THE SHINE JOURNAL
Flash Literature, Poetry, Art and Photography!
FATHERLY ADVICE
by
Louisa Howerow
the table, his son-in-law and daughter on the other.
"Fishing's been good this year. Caught me some nice bass." George liked to
fish. You had time to think or do nothing at all out on the lake.
"You ever consider just leaving the fish be," Peter said. He was finishing
up his plate of hash browns, wouldn't touch the fish.
George regretted bringing up the fishing, regretted serving fish. We're
vegetarians, his daughter, Katherine, had told him. The word "we're" always
kept him out.
"There's pie in the fridge. Want any?" she was speaking to both of them,
but only George looked up, and said, yes. She poked her husband’s sleeve.
"Do you want any?"
"I don’t need pie."
"There's no fish in it," said George.
Peter wiped his mouth and pushed himself away from the table. "We shouldn't
have come," he said to his wife.
Katherine slumped down on her husband’s empty chair. "He doesn't mean it,
you know."
"Well, he's entitled to his say." George dug into the pie. "You remember
catching your first fish?"
"I was three and cold."
"Roche Point. Doesn’t get any better," George said. .
"Can you take me out there tomorrow?"
"Fishing?"
She gave him a playful punch in the shoulder. "No, Dad, diving."
* * *
George made his way to the dock. He was proud of the dock: it was solid,
made to last, just like the house he had built for the three of them
Katherine, her mother, him. Her mother had moved out before the house was
finished, hadn’t seen it growing, changing.
He pulled a flask of rye from his jacket pocket. There was no moon out that
night and the darkness had erased the ragged shoreline. With summer coming
to an end, the evening air was getting cooler. The seasons passed so quickly
now, only the winter seemed to go on forever.
His daughter and Peter had left the bedroom window open and he could here
their voices loud and strident like gulls squawking over a garbage dump..
Did his son-in-law blame his daughter for coming to the lake every summer?
He thought she should defend herself. Katherine means well he wanted to
shout back.
He took another drink, wiped his nose with his sleeve. Maybe he
should speak to Katherine about her troubles, say something wise, fatherly,
and yet he knew there was nothing he could say. He was never good at giving
advice. In the end people figured things out for themselves. That’s the way
it had always been.
Tomorrow he would take her to Roche Point where she could dive from the
rocks, just as she did at twelve. Katherine would stand tall and brown, her
arms poised over her head. "Watch me, Daddy," she would shout. George would
give his daughter the thumbs up and she would fly through the sky. A golden
eagle.
