after drink straight from the bottle of gin. I fell to my knees, bent over the picture, and my tears dripped onto the gloss of the print and merged into blurry dots. My fists squeezed tight and pressed against the sides of my head, I groaned with clenched teeth, I closed my eyes to get away from the image. It was there whether my eyes were open or not. And as I squeezed my eyes shut….

  The door squeaked.

  “Dad? What are you doing, Dad?”

  Memory is a funny thing. I was incapable of getting to my feet. I was incapable of living.

  I lay on the floor in a heap, shattered, with a crumpled photo before me and a nearly empty bottle of gin by my feet. Incapable. Christopher came and put his arms around me.

  “I miss her, Chris.” I sobbed.

  Just how much have I come apart?

  “I miss her so much.”

  “I missed her so much,” I tell my son. “I’m sorry, Chris. I’m so sorry. I didn’t…I was crazy. I was lost.”

  I let go of my son, and he sits down in the well of the cockpit with his arms around his drawn-up knees. He looks forward, away from me, and sometimes he wipes up under his sunglasses with his fingers.

  “You don’t get it,” Chris says. “You were a wreck.”

  “I know. I know I was. When your mom was first in the nursing home—”

  “I’m not talking about then, Dad. I’m talking about two nights ago. I’m talking about the night before that.”

  I stare at him blankly.

  “You don’t even remember, do you? You don’t even know what I’m talking about.” He sniffs a couple times, and rubs his nose with the back of his wrist. “Thursday night, okay? I was doing homework, and Sparks texts me this thing about the video. I went to get you so I could show you, right? You weren’t in your room, but you weren’t in the house, either. Then I found you out by the stupid fire pit asleep in the chair, and it’s like, okay, he fell asleep, I’ll get the old man in bed. You were just saying weird shit. You even said stuff about Lauren, but it didn’t make any sense. And it was like you could barely walk. But whatever, I got you to bed.”

  “Thank you,” I murmur.

  “But then Friday, night….”

  “What, Chris. Tell me.”

  “So, I was mad, okay? I was really angry with you. I went in my room. I was in there for a while, and I cooled off. I thought, well, maybe it’s not such a major thing. I mean, it’s totally a major thing, but did I really need to lose it like that?” He looks at me, maybe waiting for me to say something, but I don’t, and he looks back out to the water. “So I came out. I was going to come into your room and talk to you. Because I knew I was being stupid, and I knew I should talk to you about it. But instead it’s like you’re passed out on the hallway floor with a bottle between your knees. That’s when I really lost it. I was like, really? Seriously? I’m going through this again? I was there once already—”

  “Chris, I’m—”

  “I was so mad, I was pissed! I just wanted to leave you there. But then I thought I’d better get you in bed at least, I couldn’t just leave you on the floor, I wasn’t going to leave you like you were leaving me. Somebody had to act like an adult. So I got you up, and you’re like ‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ And I was not fine. Because I’d heard that once before. The first time, you know, you said the same thing. But you weren’t. So I got you to bed, and that’s when I decided I needed to leave.”

  “God, I’m sorry.”

  “It was just like after mom’s thing. You said everything was fine. You said it over and over. And Mike came up from Chicago, he told me ‘don’t worry, we’ll get him better.’ And I don’t know, he talked to you or whatever, and it was like you did get better, and after a while you went back to being my dad. The way you were before, mostly. I thought you were over it, but here it started again. I mean, I know you had a beer here and there, but it was no big deal. You had a grip.”

  A wave slides under us, rolling the boat in a way that clanks the rigging against the mast.

  “When it was happening, you said everything was fine, and I believed you,” Chris says. “But I guess it’s really easy for you to lie about things, isn’t it?”

  “God, no, Christopher, it’s not.”

  “You lied to me then, and now, with Lauren Downey, you lied to me for, what, two years? That’s what you said. You’ve been with her for two years.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “After everything with mom, after you got back to normal and you were running again and everything, remember the talk we had?”

  “We’ve had a lot of talks,” I say. Now I’m the one looking over the water, back toward the hazy shore. A welt is forming on my knee
, and I press it with my fingertips.

  “It was a big one. At the beginning of the summer. You said, ‘no matter what, you be straight with me, and I’ll be straight with you. About everything.’ Remember that one?”

  “I remember.”

  “I took that seriously, Dad. I’ve never kept…I’ve never kept anything from you. Ever.” My son makes a hiccoughing sound and wipes his eyes. When he speaks again, his voice is pitched higher. “But you kept stuff from me. You went and—”

  “Stop,” I say. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “So you lied about that, you totally lied to me about Lauren, then it’s like, well maybe he did lie to me about the way he was after Mom, and what the fuck? What the fuck, Dad? I can’t believe you’d”—he sniffs, and wipes his nose on his sleeve—“you’d just tune out like that.”

  “Christopher,” I say, and another big wave throws the boat from side to side. “The time after Mom, I hardly even remember it.”

  “Well, I do.”

  “Maybe it happened like you remember it. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe I blocked out how bad it was. Did I lie to you about it? Did I lie to myself? Maybe when things were at their worst I did. I don’t want to lie to you, Chris. You are my son, okay? I know I don’t always say how I feel, but I know you know it. And when you left me, I was sick with worry, I was crazy. All this other stuff going on, it was like nothing compared to you being gone.”

  Chris says nothing.

  “So, what,” I go on, “you were going to stay with Uncle Mike?”

  “Why not? At least he never lied to me. I’ve never seen him get so wasted he passes out.”

  “Chris, I didn’t think I ever lied to you about Lauren, I just never told you.”

  He laughs, bitterly. “Oh, okay. So you just deceived me instead of lying to me. Thanks. That makes me feel a lot better.”

  “There’s no easy way I can explain it. Maybe when you’re older—”

  “Don’t even try to give me that ‘when you’re older’ crap, Dad.”

  “Maybe,” I say, “maybe someday when you have kids. Maybe you’ll have a son. If you have a son you will love him more than anything. I can’t explain the feeling. The only way you can understand it is when you’re there. But if you have a son you’ll love him, and you’ll do anything to keep him from being hurt. If he takes a tumble on his bike, you’ll wish it was you instead. If you see him get shoved on the playground, you’ll want to go find the kid who did it and shove him back. Your mom was the one who was hands-off, Chris. She always had to remind me that you needed room, that you needed to learn how to deal with being hurt on your own. That it was okay to have a scraped-up knee, or to get your feelings hurt a little bit. You can’t grow up without getting knocked around some. Your mom knew that, and I tried to remember it. I tried. I really did. Do you understand at all what I’m trying to say?”

  Chris looks at me without saying a word, and the sailboat bobs in the water.

  “But,” I go on, “here’s the thing, and you can’t…you can’t even know this until you’re a parent. You’ll do anything to keep your kid from being really hurt. You’d jump in front of a car or run into a burning building, or…I don’t know. I thought somehow that knowing about Lauren and me would really hurt you.”

  “I don’t care if you have a girlfriend, Dad. I don’t care if you get married again, even. I’ve always liked Ms. Downey—”

  “All right. I know that now. Maybe I was stupid for not knowing. Or for not trying to know. I just assumed it would hurt you, okay? I didn’t give you any credit. I didn’t realize it was more like a scraped knee than a burning building. I didn’t keep it from you because I was mean, but because I was stupid. I didn’t trust that you’d be able to deal with it. I didn’t understand that you needed to deal with it, just like I needed to deal with it. I didn’t want you to be hurt. Do you understand?”

  My son twists further away from me, resting his chin against the padded lifeline as he stares down at the water.

  “Chris, can you understand that, even if it wasn’t right, I didn’t tell you about Lauren and me because I didn’t want to see you hurt?”

  His head tilts in a barely perceptible nod.

  “I was stupid,” I say. “Do you understand how sorry I am?”

  Another nod.

  “Do you think you can forgive me?”

  There is a long pause, and Christopher turns his head away so that he’s looking forward along the length of the boat. Seconds pass, and finally he nods again.

  “Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Let’s get back home.” I take Tabby’s wheel and pull in the mainsheet until it tightens against the wind. The boat picks up headway again, and I turn us back toward shore and let the sheet out as we pick up speed.

  “I’m sorry, Chris.”

  “I wish you’d just told me.”

  “I know,” I say. “I wish I had too. I thought I was doing the right thing. I’m sorry.”

  “Just forget it, okay?”

  Pushed by the wind, we begin to roll over the waves toward shore. Alan and Leland watch from the fishing boat about a hundred yards away. Leland starts to come toward us as we start to pick up speed, but I make a broad motion with my arm to the shore and he waves back and throttles the boat up and out of our sight.

  I won’t ever just forget it. And I know Christopher won’t either.

  It takes us a couple hours to get back to the marina in Manistee. Alan and Leland are waiting on the docks, and they’ve arranged a slip for us to tie the boat in. Farther up the shore, Lauren stands by the parking lot, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. I wave, and she gives me a little wave back.

  As for Tabby, I figure I’ll call Peggy and explain everything when we’re home, and I can come down to return the boat later in the week. I doubt she was planning to use it for anything.

  I gather Christopher’s things up down below and stuff them into his gym bag. The red milk crate is crammed up in the forward bunk, and I leave it there. Chris doesn’t say anything when we’re back up on the dock. Leland greets him with a soft hello, and Alan puts his arm over my son’s shoulders.

  “Bet your legs are a little wobbly, huh? Couple days out on the water, that always did it to me. I bet you’re tired too. You look cooked.”

  He’s not the only one feeling cooked. With the relief of having my son next to me, safe, I feel like I could fall over and sleep for a day.

  I sit between Chris and Lauren the back seat of the Navigator while we return to the airport. He says nothing to her. He says nothing to any of us. My son is exhausted, I can see it in his face, but I can see he’s curious about how we got down here, and why we’re traveling in a giant SUV that obviously does not belong to us. We pile out by Leland’s plane and the same kid who greeted us before takes the car away, and we clamber into the Cessna and Alan shows Chris the proper way to wear his headset.

  “You ever flown in a small plane?” Alan asks him as we taxi down to the end of the runway. Chris shakes his head.

  “It’s pretty fun, Christopher,” Leland says. “It’s the only way to travel.” I turn back to Lauren, alone in the third row of seats, and she weakly laughs and shakes her head with a look that says: Never again.

  We lift off, gracefully slipping up from the runway, and Alan banks the plane to make a pass over the marina before we head back north.

  “There she is, Chris,” Alan says. “Your grand getaway.”

  “Slowest getaway ever,” Leland teases, gently, and he twists back to smile at Chris. Chris doesn’t see, though. He’s looking down at the boat.

  We don’t talk as Alan flies us back up along the beach. The sun sinking to the west, filling the plane with a deep golden glow. I turn back to check on Lauren, and see that she’s dozed off. I think Chris might be asleep too, but then he speaks and the sound of his voice over our headsets startles us all.

  “Mr. Massie?” he asks, furrowing his brow. “Should you be flying this plane?”

&
nbsp; Alan drives the Prius to drop Chris and me off at home. I unload his bags while my son goes straight to his room. He lies on his bed, fully clothed, and covers his eyes with his hands. I go outside to get his last duffel, and give Lauren a quick call.

  “I told you he’d be home,” she says.

  “I know,” I say. “You were right all along.”

  “You still have some stuff over here at Al and Kristin’s, should I bring it all back to your house, or do you need me to wait a bit?”

  “Hold up on that. Let me talk with Chris a little first.”

  I head back inside and peek into his room.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask.

  “More just tired,” he says, still covering his eyes. “Really, really tired.”

  I enter his room and sit on the floor, leaning my back against his bed.

  “Am I going to get in trouble for this, Dad?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “We need to call Mrs. Mackie to let her know where her boat is. I’ll call her in a little while.”

  “Maybe I should call her. I’m the one who took the boat.”

  “How about I’ll call first, tell her what happened, and you can talk to her after that. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Chris doesn’t say anything for a long time. After a while I hear him sigh.

  “Am I in trouble with you?” he asks.

  “God, no.” I shake my head. “You’re not in trouble with me.” I consider this for a moment, this whole concept of ‘trouble,’ and I let out a laugh. “What about me? Am I in trouble with you?”

  “How could you be?” Chris asks.

  “I lied to you,” I say. “Or, okay, I deceived you. You deserve to be angry. But,” I add, “if I’m in trouble, I think you punished me enough. Let’s call it even.” Chris laughs through his nose. I look at him and see his eyes are still shut. “Lauren has some of my stuff over at Alan’s house. She was going to bring it over here, but I understand if you—”

  “Dad, I don’t care about Lauren. I mean, I told you, I don’t care if you have a girlfriend, okay? I wasn’t even that pissed because you lied to me. It was finding you passed out. That’s why I blew up. I thought I was losing you. I guess I panicked. That’s why I was mad.”