Michigan Weather and Women: Part 1

Love, bastards, and what we leave behind.

Based on a post by CleverGenericName, in 4 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connected.

The Plumber, The Painter, and the Wind off the Lake

Prologue

I have never been much for following instructions or doing what I'm told.

In eighth grade, we were assigned to make a volcano in science class. I figured that if the eruption looked good with a couple of tablespoons of baking soda, then it would look even better with the whole container! And what better place for a natural disaster than the teacher's desk at the front of the class. I was right; the whole container of baking soda produced an impressive explosion. What I didn't count on, however, was it producing a week-long suspension from school and a beating from my mother.

In high school, we had to take an art class to graduate. Our teacher loved still life drawing and would ramble endlessly about how it revealed the beauty that is in the everyday objects that surround us. I guess he wanted us to reveal the beauty in the bowl of fruit that he had put in the middle of the classroom, but the most beautiful things that I could see were Brittany Johnson's D-cups which filled out her sweater gloriously. At the end of the class, there were 29 drawings of a bowl of fruit and one drawing of a beautiful girl's smile (amongst other details). Although I was suspended for two days, I got a date with Brittany who loved my drawing, so I feel like I came out ahead on that one.

In my last year of school, the final mathematics exam asked the following question:

Determine the points of intersection between the following parabolas and lines. Illustrate fully.

While the other students slaved away to solve the listed problems in the allotted time, I fully illustrated a drawing of our math teacher, Mr. Aaronson, dancing a slow waltz in a field of sunflowers with Mrs. Stevens, the geography teacher. It was the worst-kept secret in the school that our two shyest teachers had massive crushes on each other, and after four years of watching them pine away, I thought they could use a little push.

I failed the test, but Mr. Aaronson showed my drawing to Mrs. Stevens during a particularly dull staff meeting, and when it made her blush and smile, he finally got up the courage to ask her out. They are now married and have a little girl who is as cute as a button. At the end of the year, Mr. Aaronson asked me if I planned to pursue math in the future, and when I assured him that I did not, he gave me a passing grade.

So, what was my problem, you might ask? Was I just one of those kids who didn't give a shit and was destined for mediocrity or failure in life? Like many things, the answer is more complicated than it might first appear, but I am getting ahead of myself. Our story starts on an unusually cold and blustery afternoon in late October, on the north-eastern shore of Lake Michigan about a half hour's drive north of Petoskey, just outside a village called Good Hart.

Chapter 1.

It had been a busy day. The perfect storm of an early season snap freeze, strong winds, and lake-effect snow meant that there was a couple of inches of snow on the still soggy ground, along with a number of leaky or burst pipes, malfunctioning valves, and boiler issues as people cranked their heating systems up to full for the first time that year. As a plumber, though, I didn't mind. It just meant more work for me, which was always a good thing.

At only 25 years of age, and despite being a master plumber, I was generally the last choice for folks to call, even in an emergency. Anyone with money chose one of the larger and more established plumbing contractors, leaving me with the jobs that they didn't feel were worth their time or effort. That's how I found myself pulling into the laneway of an older house, just off Lamkin Road down by the lake, late that Friday afternoon. It was my last job of the day, but I would be working over the weekend to catch up on my backlog, so I wanted to get it done.

The house looked like it hadn't been updated since it was built, likely in the late fifties or early sixties, other than a couple of coats of paint and a new roof when the original finally gave up the ghost. The front gardens were neatly tended, however, and the property itself was stunning, with panoramic views in three directions out over the lake. The sun was just beginning to dip toward the western horizon as I drove up, so the trees cast long shadows across the laneway.

The house was owned by Mrs. Wilma C. Anderson, who had called me earlier in the day to say that some of her radiators weren't working and that her boiler was making one hell of a racket when she turned it on. I told her to shut the system down and that I would look at it by the end of the day. She sounded quite elderly, and I didn't like the idea of her going without heat for a night during a cold snap.

I rang the doorbell and waited until a tiny wisp of a woman answered. She couldn't have been more than five feet tall and looked older than the hills, but her face was full of life, and her eyes had a twinkle that spoke of humor and mischief.

"Hi, Mrs. Anderson, I'm Davis Crawford. You called earlier about some issues with your boiler and heating system. How can I help?"

Mrs. Anderson gave me an appraising look.

"I wasn't expecting you to be such a handsome young man. If I were fifty years younger, I would tell you exactly how you could help me, and then I'd teach you a trick or two I learned over the years. But I am too old for that kind of foolishness these days, so I will just have to make use of your plumbing expertise instead. And please, call me Wilma."

I couldn't help but laugh and blush at Wilma's surprisingly raunchy sense of humor. I liked her immediately.

"Let's try that again. What seems to be the problem?"

"Well, the biggest problem is that I am 91 years old and dying of cancer. The doctors give me less than a year to live. But aside from that, I really can't complain. I have had a good run of it."

I cocked my head to one side and gave her a bemused look.

"Oh, you were wondering what the problem is with my heating system. Well, I turned it on this morning when I got up, and the boiler sounded like there was someone trapped inside of it trying to hammer their way out. There was a worrisome hissing from some of the radiators, as well, and they weren't heating up worth a damn.

"My husband, Phillip, used to take care of those things for us, but he has been gone for almost five years now, so I hate to think what you will find when you look around."

"I'm sure I can help you, Mrs. Anderson,;"

"Wilma, please."

"Sorry, Wilma. Why don't you show me to the basement, and I will try to figure out what's wrong. Then I can get started on fixing it."

On the way to the basement stairs, Wilma led me through her crowded but orderly living room. I couldn't help but notice the paintings on just about every surface of its walls.

"You have a real eye for art, Wilma. Those paintings are beautiful."

Wilma smiled wistfully at me and got a faraway look in her eyes as she replied.

"Phillip and I were artists. I guess I still am, but I haven't felt much like painting since he passed on. Phillip painted portraits. He made a surprisingly good living at it; you would be amazed at what rich people will pay to see their lives immortalized in oil on canvas. I never had the knack. Phillip could make even the most corpulent and corrupt industrialist appear regal and wise. I could only ever capture what I actually saw in them, and I quickly discovered that they did not enjoy, or pay for, that kind of introspection.

"So, I painted landscapes, and there is always a market for those. But I kept some of my favorite pieces, over the years, as you can see."

As Wilma spoke, I took a closer look at the paintings. One, in particular, was striking; a portrait of a beautiful young woman, in her late teens or early twenties, with a stethoscope around her neck and her blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. She was wearing a loose hoodie and was curled up in an Adirondack chair, reading a book. It was not what you would expect from a formal portrait, but it seemed to capture her essence in a way that no photograph could match. I must have stopped moving as I was drawn into the image, so Wilma gave me a minute before she continued.

"That's the last painting that Phillip worked on before he passed. He didn't get the chance to finish it, but I still think it's his finest work."

I couldn't help but agree.

"Who's the model? She's beautiful."

"That's my granddaughter, Erin. You can't tell from the portrait, but she's a real firecracker. As a grandparent, you're not supposed to play favorites, but she was very special to Phillip, and it hit her hard when he passed. There is more love in that one painting than in all the other portraits that he painted over his lifetime. Except for his first, of course, of me."

"Where are Phillips' other works? Surely, they weren't all commissions that are now locked away in some dusty millionaire's palace."

Wilma's expression turned bleak as she contemplated her response.

"All of his other paintings were sold after he died. The kids said they would fetch a better price while there was an upswing of interest in his work after his death, so they insisted that they all go to auction as quickly as possible. They were probably right, I guess, although I loved his art more than I needed the money. But how do you argue with your kids when they have just lost their father?"

"Do any of your children live nearby?"

"They all moved far away. Phillip and I chose a wonderful spot to live and make our art, but a challenging place to raise a family. It's not so bad now, what with the internet, highways, and the like, but when we first moved here sixty-some years ago, it was very isolated. We were young and selfish, and our selfishness cost us dearly.

"We thought that our children would grow to love this area over time, like we did. But they never did, and they left as soon as they could get away. My daughter, Samantha, is a retired lawyer and she and her third husband split their time between their loft in Manhattan and their beach house in the Bahamas. My son, Robert, is an oil executive down in Texas. Neither of them has been here in more than a decade, except for Phillip's funeral.

"My baby, Max, passed away more than twenty years ago now of cancer. Erin is his granddaughter. She is a pediatrician, and she splits her time between the hospital in Petoskey and the children's hospital down in Grand Rapids. She comes to see me when she can, but she is very busy. My other relatives all live busy lives far away from here. We chose to live here, though, so I can't be too upset that the rest of the family chose to live far away.

"But enough about me. What about you, Mr. Crawford? Do you have any children?"

"It's just me and my siblings, I'm afraid, and it's been that way for quite some time. My oldest sister, Alison, is 20, and she goes to college at North Central Michigan, in Petoskey. She is planning to become a nurse practitioner. The rest of the gang still lives at home with me. Sharon is 17 now, so she kind of runs the show while I am working; Mary is 15 but going on 30, if you know what I mean; and Lane is the baby of the family at 12."

"Where are your parents?"

"I don't honestly know. We each have a different father, or at least we think we do. Sharon, Lane, and I have no idea who our fathers are, so there's a chance that we might be full siblings, but I doubt it. My mother never kept the same man around for long. Alison's father has been in and out of jail since before she was born and is currently serving a stint in federal prison. But Mary has it the worst of all of us.

"My mother met Mary's dad on a weekend bender in Vegas, and he is a pretty big deal. Rich, famous, the kind of guy you see on TV and the cover of magazines. A real family man, except when it comes to Mary, whom he refuses to even acknowledge. He bought my mom's silence with a lump sum payment and a non-disclosure agreement. That money was supposed to be put in a trust for Mary, but my mom snorted and injected it all in less than a year. Mary has written to her father dozens of times and reached out to him on social media countless more, but he wants nothing to do with his bastard daughter.

"As for my mom, she went away for the weekend almost seven years ago now and left me in charge. And I am still in charge, I guess. So, no time for dating or romance for me, and I think that I will be just about done with raising kids by the time that Lane goes off to college."

Wilma gave me a look filled with more empathy than I had felt in a long time, maybe ever.

"Anyway, I should take a look at your boiler and see what I can do about getting you some heat."

I would have called the boiler in Wilma's basement old, but that wouldn't have done it justice. Frankly, it wouldn't have seemed out of place in a museum of heating and plumbing, and it was hanging on to life by the barest of threads. With only a year to live, however, I wasn't going to recommend to Wilma that she replace the whole system with something more modern and efficient.

"I think I can fix your boiler so that it will hold on for another year or two, and I can patch a couple of leaks in the lines to the main radiators as well. One line to a radiator at the back of the house is completely shot, so I will shut that one off and be back to replace it later this week."

"What's all that going to cost?"

"It's free of charge, Ma'am. You've got enough to look after with your health and all, without having to worry about your heating system. I never had a grandma to spoil, at least not one that I know of, so it would be my pleasure to do this for you."

"Please, it's Wilma. And it's a grandmother's prerogative to spoil her grandchildren, and not the other way around. But your kindness is mighty appreciated, Davis."

It took me a couple of hours to shore up the boiler and repair the lines that were still in reasonable condition before I was finished for the day. As I got ready to leave, I found Wilma sitting alone in the living room reading an old paperback.

"I'll call you later this week, once the replacement line for your radiator comes in."

Wilma got a mischievous smile on her face.

"Why, Davis, are you getting fresh with me?"

"If I were older and more experienced, I would in an instant. But I hardly think I can compete with the memory of your Phillip."

"Too true, too true. Alright young man, well thank you for taking the time to look after a foolish old woman on a cold October night."

"I hardly think you're foolish, Wilma, but it's been my pleasure."

I didn't get home from Wilma's until well after nine that night, and by the time I pulled into our gravel driveway, I was beat. The dilapidated old yard light mounted on the roof of the garage shone weakly down on the sloppy mix of gravel and mud that was our yard, and I could hear the excited barks of Munchkin, our rescue puppy. He was a mix of German Shepherd and Cane Corso, with some variety of northern dog thrown in, and he was mighty pleased to see me.

I'm glad that someone was.

I came into our small three-bedroom rental to find Sharon and Lane sitting at the dining room table working on his math homework. I wish that they reacted like Munchkin when they saw me, but Lane just grunted a hello, while Sharon looked up at me with a mixture of sadness and worry.

"Mary is out with the McDougal brothers again. They showed up here a half hour ago, I told her not to go with them, but she wouldn't listen."

"The McDougal brothers are assholes," was Lane's addition to the conversation, without even looking up from the table. He wasn't wrong. The oldest McDougall brother, Calum, was a couple of years ahead of me at school and was a bully and a braggart. Two of his three brothers had followed in his esteemed footsteps, while the jury was still out on the youngest, James.

"I'm going to go get her. Next time that those boys turn up in our yard, let Munchkin lose on them."

"Alright, dinner will be in the oven when you get back. Given 'em hell, Bro."

The McDougal brothers lived just outside Pellston in the closest thing to a mansion that you could find in our neck of the woods. Their family owned the largest construction and maintenance company in the area and had most of the Public Works contracts sown up, along with a not inconsiderable portion of the private construction in our region as well. Their parents spent most of their time in Sarasota, Florida, though, and the brothers had free rein while they were gone.

As I drove up their long, paved driveway, automatic floodlights came on, illuminating the ostentatious columns that flanked the entrance to their house. I parked in front of the nearest bay of their four-car attached garage while noting that there was another three-car garage further off to the right. I idly wondered who got to park in which garage. Rich people problems, I guess.

I walked to the front door and let myself in. From the foyer, I could hear the loud thump of music coming from the back of the house, so I headed that way. As I passed through the kitchen, I nearly bumped into James, who was holding a couple of empty serving bowls. He stopped dead when he saw me, looking nervous, clearly not expecting anyone else to be in their house. Certainly not me, anyway.

"Hey James, I am here to get my sister. Where is she?"

He hesitated a moment before pointing toward the back of the house.

"She's in the game room playing pool with the guys. We didn't force her to come here or anything, if that's what you're worried about."

"Maybe that's true, James. But you know she is still a minor, and I am her guardian, so I'm going to fetch her and bring her home."

James didn't like the sound of that, but I turned my back on him and followed the music to a large, sunken room at the back of the house, which had an expensive-looking pool table in the middle. The remaining McDougal brothers were either playing pool or smoking up on one of the couches that were scattered around the outside of the room. Calum was presiding over the festivities, while the Pistons game was playing on a wall-mounted TV that was bigger than some movie screens. Despite his family's blue-collar roots, Calum looked like an overgrown frat boy, with his preppy clothes and fifty-dollar haircut.

Mary was sitting in the middle of one of the couches, with a McDougal brother on one side and one of their hangers-on on the other. She looked somewhere between uncomfortable and scared, but she gave me a defiant scowl. The music stopped, and everyone looked to Calum and then back at me. There was a nervous tension in the air.

"Hi Calum, I'm here for my sister."

Calum was now in a bit of a spot; he couldn't just let me come into his home and give him orders without losing face with his brothers and their cronies. But he also knew, or at least suspected, that my sister was underage. And then there was always the Pipe Wrench Incident. That always made people nervous to be around me.

"That's not my problem. She told my brother that she wanted to party, so she's here to party. No one forced her to come, and she seems to be having a good time."

I wondered if all of Calum's dates looked as scared and uncomfortable as Mary did at that moment when they were having a 'good time'.

"Well, since she is still a minor and I'm her guardian, it's a bit of a problem. Or it could be. But I don't want to put a damper on your evening, so I'll just bring Mary home with me and we'll call it a night."

Calum looked toward James who had just come back into the room with bowls now filled with potato chips.

"Is that true, Limp dick? Did you bring an underage girl home to party with us?"

James began to sputter before Calum shook his head in disgust. He pointed over at Mary.

"Get the fuck out of here, and don't come back until you're sixteen," he said before turning back to me.

"And you. Just get the fuck out of our house."

It was a silent drive home. Mary refused to even look at me, staring out the window instead. When we pulled into our yard, Munchkin came running up to greet us, and Mary finally spoke.

"You didn't need to embarrass me like that. I'm old enough to make my own choices, you know."

"The law says you're still a minor. And you'll always be my sister. Those guys are no good, Mary. You know that."

"James is different. He isn't like the rest of them."

"Maybe that's true, or maybe not. But you don't hang out in a nest of rattlesnakes, just because there is a garter snake in there with them that you think is cute."

After a pause and some continued barking from Munchkin, Mary finally looked over at me.

"You're not my dad, you know. You can't tell me what to do."

And there it was. It always came down to the same thing with Mary; her father's rejection of her. Over the years, it had undermined her self-esteem and destroyed her self-worth to the point where I wondered if they would ever recover. Unfortunately, I was just smart enough to see the problem, but I had no idea how to fix it. A brother's love can only go so far, I guess.

"I know, Mary. I know. But I love you, and I am so proud of you, and I just wish that was enough."

We sat in silence for another minute before she replied.

"I wish it was too."

Chapter 2.

It took a couple of days for Mrs. Anderson's new radiator line to arrive, and I gave her a call when I went to pick it up.

"Hi, Mrs. And; Wilma. I was just picking up the replacement line for your radiator, and I was wondering if you needed anything else from town, while I'm here. I was going to come by and install the line later this afternoon if that works for you."

"That's very kind of you, Davis. Would you mind picking up a few groceries for me? I can send the store a list, so they will be ready for you when you get there."

A couple of my calls that day took longer than expected, so it was late in the afternoon again by the time I made it to Wilma's place. The early season snow had mostly melted away, and her yard was now a combination of gravel and thick soupy mud that could swallow a tire as easily as it could swallow a boot.

"Thank you for picking the groceries up for me, you're too kind."

"It was no trouble at all, especially since I was coming out this way anyway. If you don't mind me asking, how do you usually get them?"

"I used to have a young man up the way who would help me with groceries and yard work, and other small things, but now I am pretty much on my own."

"What happened to him? Did he move away?"

"No, he still lives in the same place that he always has, but I am pretty sure that my family paid him more not to help me than I was paying for his assistance."

"What? That seems like a crappy thing for them to do to you."

Wilma gave a resigned sigh and then offered me a coffee while she told me her story.

"I think I told you the last time you were here, that most of my family has moved on from this place, except my granddaughter Erin. The rest of them already have an agreement in place with a developer, the McDougals, to turn this property into a high-end resort for the Fudgies, so they have someplace to spend their money after visiting Mackinac Island."

"Fudgies," was what the locals called the tourists from down south who descended on the upper peninsula in the summer.

"If you don't mind me asking, just how much land do you own?"

"Well, Phillip and I didn't have much to spend our money on over the years, so we bought up many of the nearby properties when they went up for sale. We ended up with at least a quarter mile of land that fronts onto the lake, without even really trying."

I let out a low whistle.

"That must be worth a small fortune. I can understand your family's interest."

"At first, they didn't care if I stayed in the house after Phillip died. They figured that I would follow soon enough. After a few years, however, they started to get impatient, and it's fair to say that they are now actively encouraging me to leave, by foot, by car, or in a box. They have generously offered to put me out to pasture in a warehouse for the old and infirm, though, to await my impending doom.

"With my cancer, their wish is finally going to come true. By this time next year, I will be sipping coffee with Phillip in whatever afterlife we atheists get to enjoy. Actually, who am I kidding? If there is an afterlife for Phillip and me, the first thing I'm going to do when I get there is get on my knees, undo his belt buckle, and then show him just how much I've missed him these past five years.

Wilma looked a bit startled as if she had just remembered that I was still there.

"I'm sorry, Davis. You probably didn't need to hear that last part. I just miss him so much. I still see him in the trees and along the shore, and I sometimes hear his voice in the wind off the lake."

"It's all good, Wilma. I just hope that my brother and sisters get to experience the kind of love that you and Phillip had someday."

"What about you, Davis? Don't you deserve to experience that kind of love as well?"

"Maybe I deserve it, Wilma, but I don't think I am going to find it. It's been tough; real tough, looking after my family all these years. I have done things that I am not proud of, but that needed to be done. I don't regret them; I would do anything to protect the people I love. But I doubt that anyone would be able to love me, once they found out what I've done."

"I think you are selling yourself short, Davis. We are all artists, and we are all worthy of love."

With that, Wilma offered to top up my coffee before I started replacing the broken line. As the evening's shadows deepened, I saw her watching me with compassion and concern in her eyes. Once I was finished, I felt her hand on my shoulder, and she gave it an empathetic squeeze.

"A penny for your thoughts?"

I stopped what I was doing and turned to look at her.

"It's my sister, Mary. I am losing her. She is so hurt and angry that she is beginning to make bad choices, and I don't know how to help her. I've tried to be her brother, parent, and friend, but I'm failing at all three."

Wilma offered no judgment, good or bad. She just listened, and when I finished, she spoke.

"Bring her over this Sunday around noon. Tell her to wear some old clothes that she doesn't mind getting dirty. You can come too if you would like and bring your little brother to do some fishing, but Mary will be spending her time with me."

It wasn't easy convincing Mary to come to Wilma's. If you have spent time dealing with teenage girls, you know that they can be as stubborn as late-season ice on the lake. In the end, I resorted to threats and bribery to get her onboard, but she assured me that she would hate every minute she was there. Lane came with us as well, with the promise that we could spend the afternoon fishing off the end of Wilma's dock.

By the time we arrived, Mary was sullenly glued to the passenger seat and wouldn't look up from her phone. Wilma waited a few minutes for Mary, but she stubbornly refused to leave the truck. Eventually, Wilma pulled on her rubber boots and walked over to the truck. She looked up at Mary and started speaking.

"There are three things that I know are true.

"The first, I've already shared with your brother. We are all artists because we are all worthy of love. But many of us lose our way. We are hurt and abandoned, and we are buried in shame. I was like that for many years. But my husband, Phillip, found me and taught me what it is to be loved. Not just the physical act; although he taught me about that as well; but the certainty that I was seen, known, and cherished. He showed me that I am an artist.

You are an artist too.

"Second, I am old, I have cancer, and I will die. Not today, and hopefully not tomorrow, but soon. And that is okay; we all die. I have lived a good life. And when I do, I hope that Phillip will be waiting for me with a glass of chilled white wine and his beautiful smile. My art may linger for a while once I am gone but, eventually, it too will be lost.

"Third, the world is full of bastards. Your brother tells me that you and he are both bastards. I will tell you a secret that I have shared with very few people; I am a bastard too.

"My mother was beautiful but poor. Her parents lost everything during the Great Depression, and she worked as a housemaid for a rich and powerful man to support her family. When she fell pregnant, he put her out on the street and refused to recognize her child, his daughter; me. Because of his rejection, I spent too many years steeped in shame and self-loathing. But eventually, I learned a hard truth; my father was a bastard by choice, while I was a bastard by birth. And those of us who are bastards by birth must never let the bastards by choice win.

"Come inside when you're ready. I'm too old and it's too cold for me to stand here waiting for you."

With that, Wilma turned and slowly made her way back to the house. Surprisingly, after a minute, Mary followed. When they reached the door, Wilma turned to look back at me.

"It's time for you boys to go fishing. There is a warm breeze off the lake that will bring you good luck."

Lane and I made our way down the hill to the dock in silence, our fishing rods, ice chest, and tackle box in hand. Unlike a seasonal dock that would be taken out of the lake each fall, Wilma's dock could be used year-round and was built with heavy timbers and steel bracing, so it could withstand the crushing force of the winter's ice. When we reached the dock, we felt the warm wind that Wilma had promised, and we chose our lures and began to cast. After a half hour of fishing, Lane broke the silence.

"Do you think it's my fault?"

"Do I think what's your fault, Bud?"

"That mom left us. That she never came back. Do you think it's my fault?"

I sighed as I thought about my answer.

"No. It's not your fault. It's no one's fault, really, maybe not even hers. It's funny though, she brought some amazing people into this world. I wish she could have seen how incredible you and your sisters have turned out. But she made her choice, and that's on her, not you."

Lane thought about my answer before he continued.

"But you would be better off without me. Sharon would have more time to study for the scholarship she will need to get away from here. I try to be nice to Mary, to make her feel better, but I just seem to make things worse for her as well. And I see how hard you work to keep our family together. I feel like you would all be better off without me. If I weren't here, maybe Mom would come back home."

I took a deep breath and tried to push down the anger that threatened to overwhelm me; anger at my mother for abandoning us, anger at myself for never being enough, and anger at a world that would leave my brother feeling like it would be better off if he didn't exist. I felt the wind off the lake as it blew across my face, drying my unshed tears before they were formed. As I was wondering how to unbreak my brother's heart, a particularly strong gust of wind blew through and Lane's fishing rod bent into a deep arc, the tip dancing wildly as a fish fought against the line.

"Dad! Help;"

The drag clicked furiously as the fish pulled line, as Lane fought to keep his rod tip up. I quickly set my rod aside and braced him, my hands held loosely beside his as he fought to reel in his catch. We worked together for what seemed like an eternity before he finally fought his fish to the side of the dock. I grabbed the net and saw that he had hooked a steelhead trout that was easily two feet long and must have weighed at least eight pounds if not more. It was a wonder the drag held steady, and his line didn't break during the fight.

As I scooped up his catch, the steelhead's silver sides shimmered like polished chrome in the fading light, and it was so big that it took up over half the ice chest I had brought along to store our catch. Lane was flushed with excitement at landing such an impressive fish, and I was so proud of him that my heart almost ached.

"Nice work, Son."

He just looked up at me for a moment before throwing his arms around me in a hug. In the time since our mother left, he had never called me by anything other than my name. I never tried to be his dad; I didn't think I was qualified, but I guess that all of us need someone in our lives who will love us without conditions or end.

"Never think that you're a burden on me or the family. Maybe you need a bit more from us right now than you can give back, but that's alright. Because sixty years from now, when I am old and can't wipe my ass anymore, you are going to be paying me back in spades, alright?"

With that, we went back to fishing in companionable silence. I pulled in a few smaller ones, but nothing to match Lane's steelhead.

A few hours later, the wind had picked up and it was getting colder, so we packed up our equipment and made our way back toward the house. Halfway down the dock, however, a huge gust of wind swept through, and I heard a cry followed by a loud splash. Turning back, I saw that Lane's foot had slipped through a broken slat, and he had fallen off the dock. Without thinking, I dropped the ice box and rods and jumped into the water to help him.

When I got him to shore, he couldn't put any weight on his ankle, and any efforts to do so were met with cries of pain. I quickly collected our discarded fishing gear and set it to one side, before helping him to slowly make his way back up the hill. The November chill quickly took hold of us as we walked, plastering our damp clothing to our skin, and we were shivering uncontrollably by the time we reached the house. I knocked but it took a minute for Wilma and Mary to come out from the studio at the back of the house.

"I am sorry to cut things short, but Lane had an accident down at the dock and he sprained or maybe even broke his ankle. I am going to have to take him to the hospital in Petoskey to get it looked at before it swells up any further."

Wilma looked at me with concern.

"Maybe you should hold off at least for a little while. My granddaughter, Erin, the pediatrician, is coming for dinner tonight and should be here any minute. Why don't we let her take a look at it before you head into town? And let's get you out of those clothes; you must be freezing. I still have some of Phillip's things in the closet that might fit you."

A few minutes later, I had changed into a pair of comfortable but slightly musty-smelling pants, with a warm sweater over a well-worn collared shirt. I was both taller and wider than Phillip had been, at least in the twilight of his years, so the pants were a bit short, while the sweater was tight across my shoulders. While I changed, Mary and Wilma had set Lane up on the couch with his ankle elevated on some pillows. I helped him change out of his wet clothing and into an old sweatshirt and shorts that fit over his swollen ankle. Once Lane was settled, Wilma and I talked quietly in the kitchen.

"It's getting late, and you must be getting hungry, but I don't think I have enough to feed everyone."

I thought for a moment.

"We may be in luck. Lane caught the biggest steelhead I have ever seen earlier this afternoon, but I left it down by the dock after the accident. If you have a few potatoes and maybe a veg or two, I am sure I can whip something up that would feed us all."

Wilma looked at me with a sly smile.

"He cooks, he plumbs, and he cares for his family, all while cutting a dashing figure in my late husband's favorite sweater. You, Mr. Crawford, are a catch."

"I am not sure about that, Wilma," I replied with a laugh, "But either way, this catch had better go and get our earlier catch, so I can get started on dinner."

It took me almost half an hour to collect our fishing gear and bring it back up to the truck. By the time I was done, an older SUV was parked behind my truck, which meant that Erin had arrived. After I loaded the gear, I used the fishing knife and stained plastic cutting board that I kept in a bin under the back seat to clean and filet the steelhead before heading inside.

From the doorway, I could see a head of sandy-blonde hair pulled back into a loose ponytail sticking up from the far side of the couch, and I heard a calm and melodic voice talking to Lane while Wilma and Mary looked on. I was so lost in that voice that I almost jumped when the latch on the door caught behind me. The head of sandy-blonde hair looked up at the sound, revealing a pair of amber, almost golden eyes.

"You must be the father," said that same melodic voice, as those eyes bore their way into my soul.

"It's Davis Crawford, and I'm the older brother."

"Erin Anderson, nice to meet you. Can you get hold of your parents? We might need to take Lane to the hospital for some X-rays."

"No," I replied more harshly than I intended.

"No," I tried again, more gently but with an edge to my voice. "Our parents aren't around; I am as close as you're going to get. I am Lane's legal guardian if that helps."

There was a slight pause as her amber eyes shifted from surprise to curiosity.

"That helps a lot. Why don't you give me 15 minutes or so to take a look at this brave dude's ankle, then we can talk over some options, once I have a better sense of what's going on."

"That okay with you, Bud?" I asked as I walked over to the couch.

"Yeah, that should be fine," he replied, but his eyes were wide, and his cheeks were flushed. For a moment, I was worried that he might be running a fever, but then I got my first look at Erin, and I understood.

Maybe she wasn't classically beautiful like a movie star or swimsuit model, but she was lean and fit, and from what I could see, had more than enough curves in all the right places. It was her face, however, that captured me. She had delicate features accentuated by her high cheekbones, and there was a softness to her expression that spoke of empathy and kindness. Her eyes, though intense, had a warmth that put me instantly at ease.

I realized much too late that I had been staring at Erin for an uncomfortably long time while holding the bag of steelhead filets out like some kind of sacrificial offering. While I stood frozen, the look in Erin's beautiful eyes had shifted from curiosity to amusement; I would assume at the fish-carrying simpleton standing in front of her.

"Thanks, Dr. Anderson; err, Erin. I appreciate your taking a look at him and; I am going to go cook us up some fish before I make an even bigger ass of myself."

Wilma joined me in the kitchen, while Erin continued to assess Lane's injured ankle. We spent the next few minutes dicing the potatoes and veggies and tossing them with some olive oil, salt, and pepper before sprinkling the filets of steelhead with a mixture of herbs. I topped the fish with some slices of a less-than-fresh, but still edible, lemon I found in the fridge, before putting the whole thing in the oven.

To be continued in part 2. Based on a post by CleverGenericName, in 4 parts, for Literotica.