Page 83 of Whale Harbor

“Plenty of mileage left on this engine,” Cathal said.

“Welcome to America,” Mac said, shaking his hand. “Took you long enough.”

“Haven’t seen too much of it yet. The tea is terrible.”

When Mary returned and saw her father she felt relief flood through her body. She’d spent all day hoping he’d get there before sunset and here he was.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she said to him. “I’m so sorry.”

“What’s done is done,” Mac said.

“Sorry for what?” Cathal asked. “What’s there to be sorry for?”

Mac booked another room in the motel and told Mary that would be hers. He’d stay with Cathal. No one discussed what had brought them there in the first place, or what they planned to do next.

When Mary was gathering her bags to move to the other room, the pack of cigarettes fell out of her purse. Mac bent down and picked it up. Mary sighed and looked heavenward, as if to ask what else could go wrong, but Mac didn’t say anything, just walked outside and stood at the railing as he tapped one out. Mary followed.

“You smoke?” she asked, when he lit one and took a long pull.

Instead of answering he said, “Did I ever tell you about the bear I encountered one morning when I lived here?”

She shook her head as she took a cigarette for herself. She held her hand out for the lighter, and he passed it to her without comment.

“She was as close to me as that trash can,” he said, nodding at the can he meant. He told her the story. Encountering that bear was like seeing something mythical appear before him, something he might have always doubted until he saw her in the flesh. Doubt me now, the bear had seemed to say, its breath vaporing around her massive head, sunlight creeping slowly across the frost-dusted valley at their feet. It was the second time in Mac’s life that he understood he didn’t know even the smallest fraction of what nature held. The first time was on the beach in the Cuan, on the day the whale washed up. To impress local girls around Teaberry, Martin always told the story of the grizzly as if Mac had outrun her, outsmarted her, but Mac knew it was only that she hadn’t felt like going after him. Maybe she was interested in the view. Maybe she was feeling lazy that morning. She would have caught up to him in two strides if she had wanted to.

“They hunted her after,” Mac said. “I never should have told them. Or I should have lied about where I saw her. The man who owned Larkspur took out a team and the one who killed her kept her as a trophy. Everyone went over to that man’s place to see her after but I never wanted to.”

“I’m surprised that’s not illegal.”

“It is now, maybe it was then, too, but this was in the sixties. She didn’t do a thing but look at me. And what if she had cubs waiting for her?”

My sweet father, Mary thought. My gentle father.

Finished with his story, he mashed the end of the cigarette against the iron railing. He looked at Mary until she did the same.

“That’s it for us, you understand? That’s our last one.”

“Okay,” Mary said.

THIS WAS HOW THEY OPERATED, Mary knew, and wondered if other families were more or less the same. Mac said he wasn’t hungry, so they sat outside for a while and talked about everything except the subject at hand: about the Cuan, about whether anyone would ever find Osama bin Laden, about the American businessman who’d gone around the whole world in a balloon without stopping. Even a plane couldn’t do that. Eventually Cathal was too tired to sit up any longer, so Mac led him into their room, and Mary followed in case he needed help. Cathal seemed mostly fine, thank god, but once in a while was confused about who Mary was, exactly. One minute he was asking her what she’d learned about Montana’s history when she was in college in Philadelphia, and the next he was referring to things that happened in the Cuan in the year 1959, as if she’d been there and would remember. His ankles were swollen, so before she left for her room, she stacked pillows on the end of his bed and told him to elevate his feet.

In her room, she washed her face before undressing. What a luxury to step back and let her father be in charge. What a lesson in finding out she wasn’t ready.

In the morning, Mac woke before Mary or Cathal, before every person in the motel, including the staff, or so it seemed. Dawn was purple, the air cool, though it would heat up later. He went for a walk, a search for coffee, but when he found a place that was open at that hour he kept going until the shops petered out and he saw a sign for a trail behind Bozeman’s public library. He followed the trail for a half hour or so and on his way back people were walking their dogs, wishing each other good morning. He’d expected to return as a stranger again, it had been so long, but it was there in his memory—the smell of the air, the patterns of wind in the grass, the miles upon miles of fencing.

When he got back to the motel, Mary and Cathal were up, outside again on the plastic chairs. Cathal was sipping tea from a mug that said Yellowstone.

“Now,” Mac said. “I know we came a long way, but we can’t all show up at once.”

“I agree,” Cathal said. “Just the two of us.” He moved to start the long process of getting up.

“No,” Mac said firmly. “First me alone. Then you, if that’s what he wants.”

For once, Cathal didn’t argue. Mac wouldn’t say more, he certainly wouldn’t say why, but they all knew. Mac had a few things to say that he didn’t want Cathal to hear. What would be the point, at eighty-four, of hearing all the ways he should have been better at the time in his sons’ lives when they’d needed him most? Cathal had tried his best, Mac knew. There was a time when he hadn’t thought so, but now, three daughters later and an exhaustion that reached all the way to his bones, he saw it differently. They’d never have enough time. They’d never have enough money. They’d never say the perfect thing or react the right way. None of them, not one person on Earth, has ever done this before. Who ever knew what they were doing, what was best, until after the fact? And by the time a person gets any wisdom at all, he’s done. But they’d had a lot of love, and not everyone could claim that. Their mother had loved them, their grandfather, and Cathal. The younger brothers would say that Nuala had loved them, too, and lucky them, if she had. She certainly hadn’t loved Mac, but he wouldn’t begrudge them that. It wasn’t as if love came around every day; no one in the world was rich enough to turn it away. And on top of all that he had Lillie, who was like a feeling that had always lived inside him, a feeling he only recognized when he saw her at Gaelic Park, laughing with her friends. Whatever decisions Cathal had made, whatever lies he’d told to himself or anyone else, were made out of love. If Mac could have lined up his brothers in front of him and asked if they agreed, they all would, he was sure of it.

Except for Rian, and that’s why he wanted to go alone. And also to say that he was sorry. He shouldn’t have made a promise he couldn’t keep.

“BOSSY,” CATHAL SAID AFTER MAC drove away. “He’s always been very bossy.”