The Fish House

Mia

Dad was right about the fish house. It

was

small.

A cute little 7x20 shack on the ice, the fish house had two little windows on either side of the door and a separate outhouse. Someone had plowed the area around the house and the ice gleamed in the late morning sun. Inside, the flooring was a dark waterproof carpet and the knotty pine walls were adorned with various lake ornaments, rustic signs that read "Gone fishing" or "Life is better at the Lake." The windows were flanked with trout print curtains with lacy swags that looked like fish netting. On the right end of the house, open shelving waited empty over a small kitchenette and a tiny card table was pushed up against one wall with two nylon, fold up chairs. On the left end, opposite the kitchenette, was a built-in bunk bed. The lower was a double, the upper a single, both padded with a thick foam mattress. Along the back wall were six covered holes and a long narrow shelf for fishing poles to rest on. At least the fish house was clean, which put to bed one of my worries, and after driving across the ice for a half hour with open windows, the cozy inside of the fish house was a much needed relief. But I couldn't get over the cramped conditions and I began to feel anxious about the week. Seven days. Alone. With Dad.

As I tossed my bag up on the top bunk, I wondered what the hell were we going to talk about for a whole week.

*

To be clear, it wasn't my idea to go ice fishing. It wasn't really Dad's idea, either.

Three days ago, Dad called. Ordinarily, Dad called around this time of year every year to encompass belated holiday cheer and early birthday wishes. Obligatory stuff. It was normal to catch up for a few minutes, at least until the small talk got stale. When I asked what Dad was up to, he mentioned the ice fishing trip he was taking with a buddy of his. I told him I hoped he would have fun, as any normal human would say when another human being mentions something they're looking forward to.

But then, Dad went off-script.

"Sam's not coming anymore," he said with a sigh. "Somethings come up with him. You know how he is."

Barely. I have met Sam only a handful of times. In fact, I was a kid the last time I'd seen Dad's friend and the only thing I remember about him was he had a different woman hanging on his arm every time I saw him. So if "you know how he is" meant he had a new girlfriend and was going to hang out with her instead, then yeah. I guess I did "know how he is."

"I like ice fishing, Dad," I said, wincing as I said it. Instant regret.

There was a moment of silence on Dad's end. Part of me hoped he would just say something breezy about how great ice fishing was and move on, but part of me was curious what he'd say. He was always saying how much he regretted not spending more time together when I was a kid, how we should have found more to do together, even if it wasn't convenient with his new second wife. And later, his third.

Well, here I am, Dad! I'm not a kid anymore, but we can still make up for lost time!

Couldn't we? I mean, maybe at some point it's got to be too late. Once an absent father, always an absent father.

"Do you..." he started.

"Yeah?" I said. It was half an acknowledgment that he'd started a question, half a response to the question I thought he was asking.

"You do?"

"Do what?"

The clumsy exchange was par for the course with us and probably had something to do with us not getting together when I was a kid.

Dad chuckled. "Do you want to come fishing with me? The house is small but there's two beds."

Unfortunately, this was a very good time for me to go ice fishing and I had more or less told him that already. It was part of the obligatory small talk earlier in our phone call. I had just graduated college in December and although I kept this part to myself, I had also just broken up with my boyfriend of 9 months a few weeks ago. So, I was free. Totally without plans.

"Sure," I said, mind blanking on any plausible excuse. "Unless..."

"Unless?"

"I mean, I understand if it's not a good time."

Not a good time had always been his perfect excuse. General enough not to say anything specific but always with the hope that someday

would

be a good time. But let's face it, it would never be a good time for Wife #2 or Wife #3.

"I'd love it if you came," he said. He actually sounded genuine about it.

"What about Steph?"

"You mean Stacy? Ah, well, she doesn't like ice fishing. Or any kind of fishing."

That's right. Stacy. Future Wife #4. If Dad knew one thing, he knew how to get married. Staying married was the problem. Wife #1, my mom, I could see that not lasting. They married young, had me, and divorce was on the rise back then anyway, becoming fashionable and accepted, even expected, so yeah. Divorce. But then came his next couple marriages and you sort of had to wonder...maybe Dad was the problem.

And that's how our trip to Lake of the Woods came to be. An accident. Neither of us could come up with an excuse fast enough and after the arrangements had been made, I felt too guilty to cancel. I'll admit when Dad picked me up at my apartment this morning (early, like, practically-still-last-night, early) I was curious how things this week would go, but if the ride up was any indication, we might as well have been taking a trip to Awkward City.

It was a four hour drive to the Lake of the Woods, most of it silent.. There was a good bit of it where I pretended to fall asleep and other parts when we were in a drive-through ordering coffee or a late breakfast to go. The rest we filled with stilted conversation and took turns finding a radio station after the previous one went out of range. We both liked rock at least. He leaned more hair-bands. I leaned more alternative. But we could appreciate both.

When we got to the lake, we trundled along the ice in Dad's small pick up. Seat belts off. Windows open. For safety. It was still another half hour to the site, and maybe it was the cold, sharp air whistling in that woke us up, but it was like someone flipped a switch and the spillway gates opened.

Dad was fiddling with the radio, trying to find something without static, when he said, "It's been an especially mild winter. Usually we'd be twenty miles out, but the ice is too thin out there."

The idea of thin ice stressed me out a little. I looked out the open window at the wind blown snow drifts, as far as I could see, the cold air tousling my hair away from my face. "How far out are we going?"

Desperate, Dad started the seek function, but the radio was coming up with only static. Dad hated static. When I was a kid, he had one of those old radios you tune in manually and he was endlessly pulling the wide button out and shoving it back in to fix his presets. "Less than 10 miles. Don't worry. The ice is thick where we'll be at. At least 19 inches."

"So what is Steph--I mean Stacy--doing this weekend while you're away?"

Dad gave up and shut off the radio. Reception was going to be bad out here. "I'm not sure," Dad said, looked into his rear view for some reason. We were the only ones on the ice.

"How long have you been dating?"

"About two years ago."

If I had my timeline right, there was a bit of overlap with Stacy and the finalization of Dad's divorce from Wife #3.

"So you like her?" These were questions to pass the time. Easy questions. Easy answers. Nothing too deep.

"Actually, we broke up two weeks ago."

Dad was looking out the rear view again and when he reached up to adjust it I realized he'd switched one obsession for another, the radio for the rear view.

"What? Dad, why didn't you tell me?"

"You know," he said, shifting uncomfortably. "It never really came up."

I couldn't help laughing. It was a bit humorless. "Never came up? Dad, I've been asking about her like an idiot."

"I just...didn't know how to tell you." He looked sideways at me.

Didn't know how to tell me? Up until three days ago I thought her name was Steph. It wasn't going to break me.

Of course he cheated on her. He cheated on Mom with Wife #2. He cheated on Wife #2 with Wife #3. I wasn't going to say it, but I knew it. It was pretty obvious.

"What happened?"

He shrugged and reached up to touch the rear view mirror again, modifying it back the way it was. I didn't think he was going to say anything else, but then he said, "She said she wanted more romance in her life."

This was new. I didn't quite know what to say to that. This was a pretty intimate detail to know about a parent's love life. I'd never been disclosed a detail like this before.

I looked at Dad. Really looked at him, as a person, not a parent, who didn't have all the answers, who was, let's face it, unlucky at love. He was almost in his middle years, still pretty young as lives tend to go. He still had all his hair. Most of its brown color. He dressed nice. Smelled good. Kept clean. Stayed trim. He was only 17 when I was born, Mom was 16. Teenage pregnancy, followed by teenage marriage. What the hell did he know about life. About love. About anything, really.

I tried to remember what I knew at 17, which wasn't all that long ago. I had an older boyfriend, Bryan with a "Y." I thought that made

me

older, but the truth was, it only made

him

younger. Mom had me on birth control at 14, adamant I wouldn't turn out like her. I couldn't imagine having a kid at 14. Or 16. Or even now at 22. Or ever. I was still on the fence about motherhood. And I couldn't imagine having a baby with Bryan with a "Y" when I was 17. I suspect he would have broken it off the instant I told him I was pregnant.

*

So now we were here, finally, at the fish house. Outside I could hear Dad firing up the generator and a moment later, hot air spewed from vents under the kitchenette. When I had properly defrosted, I went back out to unload more of the truck to be helpful.

While the generator grumbled away on the ice, Dad brought out his auger from the truck and set it carefully by the fish house door. I was able to bring in a couple armloads of groceries before I realized four hours on the road drinking coffee and a 20 oz drive-through pop made me really have to go.

Dad walked me to the out house and showed me how to use the propane lights and the heater on the wall. The house was clean and thoroughly stocked with toilet paper and little black garbage bags that went into a bucket under a sturdy wooden structure with a built-in toilet seat. "Just tie off the bag and put it in the bin outside," Dad said.

When I was done and my bag was safely disposed in the outside bin, I took a moment to take in the frozen lake, the snow sparkling in the sunlight. We were the only fish house in the area, from horizon to horizon. It was incredibly beautiful. And incredibly isolating.

That made me think of something and I reached into my coat pocket for my phone. No internet. I raised it higher over my head and a barely-there bar flickered for a moment and disappeared. I knew this would be a possibility, but now that it was a reality, I wasn't sure how well I would cope without my socially acceptable buffer for silence.

When I returned, Dad had finished unloading the truck and had it parked out of the way. The coolers were stacked outside and I noticed a weeks worth of beer next to them.

Once we were settled and ready to fish, I told Dad it had been awhile since I'd been ice fishing and asked him for a refresher on how to bait a hook and use a rod and how to read the radar on the fish finder. When we first got our lines down, there was some excitement as a flurry of fish began biting. All of them were too small and had to be thrown back. That helped pass the time, but by the afternoon the fish slowed down and so did we, sitting on chairs, watching our four holes. Dad liked to jig his rod, but I was content to watch my bobber for movement.

By dinner, I had caught the only keeper so far. Dad smiled at me and said, "Nice job, honey" and gently tossed it onto the ice outside for me. For dinner, Dad fried two pork chops with mushroom sauce on the gas stove top and roasted potatoes with olive oil and herbs in the oven. He offered me a beer with dinner and then looked vaguely impressed when I accepted.

"I didn't know you drank beer," he said.

I nodded. It wasn't my first choice, but I didn't want to be impolite. And having a beer with dinner might lower my anxiety a touch.

Dinner was good and I was hungry. I ate everything on my plate. After, I helped Dad clean up and then we settled in front of the ice holes for the evening, Dad jerking up his line every few seconds, pausing to lift the line of this second rod, just to see the radar pick it up on his fish finder. Dad was a fidgeter. Always fiddling with something, adjusting the dials, straightening the line on the pole, opening his plastic jig box and moving the tackle around to the different compartments. I think that was his way of expelling nervous energy, like when he played with the radio and adjusted the rear view mirror while we talked about his love life. I had the same nervous energy, except I stewed motionless in mine, pretending to focus on my bobber so I didn't have to think of conversation.

"Want another beer?" Dad asked pushing his tackle box back under the bed with the toe of his winter boot.

I did and Dad went outside long enough to bring back two chilled cans. I thanked him and took two long sips before just holding it and staring back at my holes. Neither bobber had moved. Dad, unsatisfied with one of his lines, reeled it back up, watching carefully as it came up on the fish finder, only to find his minnow still wriggling on the hook. He used his phone's flashlight to activate the glow lure and sent it back down.

Maybe it was the beer, but I started to wonder if I was squandering away this opportunity. The longest Dad and I had been together, not counting the first year of my life when he still lived with me and Mom, was one weekend at a time. And admittedly that wasn't alone. Either Wife #2 or #3 had been there and there was always a spare room for me to depart to for sleep or to just check on my overnight bag when I needed a few minutes to myself. I couldn't ask Dad the hard questions about Mom with his other wife in the room, at least not without expecting a real answer. This, I realized, was a rare opportunity to be with Dad and have a real conversation with him. I would likely not ever have a better time. I would be looking for a job in the cities soon and Dad would be with a new Steph or Stacy because, well, he was

Dad

, and he had a hard time being alone.

"So tell me about Steph, Dad," I said.

Dad gave me a look.

"Shit, Stacy," I amended. "I mean Stacy." That was probably the beer. I was blaming the beer on that one.

He grinned. "What would you like to know?"

Why you found her attractive? Why you cheated on Wife #3 to be with her? Why you broke it off with her so soon after the divorce was final? Those were all very accusing questions and I didn't have enough beer in me yet to get into that. Instead, I asked, "Where was she from?"

"The iron range. Her parents lived in Hibbing. She went to school up there, had two kids, married twice."

"What did she do?"

"Administrative work. At an elementary school."

"Were her kids nice?"

"I didn't see them much. One was in college and the other was busy in high school. Football player."

"And then one day she decided she needed more romance?"

He shrugged, mystified. Pretending to be mystified. "Sometimes things just run their course."

I took a large sip from my can, liquid courage. "You cheated on her, Dad."

"I cheated on her," he admitted in defeat, looking into the bottom of his beer can. When his eyes found mine, they were sad and I think even searching for some pity. "Do you hate me?"

"No, Dad. Curious, though." I finished my beer, set the empty can on the table. Here we go, let's ask those hard questions. "Why you keep sabotaging your relationships."

"I wish I knew, honey," he said, looking down to check that his bobbers were still there. They were. And he also knew the answer, he just didn't want to say it to me, his daughter, who's approval he apparently needed.

My intention wasn't to shame him, just understand.

He fiddled with the radar dials again, brushed some invisible dust off the plexi-glass screen. "What about you? Do do you have a boyfriend?"

"I did," I said. Okay, truth time. "We broke up three weeks ago."

His eyes found mine.

"It's not the same," I said.

"I didn't say it was."

Surely Dad understood the situation was different. I wasn't breaking up marriages when I broke up with someone. I was playing the field. Dad was just playing.

"Soooo," he said, using a tone that let me know I was going to have to give him some dirt. He gave me some, now I was to reciprocate. "Why'd you break up?"

"It got a little weird," I said carefully. "At the end."

He held my gaze, patiently waiting for more.

So, I looked him square in the eye. "The sex, Dad. The sex got weird at the end."

Dad looked down at his fish finder and laughed nervously. "I guess I deserve that."

A silence came over us, one more awkward than any silence that had ever existed in the history of silences. Did I really just tell Dad I broke up with my boyfriend because the sex got weird at the end?

"Although," Dad spoke up carefully, still not looking at me, tapping the plexi-glass as if it were malfunctioning. "Without going into

too

many details...I

am

curious."

"I think I'd need a few more beers in me first," I said.

He chuckled, swallowed the rest of his beer and got up to get another. When he returned with one for me, he said, "No pressure."

"Okay," I said.

He sat down, cracked open his can. "I just want to know how many times I should punch his face if I ever see him."

"Dad," I laughed. Still, I warmed pleasantly to his chivalry. I noticed how red Dad's lips looked just then. His cheeks, too, as if a little embarrassed by our conversation, but it could have been the sudden chill of the outdoors. "It's not necessary."

"I'll be the judge of it," he said, mockingly serious, but then gave me a wink before setting down his beer and picking up his pole.

That was my last beer for the night, not near enough to tell Dad about my weird sex, although he didn't ask again. I think for the most part he was kidding, or at least kidding himself. Dad was never going to punch anyone.

Around bed time, Dad set up two rattle wheels with fresh bait, lit up their glow sticks and sent them down the holes. I unpacked my warm flannel pajamas and carried them with me to the outhouse where I changed and peed. After, I tied off the garbage bag and set it in the bin on the way out. It seemed like overkill to use a whole bag for a few ounces of urine, but it was the polite thing to do for the next user.

On my way back, I saw Dad standing in the dark behind the fish house, his back to me, standing very still. I realized he was also peeing and I hurried to the door to give him some privacy. Once inside, I arranged my sleeping bag and pillows on the top bunk and got inside, nestling down for the night. It was warm at the ceiling and it was nice. Dad came in a few minutes later, saw me up here and smiled. "Goodnight."

"Night," I said.

He turned off all the overhead lights and left on the floor lights, which lit up each hole and made the ice glow a beautiful blue. He gave his fish finder one last glance and turned it off, too. The bed structure creaked and snapped as Dad sat on the edge of his bed below and I heard the rasp of his zipper and shuffle of his jeans as he pulled them off, then the static of his shirt as he tugged it over his head. Finally he crawled into his own double wide sleeping bag and we fell asleep to the drone of the running generator outside.