Two Islands

Chapter One

Kodiak's watch stopped somewhere between Green Bay and Pembine on the way to Marquette, about five hours into the drive.

He sat in the Heron Bar, a humbled, out-of-place Chicago man with a watch battery as dead as his father, a watch that was a relic of identity, a symbol of steadfastness and success. Kodiak swirled the warm, amber beer in his glass before tossing it back in one gulp and slammed it down on the bar so hard that the bartender, Tanya, was startled. With a kind smile, she knowingly poured another one. My father is dead, he thought. As dead as a clammy fish in a cooler, gutted down to the head and spine.

He took a gentlemanly sip, a cool down while waiting for Jake. He wanted to wonder why his father wasn't dead instead, but the thoughts we privately entertain are always the most shameful and disturbing. Kodiak erased the thought of Rex Niemi in a casket—this is what grief does, he thought, and checked his watch out of habit. It had been 3:42 for two days. The clock on the wall said it was just shy of noon and Jake was two hours late, but Kodiak had no obligations, so he waited.

Kodiak's father, Dennis Pembroke, passed away on a crisp September morning in loose navy blue sweatpants and a plain white cotton t-shirt. He woke up around six and rolled to the side with a little snore before clapping Kodiak firmly on the back. Kodiak's head had rolled to the side at the finality of the gesture; he had been drifting in and out of dreamscape in a stiff chair next to the bed.

"Kodiak," Dennis said. "You are a good son."

He didn't pass then—he waited for a few more hours until sunbeams lasered their way through the changing leaves outside and flooded into his hospice room, the wall a kaleidoscope of leaf-shaped shadows. It was Kodiak's first taste of all-consuming emptiness; his heart turned black and swam into an abyss. Mindy, his sister, was supposed to call at ten. By then, the body had already departed for preparation. Two nurses, one young and one on the verge of retirement, wheeled it out in routine. Kodiak remained in the chair next to the bed with the chilled outline of his father's body, his head shape nestled in the pillow. A piece of hair danced at the edge of the bed waiting to fall to the floor with the next slight breeze. Kodiak didn't answer when Mindy called the first time, the second, the fifteenth. Instead, he called his best friend, Jake.

    They grew up as summer brothers on Lake Superior in Big Traverse Bay, an isolated fishing community stretched along a coastline buried in stamp sand from mining days gone by. Neighbors in rustic shacks made homes with discarded furniture, vanities, household appliances—just about anything that was left on the side of the road and free for the taking. That's how camps in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan were born. They didn't have or need much as they were rich in the gifts of nature, whether picking blueberries, looking for turtles in the swamps, or wave watching on the big lake. It didn't matter that Kodiak hadn't talked to Jake in a few months. He just needed to talk to someone who would listen without pity, without the cliches of it happened for a reason or he's in a better place. His father was dead, and not only was Kodiak sad, but he was also pissed. Little did he know, his father's death wasn't rock bottom, but the busting of a biscuit can while the rest of his life oozed out of it. Dennis Pembroke's death turned into a catalyst for the annihilation of the remaining relationships in Kodiak's life. Taking the fork in the road was his choice, yet all the same, he did not blame himself.

The death was one year ago. Now, Kodiak's glass was empty again, and he wasn't concerned that he was closing in on three beers in the early afternoon. Tanya poured another and the bubbly white foam overflowed over the side of the glass, cascading until it hit the rich oak surface of the bar. The liquid pooled around the bottom and Kodiak focused on it as though if he concentrated hard enough he would turn into it. He did this with inanimate objects often; a stainless steel spoon, a frozen clothespin, a penny discarded on the street for one lucky soul to pick up. Kodiak wanted to feel life again, and Jake was the only person he trusted to help him find it. And then as Kodiak watched the foam of his overflowing glass settle, the same old Jake walked into the door. Kodiak was 39 and Jake was 40, but together they were still 6 and 7, 9 and 10, 15 and 16.