P. Parrish - Heart of Ice

The huge gray expanse of Lake Huron lay before him. And somewhere out there in the fog was Mackinac Island.

The channel was only four miles across, but he knew what he was up against. He had grown up in St. Ignace and spent the last five summers on the island making good money slapping fudge in the shops on Main Street and cleaning stalls at the stables. When the tourists left in October, the island closed down and the hard winters left the couple hundred residents there isolated and dependent on the coast guard icebreakers. But when it was cold enough the straits between the island and St. Ignace would freeze over. Someone on the island would venture out onto the lake with spud bars to test the ice’s thickness. If he made it to St. Ignace he’d call back with the news that it was safe. The townspeople would take discarded Christmas trees and plant them in the ice to mark the safe path across.

He glanced back over his shoulder at the redbrick coast guard building on Huron Street. There was a light on inside. The coast guard guys didn’t want people out on the ice bridge but they couldn’t stop them, so every year they sent out the same warning-tell someone if you go out on the ice bridge. For a second he thought about going up to the station.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t tell anyone where he was going. That was what they had decided. She wouldn’t tell her parents and he wouldn’t tell his father. No one could know.

He hoisted the duffel and stepped onto the ice. It groaned but held firm. He pulled in a deep breath and headed toward the first tree, just a dark shape in the mist.

At the tree, he stopped and looked back. The lights of St. Ignace were just yellow blurs in the fog. Looking ahead again, he spotted the next tree and started toward it.

The sun was now just a pale pink glow above the gray horizon, and out on the exposed lake the wind hit his face like needles. But he kept moving in a tentative shuffle, trying not to think about the deep cold water beneath his feet.

His head was throbbing by the time he reached the fifth tree. Its web of fake silver icicles danced in the wind. One small blue Christmas ornament clung to a branch.

Seeing it brought back the dream about the blue capsule and he realized now what it had meant. Just one month ago he had sat with his father in front of the TV watching a man pour hundreds of blue capsules into a huge jar. No Mayberry R.F.D tonight, just Roger Mudd staring back over his shoulder into the camera and whispering as a man in a suit and horn-rimmed glasses pulled out the first blue capsule.

September fourteenth, zero zero one.

His father, sitting in the shadows, had said nothing, just got up and went into the kitchen. Alone, Cooper watched as they put the little slip of white paper with his birthday on it up on a big board next to the American flag. He had never won anything in his life-except this. The luck of being among the first young men drafted into the Vietnam War.

His eyes drifted left again, toward Canada. He would be there soon enough, but right now he had to get to the island. Julie was waiting for him.

A loud crack, like a rifle shot.

He froze. Afraid to look down, afraid to even take a breath. Another crack.

Suddenly the world dropped.

Blackness. Water. Cold.

His scream died to a gurgle as the water closed over him.

He groped but there was nothing but water. Everything was getting heavy and darker. He had to get some air. He pushed the duffel off and kicked upward. But his hands hit only a ceiling of ice. He couldn’t find the hole; he couldn’t see anything; he couldn’t breathe.

He could almost feel his heart slowing in his chest, his blood growing colder.

Mom, I miss you.

Dad, I’m sorry.

Julie. .

Thursday, October 18, 1990

He stood at the railing of the ferry, the sun warm on his shoulders but the spray on his face cold.

Twenty-one years ago he had stood at the bow of a ferry much like this one. Then, the air had been filled with the smell of diesel, but now the ferry left nothing in its wake but a plume of white water and shimmering rainbows.

Then, it had all been about leaving behind the ugly memories of his foster homes in Detroit and going “up north” to the magic island just off the tip of the Michigan mitten. It had been about eating all the fudge his stomach could hold, seeing a real horse up close, and racing the other foster kids around the island on a rented Schwinn.

Now, it was all about her.

Louis Kincaid looked down at Lily. She was peering toward the island, so he couldn’t see her face. But he didn’t need to. He knew what this trip meant to her. He wondered if she had any idea what it meant to him.

Only seven months ago he had found out he was a father. It had been a shock, but from the moment he saw Lily he was grateful Kyla had not done what she’d threatened to do that night in his dorm room.

I’ll get rid of it.

And his response: Go ahead.

He looked down again at Lily’s crinkly curls.

Thank God. .

The case seven months ago that had taken him back to Ann Arbor had left him no time to get to know Lily. And once he returned to Florida the twelve hundred miles between them had felt like a million. He spent the next six months trying to convince Kyla that he wanted to be a part of his daughter’s life.

He sent Lily postcards from every place his work had taken him, from the glamorous mansions in Palm Beach to the dilapidated Gatorama in Panama City. At first Lily had sent nothing back, but then the letters began. Always short, always filled with drawings, always signed “Lily Brown.”

What had he expected-Lily Kincaid?

What was he expecting now?

He had no idea, but he was just glad Kyla-and Lily-were finally giving him a chance.

He hesitated, then touched her hair. She looked up.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

She shook her head and looked back to the island. It was late October, weeks past prime tourist season for Mackinac Island. Weeks past the date he had promised her he would come for her tenth birthday. But there had been an important case to finish and testimony to give.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come up last month,” Louis said.

“You already apologized,” Lily said.

“I know. And I know how much you wanted to come to Mackinac Island. But we’re here now.”

Lily leaned her head back to look at him. Her caramel-colored skin was damp with mist, her ringlets frizzed around her forehead. She was a pretty girl, with Kyla’s broad forehead and full pink lips. But it was her gray-felt eyes-his eyes-that brought a catch in his throat. He couldn’t read the look in her eyes now but felt the need to explain one more time.

“I was testifying in a trial,” Louis said. “Trials are important things, not just to the person in trouble but for the prosecutors, too. You can’t just not show up if you’re a witness.”

“Was it a murder trial?”

This was the first interest she had shown in his work.

“No,” he said, “it was insurance fraud. Do you know what that is?”

“Some kind of cheating?”

“Yes, it’s when-”

“Daddy solved a murder this week.”

She didn’t wait for his reaction, just turned away and waved to the other ferry that was crossing their wake.

Louis sighed. Lily’s stepfather, Eric Channing, the man who had raised her, was a police officer in Ann Arbor. He was a good man-no, he was more than a good man. He had been the one who convinced Kyla to tell Lily about Louis.

Louis and Lily hadn’t discussed their relationship during the five-hour drive up north. She had talked about school and ballet classes, her mother’s hat business. And about how Daddy had just been promoted to detective and how he now handled the important gross stuff like robberies and shootings and that she sometimes worried about him getting hurt. She’d also let it slip that her mother had told her that private eyes like Louis didn’t have to worry about getting hurt.