Sunlit Riffles and Shadowed Runs: Stories of Fly Fishing in America

Labor Day

139 Labor Day Thanks to the ­ end-of-summer hol­ i­ day, they have a ­ three-day week-­ end. Time off from her work at the ­ county court­ house be­ fore his­ classes start in the fall. Time to fi­ nally “get away to­ gether,” as ­ they’d long­ falsely prom­ ised each other they ­ wanted to do. ­ What’s been miss­ ing is trust, from each of them, and both of them know it. Their com­ mit­ ment has been sim­ ply words, com­ fort­ ing in­ su­ la­ tion, which has kept them from ac­ knowl­ edg­ ing the fail­ ure of their mar­ riage, maybe even to them­ selves. It’s hard to say how, or even when, the rup­ ture ­ started. Gaz­ ing out of the car at the ­ sun-splashed coun­ try­ side, he re­ mem­ bers what it was like three ­ decades ear­ lier, the last time they made this drive. ­ They’d been ­ blindly in love then—­ trusted each other com­ pletely. ­ Trusted­ enough that he’d asked her to go fish­ ing with him, and she had ea­ gerly­ agreed. It would not have been a sig­ nal mark of trust for many cou­ ples here, in Min­ ne­ sota, where he’d lived all his life. A wife might even ask her hus­ band to take her fish­ ing—might in fact have ­ fished more than he. But his wife had grown up in the East—spent a col­ lege sum­ mer in­ France and even been to South Amer­ ica the year be­ fore he met her,­ though never any­ where west of Phil­ a­ del­ phia in the ­ United ­ States. That back then she had been so ex­ cited to go up to the Brule with him has left a hole in his heart. The car rolls on. She says noth­ ing as they cross the sil­ ver ­ bridge over the Mis­ sis­ sippi, ­ stares down at the water where a barge ­ plunges down­ stream past a ­ brushy is­ land ­ rimmed with sand. A house­ boat bobs in the 140 Labor Day­ barge’s wake, ­ moored to the beach by a pair of white an­ chor ropes. Kids­ splash in the shal­ lows along the shore. “Great day to be on the river,” he says, glanc­ ing ­ across the seat at her face. “Mmmm,” she mur­ murs non­ com­ mit­ tally, her eyes still fixed on the barge. Half an hour later, roll­ ing mead­ ows and small dairy farms pass out­ side the win­ dows. ­ They’re far ­ enough north a few ma­ ples have ­ started to red­ den. Sev­ eral miles back up the road, they ­ passed a cran­ berry bog, crim­ son as fresh blood. “It’s inter­ est­ ing here,” she says ­ quietly. The words are so wel­ come he says noth­ ing, sim­ ply nods and ­ drives on. Fi­ nally he ­ speaks. “It’s like it was be­ fore,” he says. “The day we drove up here, ­ thirty years ago. Do you re­ mem­ ber? It was a lit­ tle later in Sep­ tem­ ber, but close to this time of year.” He re­ grets the words as soon as he says them. Re­ grets them even more when a ­ guarded “uh-huh” is her only re­ sponse. How had it gone so bad? What ­ flashes in his mind is the night­ mar­ ish day he found her screw­ ing his best ­ friend fif­ teen years ear­ lier—the still sear­ ing image of her straw­ berry pan­ ties, ­ draped over the seat of ­ Dooley’s van where ­ they’d ­ parked on the rut­ ted lane by the field of corn. But that was ef­ fect, not cause. His own li­ ai­ sons with stu­ dents had pre­ ceded it, and there had been sev­ eral more in the angry, si­ lently venge­ ful after­ math. It was even less clear to him how the heal­ ing had begun. Some­ how it had, over the past year or so, ­ though nei­ ther of them had ver­ bally ac­ knowl­ edged it. Per­ haps as they ap­ proached sixty the ­ flames sim­ ply­ burned them­ selves out, both the anger and the lust. Yet the ­ wounds re­ mained so raw it was as if the slight­ est ac­ knowl­ edged ten­ sion might re­ open them. Best sim­ ply not to ques­ tion—let the frag­ ile mend­ ing con­ tinue, how­ ever it would...