Caribou Island Read Online Free

short and some would land in the boat. I can take a turn, she yelled, but he just shook his head and kept dipping the bucket and throwing until finally the waves were slapping against the transom but not breaking over. He stopped then, dropped the bucket and bent over the outboard to vomit into the lake.
    Gary, Irene said, and she wanted to comfort him but didn’t want to add weight to the stern. The bilge pump clearing out the remaining water but taking some time. Gary, she said again, are you all right, honey?
    I’m okay, he finally said. I’m okay. I’m sorry. This was a stupid idea.
    It’s okay, she said. We’ll be okay. We’ll just unload the rest of these and then go home.
    Gary slumped over the motor a while, then turned the engine and pump off, climbed forward slowly, and kneeled on logs next to her in the bow. She gave him a hug and they stayed like that a few minutes, holding each other as the wind picked up and rain came down heavier again. They had not held each other like this for a very long time.
    I love you, Gary said.
    I love you too.
    Well, Gary said, meaning time to move on. Irene had hoped the moment might extend. She didn’t know how everything had changed. In the beginning, she had slept with an arm and a leg over him, every night. They had spent Sundays in bed. They had hunted together, footsteps in sync, bows held ready, listening for moose, watching for movement. The forest a living presence then, and they a part of it, never alone. But Gary had stopped bowhunting. Too worried about money, using the weekends to work, no more Sundays in bed. In the beginning, Irene thought. There is no such thing as in the beginning.
    They left the gate latched and each grabbed another log, pulled it over the bow. The wind accelerating, coming in blasts, the rain spiking into their eyes if they looked toward the lake. Irene sneezed, then blew her nose by holding a finger to one nostril, wiped off with the back of her hand. Getting sick already.
    A long time to finish the logs, moving slowly now, both tired. Gary dragged some of Irene’s logs a bit farther from the water. But finally the boat was unloaded and light enough they could pull it ashore. They leaned against the bow, their backs to the wind and lake, and looked at their land.
    We should have done this thirty years ago, Gary said. Should have moved out here.
    We were on the shore, Irene said. On the lake, and easier to get to town, easier for the kids and school. It wouldn’t be possible to have kids out here.
    It would have been possible, Gary said. But whatever.
    Gary was a champion at regret. Every day there was something, and this was perhaps what Irene liked least. Their entire lives second-guessed. The regret a living thing, a pool inside him.
    Well, we’re out here now, Irene said. We’ve brought the logs, and we’ll be building the cabin.
    My point is that we could have been here thirty years ago.
    I get your point, Irene said.
    Well, Gary said. His lips tight, and he was staring ahead into an alder thicket, stuck in there, unable to work his way out of the sense that his life could have been something else, and Irene knew she was a part of this great regret.
    Irene tried to rise above, tried not to get caught in this. She looked at the property, and it really was beautiful. Slender white birch along the back portion, bigger Sitka spruce, a cottonwood and several aspen. The land had some contour, several rises, and she could see where the cabin would go. They’d put a deck out front, and on nice evenings, they’d watch the sun set on the mountain, golden light. This could all work out.
    We can do this, Irene said. We can build a nice cabin here.
    Yeah, Gary finally said. Then he turned away from the property, looked into the wind and rain. Let’s push off.
    So they pushed the boat free and climbed over the bow. Gary at the engine and Irene in the bottom of the boat, hugging her knees, trying to get warm. The way back not as bad, the waves