The Dock We Built Back for Dad

“It’s a good spot,” Dad said. “Sand bottom.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I picked it for my wife,” Dad said. “She didn’t like rocks under her feet.”

Brett looked at the end post, at the letters on it. I saw him read them. I saw him get to the bottom line and read that one too, and I saw his jaw work.

“What did you want to ask me?” Dad said.

Brett took a breath. “My lift is ten feet off the side of your dock. I’ve been wading out to it. I cut my foot last week. I was wondering if I could tie the ski up on your dock, when you’re not fishing. Just to get on and off.”

It was quiet on the dock. Out on the lake, Alvah’s boat was coming across the bay, slow, the way he does everything now. Across the bay, Hulda was out on her steps with her coffee. Seldon’s grandson was standing on Seldon’s shore. Nobody was waving. Nobody was calling anything. They were just there.

Brett saw them. I watched him see them. He stood up a little straighter, and he didn’t look away from Dad.

Dad reeled in. He checked his leech. He cast again.

“Left side,” Dad said. “Right side’s where I fish.”

Brett let out a breath like a man who had been holding it for weeks.

“And you put the cleat on yourself,” Dad said. “Galvanized. Through bolted. None of that screw-on junk.”

“Yes, sir,” Brett said. “I will.”

“Ask Troy where. He knows the frame.”

Brett turned and looked at me. I had my coffee in one hand. I pointed with it at the third section, at the left side rail, about a foot back from the joist.

“Right there,” I said. “There’s a block under it.”

“Thank you,” Brett said, and he meant it, and I let him.

He walked back down the dock. Halfway he stopped and looked down at Kip, who was still sitting on the edge with his feet over the water.

“You build this?” Brett said.

“Me and Dad,” Kip said. “And Grandpa. He drew it.”

“It’s a good dock,” Brett said, and he walked on up the hill.

Alvah’s boat bumped gently up against the end of the dock about five minutes later. He didn’t tie up. He just held the post with one hand and looked up at Dad.

“Gunnar,” he said.

“Alvah.”

“Bite on?”

“Not yet.”

“Sunfish are on the weed line by the point,” Alvah said. “Saw ’em yesterday.”

“I’ll stay here,” Dad said. “This is where I fish.”

Alvah nodded. He looked at the post a long time. Then he pushed off and went back across the bay, slow.

Dad caught four sunfish and a little perch before nine. He let them all go. At ten fifteen he said he’d better get to church, and I said I’d drive him, and he said no, Leah would.

I looked at him.

“I called her last night,” Dad said. “After you called me. I told her to come down this morning when I was done and drive me to church.”

At ten twenty, Leah came down the hill in her church dress with her keys. She walked out on the dock, all the way out, and stood by the post.

She saw her letters. L.H. 1981. She put her fingers on them.

“I didn’t know these were here,” she said. Her voice broke right in the middle of it.