Photo courtesy of Gail Niinimaa
Big Fish
“And I’m gonna catch a big fish when Dad takes me fishing!” you say while you’re helping your mom pack for your summer holiday at the lake.
“You are,” your mom says like she never believes anything. But already you can see yourself standing on the dock and holding up a big shiny perch or jackfish for her to take a Polaroid picture. And after your dad helps you clean your big fish, your mom dips the filets in egg and cracker crumbs and fries them in butter for breakfast, and it’s like on TV where the whole family’s sitting around the table and always laughing.
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One quiet August morning, you’re bunched up on the front seat of your Grandpa’s aluminum boat, clutching your fishing rod and willing the fish to bite when you hear a plop and your younger sister scream, “Dad! Dad!” That she gets the first bite makes you sick, and you turn your head, only after your dad yells “Jeee-sus Chr-rist!” and takes a clattering leap that rocks the boat and nearly throws you off your seat.
Your sister howls as your dad drops to one knee and grapples for the fluorescent orange life vest with your little brother in it, face down in the lake. With a big swoosh, your dad hauls him up by the feet. You duck to dodge the spray and watch your dad set your little brother, coughing and sputtering, next to your pale quivering sister.
“Swallow a little water, didja?” Your dad squats and wipes your little brother’s wet freckled face with his hanky.
“I-I saw,” your little brother gulps and blinks, “a fis’, Daddy! A big fis’!”
“You’re s’posed to catch ’em with a rod and line, son, not your hands,” your dad says like he’s telling a joke.
Your little brother gurgles, and you snicker at the picture of his pudgy face floating in the water and his stubby little hands grasping at a big fish. Your big fish.
Your sister makes a noise more like crying than laughing.
“You okay, Colette?” Your dad pats her on the knee.
“He-he ju-ust stood u-up and be-before I c-could—” Your sister’s chest heaves under her life vest, as if she has the hiccups, and tears spill down her sunburnt cheeks.
“It’s all right, honey. Your brother’s alive and kickin’, aren’t ya, son?”
Your little brother shivers blissfully, and his Chiclet teeth chatter.
“Now, Dennis, you stay put.” Your dad holds your little brother down with one hand while he takes your sister’s rod from her and slides it under the seat where your little brother’s pretend twig rod lies on the gritty bottom of the boat. “And Colette, you slide over and hang on to Dennis. Real tight now.”
Your sister wiggles over and stretches her skinny arms around your little brother in his seeping life vest.
“That’s enough fishing for today,” your dad says and moves to the stern.
You feel a tug on your line. “Hey Dad, I think I got one!”
Your dad, when you glance over your shoulder, is looking around and muttering, “Now where the hell ... I musta ... son-of-a-bitch!”
You jerk and pull on your rod, like your dad taught you. “It’s right down there, Dad. I can feel it!”
“Let it go, Michelle,” he says and hauls up the anchor. “We’re going back.”
“But Dad,” you cry, “what if it’s a big one?”
“I’ll be in enough trouble for losing Grampa’s good fishing rod without your brother catchin’ a cold,” he shouts over the outboard motor, “so do like I said, Michelle, and reel in your line.”
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On the ride back to the dock, you construct a story in your head that gets funnier and funnier the more you think about how you’ll make your mom laugh. As the dock gets closer, your dad kills and lifts the motor so the propellers won't get caught in the weeds. You look up and see your mom come sliding and skidding down the grassy hill from the cottage.
“Jim!” she calls into cupped hands and creeps along the wooden dock in her sandals, as if she’s afraid of falling through the cracks. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Your dad paddles the boat up to the dock and secures it with a rope.
“Soon’s I heard that motor,” your mom pants, as if she’s run up the hill instead of down, “I just had this feeling.” Her dark hair is rolled up in spongy pink curlers, and without make-up she looks like she does in old black and white photographs.
You sit up. “Mom, you shoulda seen—”
“Michelle, I’m talkin’ to your father!” Your mom jams her fists against her hips. “Jim?”
“Just give me a minute, Kitty, will ya?” Your dad lifts and swings your little brother up onto the dock.
“For heaven’s sake!” Your mom lunges to grab your little brother. as if he’s about to tumble into the lake again.
“Mommy, I saw a big fis’!” he sputters.
“Jim, why’s this kid soakin’ wet?” Your mom kneels and runs her hands over your little brother, as if she’s feeling for broken bones. “And cold as ice!” She struggles furiously with the wet knots tying his life vest, and speaks to your dad like she’s talking long distance on the phone. “Ji-im, d’you hear me?”
“He went for a little swim, that’s all.” Your dad winks at you and puts a finger to his lips, and your heart feels like a hamster running circles inside your chest. Your dad helps your sister onto the ladder nailed to the dock, and you climb up on your own and wait, like he tells you, for him to hand you the fishing gear.
“What do you mean, a little swim! He’s only three, for cryin’ out loud!” Your mom tosses your little brother’s vest aside. Turns him onto her lap and tugs off his wet shoes and socks.
“He fell in the lake,” your sister says in a tiny voice. “Over the side of the boat.”
“He what?” Your mom wraps your little brother in her arms.
“But Dad saved him!” you intervene. “And it was really funny the way—”
“Funny! There’s nothing funny about it!” Your mom hugs and squeezes your little brother, and he grunts and bucks. “He coulda drown out there, my poor baby!”
“Well, he didn’t, did he?” Your dad works on detaching the outboard motor.
“Besides he was wearing a life vest!” you remind your mom of the obvious.
“That is no excuse—” Your mom stands your little brother upright and starts peeling off his clothes. “—for not keeping a close eye on him, but what’s the good of me saying he’s too little to go out on that damn lake when nobody listens?”
You hear a groan and thud as your dad heaves the outboard motor up onto the dock.
“Mommy!” your little brother shouts. “I saw a fis’. A big fis’ in da wa-ader!”
“He did not!” you say.
“How do you know?” Your sister sticks out her pointy chin.
“Shut-up, Colette!”
“Michelle, that’s enough!” your mom says.
“What did I do?” you cry and stomp your foot.
Then your little brother throws his head back and wails, and your sister whines, “Ma-ah, my bum’s cold and I gotta pee.”
Your mom squeezes the seat of your sister’s damp peddle pushers. “Oh for heaven’s sake! Michelle, help your sister out of her vest.”
You hear, but you don’t budge.
“Honestly!” your mom huffs and scoops up your little brother’s clothes. Hoists him, naked and squirming, onto her hip and takes your sister by the hand. “Trust your father to let something like this happen!”
“If you were so worried,” your dad grunts and climbs up onto the dock, “you coulda got outta bed and come along.”
“So it’s my fault!” Your mom wheels around.
“What was I s’posed to do?” your dad says. “Tie ’em to the goddamn seats?”
Your dad heaves the motor up onto his shoulder. “Michelle, bring that gear to the boathouse.”
“Coming,” you say. But you just stand there, wedged between your mom’s cold stare and your dad’s sweaty heat. You watch your mom turn and go, then your dad stride past you toward the boathouse.
You turn to the lake. In the morning light, the smooth water shines like a fresh sheet of ice. You step over the rods and tackle box, and balance yourself with the toes of your runners sticking over the splintery edge of the dock. You look down. All that shows in the silvery water are the tips of feathery weeds, and no fish. No big fish. And you wonder where do they hide, or are they all in your imagination, those dirty big fish that always get away.