The Smell of Other People's Houses

by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

  “I’ll finish that one up, Sam. Here, give me your knife.” If the fish aren’t cleaned quickly, they turn stiff as a board, and then we get a lower price. But something tells me the look on my dad’s face right now has very little to do with salmon.

  Sam returns to running the gear, flipping the hydraulics that pull in the fishing lines like he’s been doing it for years. He runs all four lines that are trolling behind the boat, grabbing each hook as it goes by and clipping it onto the rail on the stern in a straight little line. Hoochies flap on the ends of the hooks—rubber squid made of all different colors and sizes—to entice the fish. “When I was a kid I used to name them,” I say, “but I got lazy and after a while they were all just called Spot.” He smiles at me. Since when did crooked teeth ever make me feel like this?

  When Sam sets the gear again, he holds up each hoochie and says, “Name?” I throw out whatever comes to mind—Petey, Pinky, Fatty, Dogface—but he likes naming them after poets. “Whoever heard of a hoochie named Emily Dickinson?” I ask him, and he just says, “Whoever heard of naming a hoochie at all?”

  Sam’s strong enough to land kings, so Dad lets us do all the work if we aren’t too slammed. Uncle Gorky still does all the icing in the fish hold, and he helps us clean if we get into a thick patch. I know Dad would rather sit in the wheelhouse eating peanuts and talking to Sunshine Sam on the radio. Every so often he dumps the shells out the window and they float past us, bobbing along on the waves as a reminder, to me, anyway, that there are more people than just me and Sam on this boat.

  —

  “So…what about those ballet slippers?” Sam asks, slapping a bright-red coho onto the deck; its scales glint silver and black in the sun, reflecting off the aluminum bait shed like disco lights.

  The fish flaps around, hitting the bin boards a few times, until I stab it in the gills with a knife and blood pools out onto the black mat.

  I don’t say anything. I’m out of practice talking about myself on this boat.

  I grab the fish’s tail and slide it to the side so it can bleed all the way out.

  “It’s really pretty, isn’t it?” Sam says, pointing his orange glove at the bloody mat. Streaks of red are smeared against the black rubber background, and they remind me of a tuxedo cummerbund or a fiery red sunset. I was going to rinse it off to keep the blood from splashing us when we land more fish, but the look on his face makes me pause. “What do you see?” he asks me.

  “Blood?” I say. The words tuxedo and sunset suddenly seem too ridiculous, as if I’m talking about a prom date rather than a dead fish.

  “It looks like the tail feathers of a huge tropical bird,” he says, a true poet.

  I spray the hose and the blood pools into the far corner, flowing out through the vents and into the ocean. Sam looks into my eyes and says, “You must miss dancing if you’ve hung your slippers up above your bunk.”

  I shift in my rubber boots. After standing for hours on a cement deck with cold water rushing over them, my feet are chunks of ice.

  “I bet you’re really good…,” he says cautiously, sensing that it’s a sensitive topic. “A good dancer, I mean.”

  “I could be,” I admit, yanking my eyes away from his. “The auditions are happening in early August, and if I want to get into a college dance program, I have to be accepted this summer. It’s a small window to make it as a dancer. But it’s right in the middle of fishing season, so it’s not going to happen. But,” I add hastily, “it’s not that big a deal.”

  This could be the biggest lie I’ve ever told, and he’s not buying it.

  “Does your dad even know about it?”

  I’m afraid I’ll start crying. It really does seem like a stupid thing to cry over. Doesn’t anybody understand that I feel like even asking is letting my dad down? Why does that seem so obvious to me, and so dumb to people like Sally and Izzy and Selma—and now Sam? But he doesn’t actually say that. He doesn’t say anything.

  Instead he pulls me in close, and I think for a minute that he’s going to kiss me.

  “You’ve got some blood on your nose,” he says, wiping my face with an orange-gloved finger. “Oops, I think I just made it worse.”

  “Well,” I say, “you’re pretty bloody yourself. Here, let me help you.”

  And without warning I lift the hose and spray him right in the face. He shouts and grabs the other hose, and a full-on water fight ensues. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dad shake his head and shut the wheelhouse door to keep the damage contained on the back deck. Just as he ducks inside, though, I watch a shadow cross his face. How much of that did he just hear?

  —

  Later we anchor up in Crawfish Inlet and Dad says we can take the Pelican out and paddle around before dinner. It’s supposed to blow tonight, so we pulled the gear early and got inside to shelter, but so far there isn’t a hint of what the forecast promised. Sam asks if he can row, so I lie back and trail my hand over the side, watching the water ripple past.

  “This is my favorite place,” I tell him. “I shot my first deer up on that ridge. From the top you can see all the islands within spitting distance. When I die, I want my ashes scattered here.”

  “You’re the weirdest ballerina I’ve ever met.”

  I watch him as he rows the raft that saved him. He is wearing my uncle’s sweatshirt that says IF YOU MUST SMOKE, SMOKE SALMON. It’s weird to see this boy in my family’s clothes—as if we’ve created him out of nothing. Or we’re making him into something because he is our found object. My found object. I push away the thought that it’s probably very unfair to do that to someone.

  “You okay?” I ask him.

  He shrugs—another gesture he picked up from my dad and uncle. Maybe it comes with the clothes.

  “You can tell me,” I say, but I sound pushy.

  He looks at me and his lips form a half-smile. I never knew how much I liked being noticed before, being smiled at. Even partially smiled at.

  “Old habit…,” he says, and then stops.

  I wait. He is struggling to find words, which I already know is unusual for him.

  “Ever since my dad went missing, I felt like I was being disloyal if I didn’t think about him every single minute…” The pauses between his sentences are so long, I hold my breath waiting for him to finish. “But I get it, he’s really gone.”

  “I’m sorry about your dad” is all I can think to say.

  “It’s not that. It’s just…I figured Hank was mad at me, but it seems like a long time for him not to try to find me. Maybe he didn’t see me get rescued. What if he thinks I’m dead?”

  “Oh.”

  I should say something, but what? What did I expect he was thinking? That he’s never had so much fun in his life, cleaning fish and smelling humpy poop and being with me? What did I think he was, a stray puppy? Daddy, can I keep him?

  “Well, my dad could call the ferry again.” I try not to sound like I hoped he was thinking about me.

  “Are you jealous?” he says. But it sounds like a statement, not a question.

  “Of course I’m not.”

  “Really? You seem like it. A tiny bit?”

  I flick water at him from the side of the boat, trying to hide what he clearly sees.

  “Watch it,” he says. “These are probably the last dry clothes anyone is going to lend me.”

  This is definitely true, so I stop.

  “Tell me about your brothers,” I say.

  Why do I keep lying? I get it that he’s going to think about his brothers, but every time it feels like we might be getting closer, he pulls away. Is it wrong that I want him to say he’s thrilled that I saved him and he’s never been happier, and then I want him to shut up and kiss me already?

  “I think you should tell your dad that you want to dance,” he says. “It’s obvious how much he loves you—he’d just want you to be happy.”

  I don’t know if I’m angry at him all of a sudden because I’m embarrassed about my obvio
us feelings, or sad that he’s going to leave soon. Or maybe I wish my dad would help me get what I want, as much as he’s trying to help Sam.

  “You’ve been on this boat for less than two weeks, and you think you know us?” I snap.

  He looks stunned. I’m surprised, too, at how my words crack out of my mouth like a whip. I don’t sound like myself at all.

  But I’ve kept my nose out of his business; I haven’t asked what he was running away from or why he was even on the side of that ferry anyway. Now he’s trying to tell me what to do, like he knows my dad better than I do?

  “You’re talking to me like I’m an idiot,” he says.

  “Idiot is a bit strong; maybe you’re just overly optimistic about how easy it is to talk to my dad.” I try to calm down, to not sound mean.

  How did this go so terribly wrong?

  “Well, you should meet my brother Jack someday,” he says, turning the Pelican to port and heading back to where the Squid is anchored. “He makes me look like a pessimist.”

  I’ve hit a nerve with him, too.

  “My life’s just kind of…complicated,” I mumble.

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t know anything about that,” he says. “Mine has always been cake.”

  He digs in hard with the oars as the clouds roll in and choppy waves slap against the Pelican.

  —

  We’re climbing back on board the Squid when I hear the marine operator through the speaker on the deck. “Marine vessel Matanuska, calling fishing vessel Squid, do you copy?”

  My dad answers, “This is W-A-J-eighty-four-eighty-five the Squid, channel ten?”

  “Roger, channel ten.”

  He switches it away from sixteen, the Coast Guard emergency call channel, and over to ten. I imagine half the fleet is switching to ten as well. It’s the fishermen’s version of daytime soap operas, eavesdropping on everyone’s marine radio calls.

  Sam’s face has gone an ashy-gray color, our little squabble forgotten.

  I tie the Pelican’s bowline to the Squid’s stern, and we go stand outside the wheelhouse door. I don’t think Dad heard us come back.

  “So, those boys you wondered about? They turned themselves in,” says a scratchy voice from deep inside the radio. “Prince Rupert.”

  “Are they headed back this way?” my dad asks.

  “No, they had to be handed over to authorities and it’s all private—looks maybe like some kind of domestic issue.”

  “How long ago?”

  “About a week and a half.”

  Sam has been with us all that time, and I can see he’s doing the math in his head, too.

  “Any idea where they’ve been sent?”

  “Looks like a social worker stepped in and they’re moving them to Fairbanks. We were just going over the call logs and saw that you’d been asking.”

  Sam holds his breath.

  I wait for my dad to say something about Sam, but he just shakes his head a little and says he thought he might know the boys, but he was wrong. “Thanks for the shout. W-A-J-eighty-four-eighty-five the Squid, clear.”

  Sam looks like he might need the bucket. But when my dad puts the mike back on the hook, Sam says adamantly, “Hank never would have turned himself in. Never.”

  The word Fairbanks echoes inside my head, like it’s bouncing off the wheelhouse walls. They’ve been sent to my hometown?

  Sam opens the wheelhouse door. “You didn’t tell them about me,” he says to my dad.

  “It’s not my secret to tell,” Dad says, not at all surprised to see us. “I’d check with you first.”

  My dad is staring out the window. My mom left him because she said he wasn’t capable of caring about people, just boats and engines and killing things. But she is wrong. I imagine rebuilding an engine is a hell of a lot easier than making decisions that affect other people’s lives. And then it hits me: Dad’s doing this for Sam because he knows I care about Sam. He’s doing it for me.

  “Do you want to go north and find your brothers?” he finally asks.

  Sam just nods.

  “We’ll go to town tomorrow, then,” Dad says. “You’ve worked hard enough to earn a plane ticket.”

  There’s another interminably long pause as I think about Sam leaving. When Dad starts talking again, I can barely follow what he’s saying.

  “Alyce needs to get back to Fairbanks anyway, if she’s going to make that audition. You two can fly north together.”

  “Dad?” But he’s still looking out the window, not at me. I walk over and lean my head against his shoulder. His green raincoat is wet and smooth and stinky, like an orca’s nose. He smells of salt and wind and more love for me than I probably deserve. He pats my hair and, as if he’s talking to the ocean, says, “You should have just asked.”

  “But how will you fish without me?” I whisper.

  Uncle Gorky coughs loudly from the day bench. “I’m not totally useless,” he says.

  It’s all too much for my dad, especially since I’m squeezing him so tight around the neck now that he can barely breathe.

  I remember my dad saying that sometimes you can be inserted into another person’s life just by witnessing something you were never really supposed to be a part of. I think about the chicken lady and how she may be the only person who saw what happened to Sam. It linked her to us in a weird way, even though she couldn’t tell us anything.

  Maybe that’s happened with the pregnant girl that ran out of the mercantile, too—she was looking at me and then she just fell apart. Did I get inserted somehow into her story?

  Isabelle is looking at the dent in the door of her beloved Datsun. “Being pregnant can make people very emotional,” she says. “Not that I would know firsthand; that’s just what they say.”

  She bends over and scratches some green paint off the yellow door with her key. “I don’t think we can drive it like this.” She tries to shut it, but it hangs crooked, refusing to latch. “Well, at least we’re still in Canada. It’s cheaper to fix it here. You don’t mind, do you? One more day?”

  I barely hear what Isabelle is saying. I’m too distracted thinking about that girl. I’ve never seen someone my age pregnant before. She looked young, anyway, running out the door with her blond ponytail bobbing behind her. On the ground right where the truck was is the red ribbon I noticed in her hair as she left.

  I pick it up and stash it in my pocket. Isabelle keeps talking. “Maybe they have their babies young in this part of the world.” She doesn’t sound like a social worker. Aren’t they supposed to care about things like teen mothers?

  Jack raises an eyebrow, but grins just the same. Isabelle has grown on him, I can tell. He slips something square and heavy into my hand and then hops into the backseat of the car. PERPETUAL SORROW SOAP, the label says. It smells flowery.

  “I’m going to look up a number for a mechanic,” says Isabelle, heading over to the pay phone that’s hanging askew on the outside wall of the mercantile. It doesn’t look long for this world; she’d better hurry. I lean into the open window and whisper to Jack, “Are you saying I should wash with this for an uplifting experience?”

  “That’s what she and the nun were delivering in the store. They had boxes of those soaps. Read the back.”

  Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow is an order of Roman Catholic nuns whose main purpose is to live a simple life of worship and devotion to God through prayer, chastity, and solitude. We hope you enjoy our soaps.

  “I didn’t think nuns could get pregnant,” Jack says, and I bonk him on the head with the soap.

  “She isn’t a nun, Jack.”

  “Oh, she’s a soap maker, then?” He leans out of reach in case I don’t like that idea, either.

  I don’t want to talk about this anymore. But if Isabelle wants to stay another day, maybe I can at least take her ribbon to her and see if she’s okay.

  “Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow is the abbey on the road that heads west out of town,” the man behind the counter says when I go b
ack in the mercantile to ask. “But if you want their stuff, you have to buy it here. They’re cloistered. No visitors.”

  “Oh, okay. I was just curious,” I say nonchalantly.

  The man surveys me under bushy eyebrows. “Of course, there’s a little campsite on the river with a view of the abbey that only the locals know about. You aren’t plannin’ any vandalism or trouble for the nuns, are ya?”

  “No, no, absolutely not. I was just interested in seeing what an abbey looks like.”

  “Well, you can see it through the trees on this side, and I have to say, you can hear the bells and listen to ’em singin’ and it’s quite lovely.” He draws a little map on the back of a matchbook. “Don’t make me regret givin’ ya this.”

  “No, I promise. Thanks a lot.”

  —

  We spend the night in the car right outside the auto body shop. Isabelle is a queen at sleeping while sitting straight up in the driver’s seat. She’s been sleeping like that all the way from Prince Rupert, over thirteen hundred miles. Jack and I put the backseat down and curl up together under a moth-eaten blanket, which Isabelle says could save our lives in a pinch.

  A guy in greasy coveralls bangs on the window early the next morning, yelling as if he’s had way too many cups of coffee, “Rise and shine. We’re ready to fix your car.”

  I can tell Jack doesn’t buy my excuse that I just want a quiet walk alone in the woods. I wouldn’t, either. He gives me a look equivalent to being put through a lie detector test, which I’m sure I fail. But all he says is, “Lots of mosquitoes out there; have fun.” He and Isabelle pull out the cribbage board that Phil gave him and prepare to spend the morning in a booth at the Gold Rush Diner.

  It’s a lot farther to the secluded road than it looks on the matchbook, and by the time I get there, I’m tired and sweaty and wondering what the hell I’m even doing. I’m also covered in bug bites. It’s totally deserted, so I strip down and plunge my hot, sticky body into the river before more mosquitoes can get me, just as the abbey bells begin to chime.