Bonnie Campbell - Once Upon a River

Junior was reading over the land contract with an absurd intensity. On the third page it was signed by both their fathers.

“Are you going to stay with Cal and Joanna?” Ricky asked.

“Ma said you’ll have to stay with us,” Junior said. He was gazing intently at Crane’s employee ID card now. “You can’t stay alone when you’re fifteen. Where else are you going to stay?”

“I turned sixteen on the twentieth.”

“If you’re staying with an aunt and uncle,” said Ricky, “maybe the cops won’t have to get social services involved.”

“Social services?” Margo took the ID card out of Junior’s hand. She had heard that kids who got involved with social services ended up living in group homes and with strangers who did weird things to them. And she was sure it would mean living far from the river. “I wish you were going to be home, Junior,” she said in a voice that felt slow. “Then it would be easier to stay at your house.”

“Me, too. I’ll be back at Christmas. Maybe then I can talk them into letting me stay home after that.”

Ricky and Junior seemed to move in slow motion as they pulled papers from the box—birth certificates, the title to the Ford. Margo noticed something else: a pink envelope with a handwritten address in the upper left corner, an address in Heart of Pines, Michigan. Her mother’s name was not written above the address, but Margo recognized her loopy, back-slanted handwriting.

“Daddy kept some of his papers on the counter by the toaster,” she said, and when Junior’s and Ricky’s eyes went to Crane’s pile of bills, Margo slipped the envelope out of the box and into her back pocket. She took out her own birth certificate and Crane’s and set them aside.

“Do you know about any other assets?” Ricky asked. “We need to get information on what he owned.”

“You’re not a lawyer, man,” Junior said.

“So? Somebody’s going to have to figure this out. And Nympho here can’t afford a lawyer.”

“He’s got his truck and a chain saw and his tools,” Margo said. She wiped her eyes and nose on her sleeve. She didn’t mention his rifle or shotgun.

“Savings account?” Ricky asked. He went into the bathroom and came out with a roll of toilet paper for Margo to use as a tissue. She unrolled a handful of it.

“He paid all his spare money against the land contract. Or to the dentist.”

“According to the land contract, it looks like the house goes back to my dad after two missed payments,” Junior said. “That’s bogus. I hope the dentist doesn’t want your teeth back.”

“Life insurance?” Ricky asked.

She shook her head.

Junior picked up one of the many photos of Luanne and nodded his head. “Do you know where your ma is? Dad always says we should drag her ass back to Murrayville. Maybe she’ll come back on her own now.”

“Look at this,” Ricky said, holding out a full-body photo of Margo’s ma smiling in a two-piece bathing suit. “She looks like a movie star. I remember her lying in the sun with her top off.”

Margo blotted her tears with her shirt sleeve.

“Show a little class, man,” Junior said and kicked at Ricky.

“I’m sorry, Nympho. You know we all miss her.”

Margo wished she could find a photo of her mother looking the way she remembered her, smiling sadly or frowning, even. Luanne used to lie in bed sometimes through whole winter days. She had let Margo cuddle with her or read a book in the bed. Luanne had seemed to take comfort from Margo’s presence.

Ricky Murray pulled from the tin box a new chocolate-colored leather wallet, identical to the one her father carried, and he handed it to her. Margo took from her pocket the wadded-up twenty-dollar bills she’d received from Brian Ledoux, straightened them, and put them into the wallet. She put in the Murray Metal ID card and the folded birth certificates, too.

“Did you know your dad wanted to be cremated?” Junior said.

She shook her head. “There’s no money for it.”

“You heard the cops. My dad will take care of it.”

She nodded. Though her sadness was powerful, the smoking had helped—Junior was right. Maybe she could survive her daddy’s death if she stayed outside herself this way.

Junior lit a second joint, and after his first exhalation, he said, “I won’t get to smoke again until Christmas. It’s hard as hell to smuggle anything into that prison. I’ll promise Mom and Dad anything if they let me come home. Or I’ll figure out a way to run off to Alaska and work on a fishing boat like Uncle Loring.”

“Do you think Billy will go to prison?” she asked.

“I don’t know what’ll happen to my hotheaded little brother. I know he’d end up in solitary if he went to my school.” Junior stood up. “I’ve got to go home, Nympho—I mean, Margo—and Ricky’s got to get back to work. He’ll drop us off at the house. Come on.”

“I want to bring my boat.”

“Grandpa’s boat? We can come back for it later.”

“I need to take a shower first. Please, just let me be alone for a little while.”

“All right. Don’t wait too long,” he said. “You’ll want to get there in time for Ma to make you go to church with her tonight. She really wants everybody to go.”

“I promise I’ll come along soon. Just go.”

He hugged her, gave her a joint in a baggie, and said, “Just in case.” He put a wintergreen candy in his mouth, popped one into hers, and left with Ricky.

When Margo was alone, she took the envelope out of her back pocket, opened it, and smoothed out the letter, one small pink page that matched the envelope, featuring a cartoon flamingo:

Dear Bernard,

I’m sorry it had to be this way with the divorce. You know I never belonged there with you people. I don’t think I can bear to see Margaret Louise right now. It would be too painful. I’ll contact you again, soon, when I’m in a better situation, and she and I can visit. Please don’t use this address except for an emergency, and please don’t share it with anyone else.

Love, Luanne

More important than what she said was the address on the envelope: 1121 Dog Leg Road, Heart of Pines, Michigan. Heart of Pines was the town thirty-five miles upstream, just beyond Brian Ledoux’s place, a town with lots of rental cabins and restaurants and bars, a place where you could buy hunting and fishing supplies. It had been an all-day trip when she’d motored up there and back with Grandpa. Beyond Heart of Pines the river was too shallow to navigate.

She went through the tin box one more time, chose three photos of her mother and closed them in the pages of Little Sure Shot. She put the book in her daddy’s old army backpack with Crane stenciled on it. She loaded the pack with her favorite items of clothing, plus a few bandannas, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a bar of soap, a bottle of shampoo, some tools and paper targets, and what her daddy called female first aid. When she stepped outside, she could not take her eyes off the sparkling surface of the water; maybe it was the pot she’d smoked, but the river was shimmering in the late afternoon sun as though it were speaking to her with reflected light, inviting her to come out and row. She loaded up The River Rose, tossed in an army sleeping bag, two life vests, a vinyl tarp, a gallon jug of water, and her daddy’s best fishing pole. She climbed in, fixed her oars, and pushed off.

Margo headed across the river toward the Murray place, rowing at first in slow motion so she ended up downstream and had to struggle back up. As she tied off her boat, she felt her daddy’s disapproval of the Murrays sift over her. Without him, she could cross the river and swim if she wanted, and she could pet the Murray dogs without getting yelled at. Crane could no longer get angry, and she would no longer be the reason for his or anyone’s living. Maybe if she kept reminding herself of this, she could survive without him. The thought of surviving without him made her cry again.