16. Caden
CHAPTER 16
Caden
I’ve got that old familiar weight on my chest this morning – the one that lets me know the day is going to hurt like fuck.
I’m feeling off, like I might boil over or break down in tears, and I can’t afford to do either. I had to come out here to the river, to get away from the lodge for a bit and clear my head.
Grief fucking sucks.
You can prepare for the birthdays, the anniversaries, and the recurring memories that come with seeing the date they died on the calendar each year. But not so much the random Tuesdays, or days like today, where remembering comes out of nowhere, like a sucker punch to the gut. Reminding you that they’re gone, and they’re gone forever. The days where you wake up yearning for something you’ll never have again.
I’ve been fishing all my life, but today I’m doing no better than the rookies I bring out here. I’m dressed the part in waders and rubber boots, up to my knees in the Braggan River, but failing to catch a single thing, no matter how many times I cast out.
I think the trout can sense my mood, my negative energy moving through the water in ripples and pushing away whatever it comes in contact with. Nothing new there. That’s what I do – keep the world out when things get dark, push everyone away so they don’t have to deal with my bullshit.
You can’t blame the fish for wanting no part in it.
Dad used to bring me out here whenever we visited from BC, bought me my first rod and showed me everything I’d need to know about this spot. This was our place. We’d come out here in the summers and catch up with Stella and Frank. It was a happy place then, but it doesn’t feel like that now. If anything, it’s rubbing salt into my wounds.
I miss him.
I miss them both.
I don’t know whether to sit in sadness or anger or fall down on my knees and scream up at the sky, demanding the answers that I know I’ll never be able to hold.
I’ve long forgotten their voices. I was so young when they died that I never had the chance to see it coming. It didn’t cross my nine-year-old mind that there could be a world where they weren’t part of it. I didn’t have any time to prepare, to commit their voices to memory, to bottle up the moments we spent together so that I could go back to them when we didn’t have any time left.
Instead, I was robbed. Robbed when they left and then robbed again every day since. Losing them little by little in the process of forgetting, until I’m not really sure if I’m remembering them right at all, or just clinging to the hope that I do.
I rub my thumb over the keyring in my pocket, one tiny reminder of the ‘us’ we were, before we lost it all.
You’d think this would all get better with time, that by thirty-three I’d have learned how to move through this feeling. But I’m still here struggling, letting the loss eat away at me until there's nothing left.
A tug at my line pulls me out of my thoughts and back to the river. I draw back on my rod slightly, slowly reeling in against the tension, but it breaks all too soon, and the first fish of the day swims off, taking any hopes of a successful catch with it.
“Fuck this shit.” I make my way out of the reeds towards the bank, throwing my rod onto the grassy mound in frustration. I should know better than to throw my toys around like a toddler, but I can’t help feeling like the world is conspiring against me today, kicking me when I’m already so far down.
Doug lifts his head. He’s been sleeping in the bed of the truck, wrapped in blankets while I’ve tried to shake off this mood. On days like this, he keeps me going. I don’t know what I’d do without this scruffy mutt depending on me for his every whim, dragging me out of bed even when I don’t want to see the light of day.
He bounds down towards me, using the tailgate as a launch pad, and lands in an awkward lump by my side. I give his greying jowls a scratch and slump down next to him, letting my head rest in the dewy grass as my tired eyes fall shut.
I want to forget everything, to clear my mind until it’s completely blank, so I can get back to the lodge and help Maura with the set up for the day. It’s one of the biggest weekends of the year. We’ve got wood to chop, deliveries to pack away, furniture to move. She needs me, and she definitely won’t benefit from me sulking in the corner, wishing things had turned out different.
Doug repositions himself over my chest, his full weight pressing down into me, as though he can sense the anxiety mounting within me as I run through a mental inventory of all of the things I need to do when I get back to the lodge.
“I wish you were here, Dad,” I call the words out loud, thankful there’s nobody around to see how mad I’ve become. “I wish I could talk to you, that you could tell me what to do.”
“I’m always here with you, son.”
I jerk, certain I’m losing my mind, but careful not to open my eyes for fear of losing his voice, or the image of him that’s slowly being etched in my mind.
“Dad?” The words are mine.
He’s standing in the river, knee deep, just as I was, summoning me to come join him under the warmth of the sun. I don’t move from my spot by the water’s edge, but a younger version of me runs across my mind, bounding into his arms, creating a splash as he goes.
I watch the two of them, trying to slow down the seconds as the boy wriggles free of his father’s arms and dunks his tiny hands into the cool water.
“These waters — ” Dad points to the shallow ripples, a mirror image of the two of us reflected, both adult men now “ — hold more than just fish. They heal too. You did the right thing coming out here, trying to clear your head, to straighten it all out. There’s no better place to find the answers you’re looking for. Life hasn’t treated you kindly, Caden, but despite everything, you’ve turned out to be a good man. The kind your mom and I would always have hoped for, son.”
“It doesn’t feel that way,” I reply, honesty feels like the easiest thing in the world now that he’s here with me. “It feels like I’m failing every day, like I’m less of a man with all of these feelings getting in the way, keeping me from the things I should be doing.”
“Oh, Caden.” I wish I could bottle his voice. “A good man is someone that the ones you love can depend on, a man who sticks to his word – that’s you. I’ve never seen you let anyone down. Not Maura, not Josie, not Doug, not even those god-awful city slickers.” He laughs at that, his face fading now, waning with each word spoken. “You’re not failing just because you’re hurting, Caden. I see you being so incredibly strong. It’s okay to break down, to cry, to yearn. That doesn’t make you any less of a man. The ones who love you don’t need you to be perfect, they just need you to be you, to show up, to stay. Promise me that you’ll keep choosing to stay, son.”
I reach out to him, trying to hold him, to give him my promise, if only to keep him here with me a little longer.
But he’s gone.
And when I open my eyes, I realize he was never really there in the first place – just my mind playing tricks on me, reminding me how much I’ve lost.