flash fiction
what have you got to lose?
I awake to find Lena no longer in bed beside me. I search for her everywhere, bathroom, kitchen, living and dining rooms. Finally, I slip on my coat and boots and go outside.
It’s still raining. Waters flood the riverbanks and surge toward our front door. Slogging through the mud, I head toward the small boat-shed where we store our kayaks and canoes. I see a lantern glimmer within.
Opening the boat-shed door, I find Lena crouching inside one canoe. Barefoot, shivering in her nightgown.
The canoe, secure in its rack, is where we keep our cache of postcards, photos, letters, tape cassettes, and old phonograph albums, both LP’s and 45’s. They’re mostly Lena’s from before we were married, she childless and long divorced and I an aging bachelor.
It’s Lena who asked me to move the boxes, saying she no longer wants them in the house, but the boat-shed’s roof leaks badly, and I thought it would be a temporary move and Lena would change her mind. Still, I covered them in tarp to store well off the floor in an old canoe we no longer used.
I step past the other kayaks and canoes, several in disrepair. My parents owned a tackle-and-bait shop in town, and, when they died, I expanded the business to include rafting trips and other guided tours. It was how I met Lena, vacationing with other retired schoolteachers several years ago. She was with someone else then.
Lena’s reading a letter now, folded and refolded many times. I avert my gaze, respecting her privacy. She looks up, her face flush, beautiful, aglow in lantern light.
“Lena, please come inside the house.”
“I’m fine, I can’t sleep.”
She doesn’t hide the letter, but doesn’t want to talk about it, either. Lena’s life has been long and eventful, her students adore her and still write to her. Once she hinted she had a child, but I’ve seen no photos of one, nor of her husband.
I crouch beside her. Out the window, we watch the waters rise and hear the rain beat against the glass. An icy breeze blows through the cracks, and the boat-shed whines and shudders.
“At least let me fetch you a coat or blanket.”
She says nothing, but I retrieve an old horse blanket hanging on the wall and wrap it about her.
“Winter’s nearly over, we can go kayaking again, just the two of us, before the crowds come. If you’re up for it.”
“Yes, but not the tandem kayak, I want to use my single.”
As late as last summer, the waters were swollen and the rapids dizzying, dangerous. I don’t dare state the obvious, that she hasn’t been well the past two winters and can no longer handle the rapids alone.
The rains and winds abate. Through the window, the full moon glimmers, reflections dancing upon the waves.
Finally, she rises unsteadily, and I help her out of the kayak. Together, we refold the tarp over the boxes, tucking them in as if they’re a sleeping child.
Leaving the boat-shed, my wife leans on me for support. Around us, cedars and redwoods climb to the sky, their girths stately as pillars, vigilant and immobile, beside the still raging waters.
In the mudroom, I gently wash Lena’s feet, slip on clean socks and slippers, and lead her to bed. Soon she’s asleep, but sleep eludes me, and I rise from bed.
Lena’s letter, which she took with her, has fallen to the floor, where it’s bathes in a pool of moonlight. I gather the letter and go to the kitchen, where I light the gas lamp, stoke the wood-burning stove, smooth out the letter on the tabletop.
The hand’s nearly illegible, the letter dated three years ago, before our marriage. I’m tempted to toss the letter, unread, into the flames, which leap, snarl, roar.
“Darling,” it begins, “you can’t possibly love him, come with me, what have you got to lose?”
I stop reading, refold the letter, and set it on the table. Slipping on my coat, I go outside, where I stand in the rain, the river surging, the cedars and redwoods casting their long shadows, the lantern still aglow in the boat-shed.
My hand, my letter. I return to the house.
First appeared in Heartwood No. 18.
Image from David MacRitchie’s 1912 article “Kayaks of the North Sea” of the so-called “Aberdeen Kayak.” From The Public Domain Review.
