Once Upon a River Page 0,49
time, she had wanted to get the thing off her shoulder. She followed Michael into the bathroom. He was explaining how the hot water took a while to heat up and was showing her how to switch the flow from bath to shower. She peeled off her three shirts before considering she shouldn’t undress in front of a stranger. Michael looked away and abruptly left the room. Margo hardly recognized the thin, dirty creature in the mirror. She didn’t think her body looked strong enough to accomplish anything. Her shoulders were hunched from the cold. Her mud-colored curls were matted, and her face was a mess of scratches, insect bites, and poison ivy blisters. Her small breasts seemed shriveled. Her mother might’ve said she looked like a Slocum. Three times she shampooed her hair before the water rinsed clean.
Though she was in a stranger’s shower, she felt safe. With the water running, she could let herself cry, and when the hot water finally began to peter out, she composed herself by recalling the serene photos of Annie Oakley aiming her rifle, preparing to shoot, knowing she would hit her target every time. There was one photo Margo liked of a young Annie Oakley standing with her new husband, Frank Butler, and their big white dog, George.
Margo put on the dark terry-cloth robe that hung on the back of the door and padded across the hall into the room with the boat skeleton. It looked too big to fit through the doorway. The room did not even have a view of the water, so it was no wonder he didn’t sleep in there. A half dozen tools were lined up neatly on a wooden chair. She returned to the room with the sliding glass door and curled with King on the floor. Michael came in and sat on the foot of the bed, looking amused. “Are you a wolf girl? Or maybe a dog girl?”
“I watch King fish from my house.”
“Why do you call her King?”
“For the kingfisher bird. It has a big head like hers.”
“I didn’t have a dog before I bought this place,” Michael said. He squatted down and stroked the dog’s head. “It was the craziest thing. When I closed on this house, the old owner asked if I’d keep her, because she loved the river and wouldn’t be happy anywhere else. But he called her Renegade. Cleopatra fits her better. Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, a river dog. Cleo for short.” He tugged gently on the dog’s ear and her mouth opened in a smile. “You sleep in my bed, and I’ll sleep on the floor. You might have noticed I don’t have a couch.”
“We can both sleep on the bed,” Margo said. “It’s huge.” Still wearing the bathrobe, she climbed in on the river side. Michael sat on the end of the bed for a while before shrugging his shoulders and joining her.
“What’s that mysterious light at your house?” he asked.
“A kerosene lamp.” She had left it burning, figuring it would burn itself out, but it hadn’t.
“Are you going to teach me how to fish?”
“I need some matches. And I ran out of gas. If you let me borrow some, I can pay you back.”
“Did you see my boat in there?” Michael waited for her to nod. “After Danielle left I thought I should redo that room, but then I figured I’d rather have a boat. As soon as I finish it, I’m rowing up to that island with the black willows.”
“My grandpa gave me my boat.”
Michael nodded. “I built this bed out of red oak. I slept on a mattress on the floor for two months after Danielle left, until I finished it. Odysseus built his own bed, you know. I want to build everything that matters myself.”
“What about a car?”
“Cars don’t matter,” he said. “So what kind of wood is your boat made of?”
“Teak. The only teak boat on the river, my grandpa said.” Margo didn’t have the energy to ask who Odysseus was. She ran her hand over the headboard above her. It was made of solid planks, nothing fancy. It was the kind of bed Margo would like to have, though she wouldn’t need one that took up most of the room the way this one did.
“It must be heavy,” Michael said. “I have a teak cutting board. It’s like a brick.”
“It’s fine in the water. But I can’t go farther downstream than Confluence, because it’s too heavy to carry around the