only comfortable going as far south as UW. Couldn’t bear living so close to the equator as Mississippi. I’d probably melt.”
“It’s not for everybody,” I said, trying to keep my tone neutral. Although I’d griped constantly about Mississippi’s climate—and once threatened a coworker with an atomic wedgie if he said “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity” one more time—I felt a little twitch of loss, a pang of nostalgia for that bone-softening heat. For the first time since stepping out of the truck, I felt a chill zip down my spine. What if I was making a huge mistake? What if I wasn’t strong enough for this? Could I snatch the rental papers from Mr. Gogan’s desk and run back to my truck without making a scene?
“Well, we’re all set here,” Mr. Gogan said, giving the papers an official-looking stamp and returning them to his files.
That would be a no, then.
Mr. Gogan plopped a worn, brown suede cowboy hat on his head and said, “I’ll help you get checked in at the motel.”
“Actually, I’d hoped I could just settle right into the house,” I told him.
He blanched. “Well, Mo, I’m not sure if it’s going to be ready yet. The Meyers had rented the cabin out as a weekend place for hunting groups and the like up until now. We just had a party of fly-fishermen check out yesterday morning. You may want to wait a day or two to let the place, er, air out.”
“After such a long drive, I’d really like to avoid another motel, Mr. Gogan. I don’t mind if it’s a little messy. I just don’t want to face another polyester comforter.”
Mr. Gogan smiled wanly. “If you say so . . .”
I should have stuck with the polyester comforter.
As charming and picturesque as the cabin was on the outside, the inside was a disaster. My new home looked like a condemned frat house. The first thing I saw was that the tidy little living room I’d been shown online was strewn with empty Doritos bags and dirty clothes. The furniture—sturdy, durable pieces—was tossed around the room, as if there’d been an impromptu wrestling tournament in front of the old slate fireplace. There was a whimsical installation of beer tabs hanging from the light fixture over the kitchen table.
And the whole house smelled like dead fish.
Mr. Gogan seemed embarrassed but not particularly surprised. A faint blush spread over his leathery cheeks as he apologized. “Lynette, the cleaning gal, was supposed to come by and give the place a once-over after she finished her shift at the motel. But I guess she hasn’t made it over here yet,” he said, flicking a pair of mildewed Fruit of the Looms out through the open front door with his foot. By the steadiness of his gaze I could tell he hoped I wouldn’t notice the movement.
“Tell her not to bother,” I said, my smile fixed. If I let it falter at all, I was sure my face would crumple. This was not what I had pictured doing that night. Well, maybe in my worst-case scenario I pictured some cleaning. But even in that contingency, I hadn’t pictured so much dead salmon. Or the sheer volume of discarded tightie- whities.
Panic flashed in Mr. Gogan’s eyes, and I found myself wanting to tamp it down. I could do this. The cabin wasn’t a lost cause. Once you looked past the mess—and the smell—it was really very cozy.
“I’ll clean it myself,” I amended.
Instantly reassured, Mr. Gogan showed me the rest of the house, all four rooms of it. He offered to help me unload a few boxes from the truck, more strings to keep me from bolting from the little cabin. I refused, noting how dark it was getting.
“Mrs. Gogan will get worried,” I told him.
“That reminds me,” he said as he retrieved Tupperware from the backseat of his Bronco. “My Gertie sent this over. It’s her famous pot roast and potatoes. And some berry cobbler. She said a woman shouldn’t have to cook for herself after driving so far. She hopes to meet you the next time you come into town.”
My reticence, heart, and nerves were instantly balmed by lovingly prepared starches. I smiled at Mr. Gogan. The “scenic view and available men” sales pitch I had expected, but not the neighborly gesture. I was wanted there, and that meant a lot. “Please thank her for me.”
Mr. Gogan winked at me as he climbed into his truck. “Welcome home, Mo.”
THE SILENCE WAS DEAFENING.
I thought my little suburban rental home in Leland, Mississippi, had been secluded, but even there I could hear the occasional snatch of conversation, the rumbling bass of my neighbors’ car stereos. Here it felt as if my ears were stuffed with cotton. My house was fourteen miles outside town limits and set back a half-mile from the highway by a winding gravel driveway. A bomb could have blown up half of Grundy, and I wouldn’t have heard it. I lay in the cabin’s little bedroom and listened for some noise. Something to prove that it wasn’t some sort of hallucination, that I wasn’t still living in my little ranch house, waiting for my life to start.
After Mr. Gogan left, I’d found I had a boatload of manic energy to burn off. Which was a good thing, because I spent my first few hours as a Grundy resident on the Great Dead Fish Hunt. There were dead fish piled in the fridge, dead fish in the bathroom sink, dead fish hanging from a string in my utility room. Fortunately, Mr. Gogan’s house-warming gift included all-purpose cleaner and paper towels. The worst part was, as much as I wanted just to chuck the decaying leftovers outside and forget about them, I figured that would be a signal flare to every bear in a hundred-mile radius that I was hosting an all-you-can-eat buffet on my lawn. So I carefully double-bagged the remains in heavy-duty trash bags and left them in my utility room. I hoped to be able to run them out to my locking garbage bin at the end my driveway in the light of day.
Honestly, I wasn’t terribly afraid of the prospect of bears, wolves, or anything else that Alaska could throw at me. I figured it couldn’t be any worse than going out to your carport and finding a six-foot alligator sunning himself behind your bumper. Which had happened twice in Mississippi. Not to mention the various snakes, possums, and other vermin that had found their way into my house.
Tired, sore, and stinking like dead salmon, I showered until my hot water ran out and warmed up Mrs. Gogan’s offering in my newly descaled microwave. While I ate, I gave in to my need to organize, to prepare. I made detailed lists of supplies I would need, furnishings and household items to be replaced, and the normal little moving chores such as establishing cable and phone service. I felt better for it. Lists and plans made me feel in control.
It was one of the many ways I differed from my parents, whose only remotely religious credo was “Man plans, the Greater Power says, ‘Ha!’” That was it. That was my entire spiritual education, provided by the son of a deeply Orthodox Jewish family and the daughter of a Baptist deacon.
With my parents in mind, I took some deep, cleansing breaths, crunched my way through two Tums, and listened to my voice mail for the first time in a week.
“Sweetheart, I’m only calling because I’m so worried about you,” the messages all started. “We know that it’s important to have your own space. We’ve tried to respect that, but we didn’t expect you to take it this far. You’re our baby, our precious baby. We just don’t understand how you could do this to us.” And then a litany of worries, complaints, and recriminations followed, each of which ended with my mother pleading, “Won’t you please at least call us, so we know that you’re safe? Even if you have to use your cell phone to do it . . . but you know, I worry about you using that silly phone so much, you’re going to get a brain tumor from all those rays being aimed right at your ear. I’ve told you time and time again just to use your phone at home . . .”
And on and on it would go until my voice mail ran out of space.
I leaned my forehead against the counter, grateful for the cool, smooth Formica. And despite the fact that any number of studies had proven that my cell phone was perfectly safe to use, I was annoyed to find that I’d placed it on the far side of the counter, where it couldn’t zap me with its deadly brain-mushing waves. This was the problem with dealing with my mother. Sometimes she made just enough sense to get to me, and then I was all the way back to square one.
My mother was originally Lynn Duvall, from Brownsville, Texas. She met my father, George Wenstein, at a
