David Vann - Caribou Island

I think she might kill him.

What?

Rhoda stood up and walked into the bedroom. She lay facedown on the bed, closed her eyes, could feel her pulse beating fast. She was afraid her mother might kill her father or hurt him in some way. Or she might kill herself. Rhoda didn’t want to think this. She wanted to stop her thoughts.

A long delay, far too long, before Jim came to the bedroom. He sat beside her and put a hand on her lower back. They’ll be fine, he said.

No they won’t, she said, and she knew this was true. She didn’t know how she knew, and she couldn’t explain it to Jim. He wouldn’t believe her. She sat up and wiped her eyes. Jim wasn’t holding her. He was worthless to her. No help at all. Why was she with him? For the first time, she thought of not marrying him. Maybe she would be fine without him. It was only an engagement. I need to call Mark, she said. I need to get out there tomorrow.

Rhoda, Jim said.

Can you please just be quiet? She was holding her hands to her face, her eyes closed. She waited and he finally left. She scooted closer to the phone and dialed Mark.

Karen answered, but Rhoda didn’t feel like chatting. She waited for Mark.

A call from the higher-ups, Mark said. How goes the fiefdom?

Rhoda knew she had to be careful. Mark, she said. I know this will sound unreasonable, and I know I’m asking a lot, but I really am begging. This is very important.

Wow, Mark said. I can’t wait to hear. You’ve decided to live in a tent, like the rents, and you want me to take Jim’s house?

I bought a satellite phone for Mom, and I need to take it out to her tomorrow.

That’s cool. Can you get one for me? I’ve needed one for like, I don’t know, five years now, for the boat. How the fuck did you afford a satellite phone? Just a rhetorical question. I know the answer, of course. Jim the minor saint.

Please.

I don’t know, Mark said. I know Mom’s a freak and you’re worried, but they really are coming in soon for supplies, and it’s cold out here now. The shore is icing up. It would suck to launch a boat.

It’s thin ice, though, right? You can break through it?

Yeah, but they’ll be in, probably just a few days.

Please, Rhoda said.

There was a long pause. Rhoda afraid to say anything more.

All right, Mark finally said. Don’t say I never did anything for you. But I can’t do it tomorrow. It’ll have to be Sunday.

Thank you, she said. Thank you. But can we do it tomorrow? I’m really worried. I need to talk with her.

Sorry. Karen’s family. We have a get-together tomorrow.

Okay, she said. Okay. Thank you. Rhoda knew this was as far as she could push. She would just have to wait. But she didn’t know how she would get through two days. Her mom holding her at the kitchen sink, telling her she was alone. Telling Rhoda that she would be alone, too. But what was really frightening was how calm her mother had been. You can’t say things like that and feel calm and not have something wrong.

The door frame didn’t fit. Gary held it against the gap in the back wall. White-painted pine over rough bark, an unlikely marriage of materials. He had cut the gap narrow so he could adjust later, a decision made when he had imagined more time, believed in more time. Now he needed to cut away almost two inches of cabin wall.

He looked around, a quick glance behind, as if Irene might appear. He hadn’t seen her yet today. She’d left early, before he woke.

Gary centered the frame so that it overlapped both sides. A door set on the outside of the wall, projecting four inches. And why not? He wasn’t building this cabin for anyone else.

So Gary grabbed his hammer and nails, aligned the frame, and propped it with two-by-four cutoffs. If Irene were here, she could hold it in place, much faster, but she wasn’t going to help now.

And the truth was, he did feel bad. He felt guilty. Wanted to apologize, even, and if she’d been here when he awoke, he would have tried. He shouldn’t have called her a mean old bitch. He didn’t like to think of it. Didn’t like to think he had said that. But he knew he had. He had said it twice.

Gary sighed. His breath fogging. A good day again for working, cold and overcast, but he didn’t feel any motivation at all. He hated not getting along with Irene. He wanted everything to be clear between them.

He braced his shoulder against the frame and set a nail at an angle, tapped it carefully. Then a harder hit, but it bent and he felt the frame move, no longer aligned.

Gary closed his eyes then, slumped against the frame, and tried to calm. He wasn’t good at anything. He knew that now. The cabin a failure, the most recent in a series of failures. So fine. He still needed to get this frame attached. He’d spent the night in the cabin, and it had been cold, desperately cold. Not a way they could live through the winter.

Gary set the frame in place again, leaned against it, and tried another nail. Got it in most the way and then cracked the frame. So he stepped back about ten feet and threw his hammer into the wall. A slight echo from the trees and hill behind, then a muffled thud from the ground.

Gary stepped forward and picked up the hammer, tried again to align and fix a nail. It sank but felt light, and when he examined the back, he saw he had caught only a small bit of the cabin wall. No firm purchase because of the angle. Maybe a quarter inch of meat. Nothing that would hold. And the point was sticking out now.

Gary walked over to Irene’s tent for a granola bar. On his knees, reaching in, his face close enough to her pillow he could smell her. So he lay down a moment, head on her pillow, and rested. Curled his knees so they were inside the tent. He would tell her he was sorry. The early cold weather a setback, but they were close to having the cabin ready, and maybe spending the winter together would help them return to who they had been.

But he didn’t want her to find him like this. He would seem weak. So he got up, ate the granola bar while he looked at the door and frame.

To hell with it, he finally said. He hammered a dozen nails around the edges, all shallow, many of them bent or opening up cracks, but together they might hold. Sharp points projecting out the back. Then he grabbed the door, simple white pine, and placed it in the frame. Not sure how to line up the hinges, especially without anyone helping.

The part he didn’t understand was how he had felt excited. She’d helped him all day — no food, in the cold, the pain in her head — and he’d been impatient, too, and she’d put up with that, and they had accomplished a lot, more than any other day. They put the roof on, the entire roof. But then she wouldn’t do the last little bit, just tacking the window on. It might have taken fifteen minutes. And suddenly he was saying everything he’d wanted to say for weeks, for years. And enjoying it. A thrill. A physical thrill, a pleasure, even though she was crying. And how could that be? How could he enjoy that?

Gary propped the door on shims and nailed the hinges. He could feel the frame shift with the blows, rickety. He’d have to buy brackets in town, but hopefully it would hold for now. You have to think you’re a good person. That was the thing. And how was he a good person if he enjoyed making her cry? Something wrong with him, something that needed looking at. Their marriage somehow had brought out the worst in him.

The window was next. He didn’t feel like waiting for Irene. The frame thin, and aluminum, so it wouldn’t crack and he wouldn’t have to nail at an angle. They really could have done this last night in ten or fifteen minutes.

Alone building the cabin. That was the truth. Marriage only another form of being alone. He set the stool in place, held the window up, leaned against it, pinning it to the wall, and hammered a nail. Held the other nails in his teeth. Pounded one on each side and then could let go. Pounded in the rest, all the way around. That’s not going anywhere, he said.