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He and Cole were heavy into their plans to move Nexcom when I left. Stock prices were up, and Cole had been labeled “the king of business.” I had to go. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Not that I wasn’t happy for my son, because with all my faults and warped ways of demonstrating it, his happiness was important to me. But with every financial news update, and with every congratulatory praise aimed at him, he grew more confident in his decision to leave.
“To hell with this,” I muttered. I’d been about to call it a day when my fishing rod jerked in my loose grasp, nearly causing me to tip overboard. Carefully getting to my feet, I reeled in my line.
I quickly set the flailing fish into the pail of water near my foot, holding it on its back and covering the head and eyes—the way Joe had instructed—before removing the barbless hook.
I crouched over the aluminum pail, winded and feeling accomplished. The fish swam, adjusting to its new environment, or maybe trying to find a way out of it. It didn’t huddle in a corner, licking its wounds and giving up. Not like I did.
Digging my phone from my pocket, I did a search for smallmouth bass. The scales on my fish were so silver they almost appeared white in the light of the sun, nothing like the blotchy fish on my screen.
“This has to be for something,” I said to the fish. “My being here has to be for something.” I gazed at the water surrounding me and then to the cabin in the distance. I couldn’t stay here forever, but I couldn’t go back the same.
“Catch and release. And maybe the fish won’t be the only thing you let go of, because holding on to things that don’t serve you is just bad for the soul.”
I contemplated Joe’s parting words from last week and got an idea. I needed to make the inconvenience I’d caused the fish worth something. Maybe if I could let go of something,givesomething to the fish, he could carry it away for me.
There was so much to weed through in my mind. So many lies and negative thoughts rushing forward to act as tribute, and yet so many clung to my brain’s synapses as if I wouldn’t be able to survive without them.
I reached in and randomly plucked one. This was a practice session, after all, and with any luck they’d all get a chance to swim.
“Cole and Jasper can’t possibly love me,” I whispered. Everything in me fought against letting that one go.Start smaller, my internal voice said.Keep that one, it said next,that one is true.
Grabbing both ends of the pail, I upturned it over the side of the boat before I lost the nerve. Within seconds the fish was gone, taking my lie with it. Joe didn’t tell me how terrifying letting go would be. He forgot to mention that my thought would reach back for me, begging to be saved, and that I would want to latch on and pull it back into the safe confines of my mind where it would find comfort.
I felt naked without that one untruth, and the others rallied together, getting creative, trying to fill the void left behind.
Maybe they do love you, but that doesn’t mean they like you.
Right behind that thought came one so vile and believable that it sent me to my knees.
Or maybe they love you out of guilt, because they believe they had a hand in the death of their mother, the death of your wife, the wife you failed, the wife they think you would never hurt. The wife who was your only saving grace with them.
Out of breath, I hurried to grab my fishing pole. I needed another fish. I needed to let more of this poison go before it absorbed the tiny speck of space I’d freed up.
Your father hired someone else to love you because he couldn’t. Because you were unlovable.
That one got to me the most, and my hands shook with the force it took to maintain my hold on my rod. My father had only barely tolerated me when my mother was alive, and she’d allowed his neglect of me, had even participated in it. My purpose was to serve the legacy. My worth came from my name, which is why for so long—even now—I battled with giving up what came with the name Kincaid in exchange for what I truly wanted out of life. And if I wasn’t lovable forme, for Franky, then I had no right loving anyone else or allowing anyone else to love me in return.
Gloria and her family leaving without looking back was proof of that. Finding, and then losing, the one person who’d ever made me feel that I could be the man I wanted to be was also proof of it.Leland.
I loved Selene, but I loved Leland more. I’d wanted Selene, butneverwith the bone-aching ferocity I experienced when wanting Leland. I was distraught by the loss of my wife, but what damaged me most was still wanting him even while grieving for her. All of that had been more proof of how unlovable I was, and how little I deserved love.
The sun dipped, and my mind grew tired from all the mental gymnastics required to keep the naysaying voices under my control, instead of being under theirs. And just when I’d been about to call it a night, when leaning against the floodgates became too much, my line tugged again.
I fished for days, for weeks.Months.I fished until I ran out of my own lies and began taking requests from Joe or using my time on the water for simple reflection.
During one of those reflective moments, I realized that for so long I lived with the delusion that my unresolved problems were manageable, but in actuality the compartments I’d kept them in just hadn’t been full yet. By the time Selene died they were bursting at the seams, then spilling over the edges until I was standing knee-deep in the mess I’d made.
In some ways, I felt entitled to my pain. It was mine. I owned it. It was my excuse to barely exist, and without my baggage, who was I? Without it, I had nothing.
As the months passed, I understood that trauma was a cancer of a different kind. It ate away at everything good, and it blocked any attempts made at refueling my life with additional good. I’d been more than willing to let it eat me alive before, but now I wanted to starve it. More importantly, I wanted to take my time in doing so. This wasn’t a race, because races could be lost, and I didn’t want to have to run this one ever again.
While my lake was helpful, I needed to use every tool at my disposal to heal, to do it right, because I wanted my new way of thinking to stick. I’d one day return to the real world to face the consequences of my actions head-on, and I needed to be mentally strong enough for the job.
Eventually, the summer heat made it harder to sit out on the lake all day, and so I began spending more time at Joe’s, and gazing at it thoughtfully through the window near my favorite seat. I could’ve done that from the cabin, but doing it from Joe’s came with an ulterior motive. I got to study Beatrice.
“Are you sure she’s even licensed?” I asked Joe, who took to sitting across from me and droning on incessantly whenever business was slow.
