ERASING ORION
Fiction
Sophie steps her right foot into the front center of the canoe, holding onto either side of the fiberglass, the shell so thin she can see the movement of water underneath the canoe’s surface. Balancing her weight, she lifts her other foot in, her arms absorbing and controlling the rocking as she sits down. Her dad pushes them off from the shore, and the canoe surges forward. For a moment, Sophie thinks her father was left behind, but then she feels the weight of him in the back, a swift tip of the canoe as he climbs in: the heavy body of a man.
The river is shallow. Algae has formed on the edge of the banks in green bulbous shapes, like deformed lily pads. Sophie enters her paddle into the water as she’s been taught, her arms extended in front of her and the tip perpendicular to the canoe. She hits sand almost as soon as she pushes it down. A string of algae clings to the paddle when she lifts it out, long and iridescent, with brown, fuzzy spots. Sophie recognizes the elements her biology teacher said need to be in place for the algae’s survival: the heat of the August sun, the weight in the air of the heavy evening thunderstorms, the stillness of this part of the river.
“On your left,” her dad calls out, and Sophie lifts the paddle, watching the algae as it passes over her bare thighs. Her dad’s voice is calm and authoritative, how Sophie imagines he speaks to his patients, and together they move forward through the algae and into the bluer water. The river picks up movement, a soft ripple to its surface like wind across the top of a field of tall, prairie grass. “Switch,” her dad says, and Sophie changes sides again, the paddle clean as she lifts it out and over her body.
Up until a year ago, when Sophie was thirteen, she sat in the middle of their old aluminum canoe, her back pressed against the metal bar and legs outstretched on the bottom, her brother Charles paddling from the front seat. He listened to her father then like she does now, switching from side to side when directed. They talked about the birds they heard, hearing a call and guessing the type: Osprey, Warblers, Flycatchers. Her brother would find them with binoculars in the canopy of leaves hovering over the walls of the river valley. He was most always right. Sophie’s teachers expect the same from her, three grade years behind her brother, a want and ability to memorize and categorize the things around her, but Sophie is quiet with her dad on the river. “Like father, like daughter,” her mom often says when they are like this, sometimes not talking for hours. When Sophie wants to feel closer to him, she goes into her parents’ bedroom and opens the junk drawer at the top of his dresser, the same things always there, giving her comfort: wooden golf tees stained green and black at the tips that she picks up and rolls in her palms; a bar of deodorant, white and chalky that smells like his hugs; loose change that she pushes her fingers through until she finds the oldest penny, from 1926, saved there, she knows, because it’s the year their house was built, when the back side of the copper coin was not of a monument, but two small, curved strands of wheat.
“Switch,” her dad calls out again, and Sophie lifts her paddle, the river pushing them towards the Mississippi. They reach a break in the trees, the sand and limestone walls rising above them, lines of faint orange and white striping the rocks, the trunks of the younger trees so thin, Sophie wonders how they survive the winters without breaking in half. She paddles on her left, sensing her dad echoing her strokes behind her. Her arms begin to feel the familiar strain of when she’s at swim practice, and she eases off, wanting to pace herself. Her mom won’t be meeting them with the car until six miles down, before they reach the mouth of the Great River, her dad never carrying a cell phone, believing it’s only worth making plans if both people can keep them. The heat of the morning sun is strong, and Sophie’s hair clings to the top of her shoulders and neck. She rests her paddle across the canoe and takes the hair band from around her wrist, tying the loose strands into a ponytail.
“Right side,” her dad says, and Sophie lifts her paddle up and sinks it down, the level of the water deeper now. She has an urge to follow the paddle in with her body, to dive into the cool river and take the start of sweat off her back. She relies on her dad to tell her when the rapids are coming. The river was once called Rivere des Embarras – River of Difficulties – by the French explorers, for the hard to navigate forks and branches that made fur trading difficult. Sophie’s never known what fur they were trading – muskrats? mink? - the animals no longer part of the landscape. She loves it when the water picks up speed, how she can feel the movement beneath her and the looming presence of the rocks as they steer past them. “Strong enough for men in combat, for astronauts to wear in space,” her dad said when he brought the new canoe home this summer, knocking on its outside while it was strapped to the top of his car. Sophie was unsure, the shell not any thicker than the width of her thumbnail, but her dad has never given her a reason not to believe him.
“Switch,” he says, and Sophie changes sides. She can see small rapids in the near distance. The algae has been pushed down the river, in its place small rocks with water flowing over them, and together she and her dad move the canoe down the middle of the river and into a narrow path. “Left side, Sophie,” her dad says, and she quickens her pace, pushing the tip of the paddle down to avoid hitting the tops of the rocks and pulling it back, her strokes shorter now. The water has a whiteness to it, rolling in on itself, and Sophie has the feeling of her body becoming part of something else, that if they stopped paddling the water would know what to do with them, would carry them through. Still, she listens to her dad, and in less than a dozen paddles they are through the rapids, and the river calms again.
“Nice work, Sophie,” her dad says, and she hears him rest the paddle across the canoe, the gentle contact of wood on the metal edges. She stops, too, and the canoe makes a slight turn in the river, and they drift. Sophie straightens her spine and leans her torso back, puts her hand underneath her lifejacket and t-shirt, her stomach hot, and unclips the jacket from the front, releasing its tight grip on her body.
“I wasn’t expecting rapids so soon,” her dad says. “Is it all the rain we’ve been getting?” Sophie asks. She turns to look behind her, watching her dad wipe his forehead with his blue handkerchief, and run his hand over his head, smoothing his dark hair. He picks up the map of the river he set on the bottom of the canoe, pulling it out of the plastic bag, and unfolds it across his lap. “Must be,” he says, placing his index finger on where Sophie assumes this part of the river to be. Every map he owns is in its own plastic bag, stored in stacks in their basement storage, labeled, some the same as what the map says on its cover, others with his additions: Minnesota, Duluth, Lake Superior, North Shore: High Falls most spectacular after a heavy snow season; Minnesota, Official State Highway Map, Northeast: Drive along 61 to feel like you’re at the seashore!; Minnesota, Boundary Waters, Lakes: Gunflint and Loon: Plan trips for around new moon to see Northern Lights. Sophie knows these locations not by route, but by memory, her dad taking them up North every summer since she was a baby, the earliest photo of her being breastfed by her mom, who is sitting on a log at a campsite.
Charles no longer comes along on their early morning canoe trips, out late or awake at night, his light shining down the stairwell and into the hallway near Sophie’s bedroom door, sleeping until the early afternoon hours. The night before, her dad reminded her brother to mow the lawn in the morning, saying that he didn’t want to ask him again why he isn’t able to do this one chore, when in two weeks he will be leaving for college and all the lawns, all around him, will be mowed by someone else. Sophie knows her brother would rather be reading or doing his college prep work, his homework rarely a burden, but something he enjoys. During the school year, she would sit across from him at the kitchen table while he solved complicated equations, supposed to be doing her own homework. Her mind would eventually travel away from her textbooks, tired of finding the right answers. At sleepovers when she was little, the games girls liked to play: “What’s your favorite color?” What would you eat if you could eat only one thing forever?” “Would you rather be very hot, or very cold?” She never understood how it was so easy for them to decide on one, so many colors to choose from in her paint set at home. When her report cards arrive, her parents remind her how Charles was rewarded for his efforts, accepted into the college of his choice. Sophie knows he will excel there, too, and she will no longer have a live-in math tutor, no longer have him there to help keep conversation at the dinner table, no longer have her brother at home, who she has not known a life without.
Her dad folds the map and places it back inside its baggie, the canoe surging forward with the strength of one of his paddles. Sophie takes her own paddle and plunges it deep into the river, down to the middle of its neck, her hands entering the water. She switches sides as her arms get tired, her dad easing off when his paddles become too strong. The shoreline curves, and the level of the river seems to rise. Sophie hears it pick up before she sees it, drowning out the sounds of the birds and her dad’s movements behind her. In the near distance is a rush of moving white water, curling in on itself, flowing over the rocks and tumbling towards the center. Sophie sits up straight in her seat and grips on to her paddle, feeling them being pulled faster down the river.
“Let’s stay against the shoreline, Sophie,” her dad says. “Those rapids are too big for us,” but Sophie keeps paddling on the right, wanting to move them closer to the center, to follow the water’s movements. “Paddle on your left, Sophie,” her dad says, louder now. “I think we can get through them,” Sophie says, turning her head to the side, not quite yelling, but surprising herself by the confidence in her voice. “No, Sophie!” her dad yells. “Against the shoreline!” He is angry now, she can hear it in his voice, and she reluctantly lifts her paddle up and over her body, pushing it down on the left side as he asked. She hits rock, and brings the paddle forward, trying again. Her dad steers them to the right and they make their way through the shallower water until they straighten out and are hugging the shoreline, trees looming over their heads and covering their bodies in shadow.
“Good, Sophie,” her dad says. “It would’ve been more than we could handle.” She continues to paddle, wondering if they would be in the rapids now, had Charles been paddling from the front seat. A long, jagged line of rocks separates them from the fastmoving river, no less than ten feet away, and they navigate through the narrower stretch of shallow water. Tree branches arch over their heads, and Sophie leans her body left to avoid them, using one hand to push the leaves away, swatting the few flies that are hovering over the water.
“It won’t take us long to get through this,” her dad says, the softness in his voice returned. The canoe picks up some speed on its own, and Sophie looks down into the water, able to see clear to the bottom several feet below them. There are no signs of life below, not even the small tadpoles Sophie has seen many times in the river before. She remembers learning how fish provide oxygen, about their presence being essential to keeping the balance of the water intact. When her brother leaves, she will be responsible for his goldfish that he’s had for seven years. He keeps it in a glass bowl that he cleans weekly, sure this is what has kept it alive for so long. Two days ago, he told Sophie he would be giving it to her, and that she had to care for it as he has. That night, Sophie went into her brother’s room when he was out with his friends. She turned on the lamp on his nightstand table above the fishbowl, and watched as the fish’s orange body swam to the top, puckering its lips. Sophie opened the drawer below, looking for its food. In the top of the drawer was a red spiral notebook, the corners bent and worn, the pages well turned. She set the notebook down on the bed, and looked through the rest of the drawer: loose coins; two beer bottle tops; a pair of binoculars; stubby, yellow pencils; a small pencil sharpener and shavings; and the debris of an eraser: pink, rubber dots sprinkled on the bottom of the drawer and over its contents.
Sophie looked behind her to the dresser and saw the yellow bottle of fish food there, next to a teetering pile of textbooks and magazines. She stood and walked towards the dresser and the National Geographics her parents subscribed to and pulled them away one by one, making a new pile next to it: faces of men and women from around the world looking back at her, golden pyramids and birds the color of rainbows, a space shuttle orbiting Earth, insects the size of human fists. Lodged in between two of the magazines was a printed piece of paper from his college, a checklist of things to discuss with his soon to be roommate, who would be bringing what: TV, Microwave, Mini-Refrigerator. “Consider if you’re driving or flying,” the bottom of the sheet said, her parents and brother already making the decision that he would take a plane.
Sophie returned to the fish bowl and dropped three flakes in, watching as the goldfish ate one, and lied down on her back, her eyes open. The light of the moon, half full, was shining outside the window. She took a deep breath in, the smell of her brother’s room never changing. The old, worn oak panels of the attic walls mixed with the scent of moth balls and something undefined, unique to her brother, like the way her mom always smells of food being cooked, even when she’s not in the kitchen. Sophie felt a small breeze across her body, and turned to see the window next to his bed slightly open. Outside was a small ledge on the sill she’d never noticed before, large enough to sit on. An empty beer bottle sat there, the kind her dad drinks with dinner and always keeps stored in the back of the fridge.
As she was leaving, she picked up the notebook she’d set on the bed, and opened it before putting it back in the drawer. The faint red lines where she expected words or equations to be were instead covered in pencil, hatch mark over hatch mark, making a smooth grey surface. Darker dots were drawn on top and Sophie recognized the shape of the Big Dipper, turned upside down. She turned the page, it, too, covered in grey, but the dots of the Big Dipper had shifted. There was a note at the top with the time and date: one a.m., from the August before. She turned the page to see the constellation shifted again, the date two weeks later, drawn at three in the morning, and continued flipping the pages, drawing after drawing of the Big Dipper rotating around the North Star. Then a new constellation appeared, its name written on the bottom, Cassiopeia, the familiar zigzag of the seven stars, her dad pointing it out to them on camping trips when they were younger, Sophie wondering what it would be like to have even one sister.
Every page of the notebook was covered in grey, the pages near the end becoming harder to turn, the edges almost as soft and thin as tissue, the dates showing they were drawn the winter before. She imagined her brother climbing in and out of the windowsill on the cold February nights, seeing his mistakes and correcting them, rubbing the pink eraser across the sheets, the same as he does with his math equations at the kitchen table. She could no longer make out constellations, just hundreds of dots, some buried deep within the page, others drawn lighter or erased altogether, jumping out from the page, the drawings somehow better because of it.
“Watch out, Sophie!” her dad yells. Sophie looks up to see a large, broken tree branch ahead, part of it split from the trunk, hovering above the level of the canoe. They are moving forward more quickly now, and Sophie leans her body back, arching herself into a limbo, thinking she can squeeze her body underneath it. As it nears, she is sure her head won’t clear and turns her face to the side, raising her hands to protect herself. The bark scrapes against her palms, coarse and thick, and Sophie feels the burning sensation of her skin being torn.
“Push it away!” her dad yells, but the branch resists, releasing back towards her, her body lodged between the seat and the branch, with the canoe moving forward. Sophie grabs onto the branch and pulls hard, trying to break it off from its trunk, but it won’t give, and she is pulled from her seat, dragged to the center of the canoe. Her loose lifejacket rises up and around her neck, the lower part of her spine digging into the middle bar of the canoe, and she cries out, an inaudible sound coming from deep inside her chest.
“Let go, Sophie!” her dad yells, grabbing on to her wrists and yanking them down. The heat of his breath is next to her ear as he bends his body forward. The canoe tilts to the left, so far that Sophie thinks they are going to tip. A long, low echo comes from underneath, the sound of the canoe scraping against rock. Her father grabs hold of the branch and lifts it up, pushing it over his head and away, as though it were just a piece of paper, the weight of a leaf. He takes his paddle and straightens them out, back into the moving water.
Sophie looks above her at the glittering leaves, sun coming through the spaces between them. The pain on her back is sprouting from the middle of her spine, reaching out and inward, grabbing hold of the whole of her torso. She holds up her hands and looks at her palms, blood among the flecks of pink and white skin.
“You okay, Sophie?” her dad asks. “Let me help you.” Sophie pushes her burning hands against the bottom of the canoe and sits up. Her dad pulls her lifejacket off and lifts the back of her shirt, touching her lightly near the wound, and Sophie takes a quick breath in, wincing.
“Is it bad?” she asks.
“It’s bleeding quite a bit, but you won’t need stitches,” he says. “Here,” and he hands her his blue handkerchief. Sophie takes it from him, the cloth damp with sweat.
“Try and get back in your seat and press this against it,” he says. Sophie begins to inch herself forward until she is as close as she can get to the front. She raises the back of her knees over the top of the seat, and pushes her upper body up and over it. She rests for a moment until the canoe stops rocking, continuing to lift her body, evenly, her hands placed on either side of the edges of the canoe. The pain in her back and the burning of her palms is second in her mind to the task, until she is upright and sitting in her seat again.
“We’d better go in,” her dad says, and he begins to paddle, switching sides, with forceful, even movements.
“What about Mom?” she asks. “Won’t she be further down?”
“I’ll walk. It’s not that far,” her dad says. “We need to get you home and cleaned up.”
Sophie looks for her paddle, the bottom of the canoe empty at her feet. She turns to look behind her, not seeing it there either, instead a long, thin scratch on the canoe’s underside, white against the tan of the thin, woven fibers. She looks at her dad, his eyes looking down at the scratch, too, and when he raises them, he looks over her head, to the river beyond. She can feel his disappointment most like this, when he doesn’t say anything at all. Sophie presses the handkerchief to her back until she finds the cut, and holds it in place. She doesn’t remember letting go of her paddle, and thinks of it, bouncing along in the river, soon to cling to the shore with the algae, a foreign object amongst all that growth. Her dad steers the boat to the left, and Sophie sees a clearing in the trees on the other side of the river, a drop-in, and she turns her gaze forward and above, the sun strong and sure in the sky, its early morning rays of white turned to yellow.
When the canoe hits the sandy area of the drop-in, Sophie stands up from her seat and steps out and into the water, the level of the shoreline ankle deep, covered in algae. She grabs hold of the handle on the front of the canoe, pulling it forward onto the shore as far as she can with her father inside. He steps out into the water and lifts the canoe from the back, and together they carry it up the shore and lower it down when they reach the dry sand.
Her dad takes her hands in his, turning them upwards. The wounds are still raw, burning as he gently opens her palms. “Don’t wash that off in the river with all this algae,” he says. “And keep pressing on your back. I won’t be long.” Sophie watches as he walks away towards the road, and sits down on the sand next to the canoe, facing the water. She brings her knees up close to her body, lifting her forearm and brushing it against the hair on her face, loose strands fallen from her ponytail, but the hair stays put, stuck with sweat. She extends her arms and rests one on her perched legs, open and facing the sky, the other pressing into her back. She closes her eyes, the pain no longer sharp, but numb, and focuses on the sounds around her: birds chirping, the few bugs flying close by, and crickets, the sound of them she hadn’t noticed in the early morning. Stridulation, she remembers, what male crickets do, rubbing their wings together to attract females and repel other males. But there was something else her teacher told them, an equation based on how many times they chirp that can measure temperature. It was something she’d wanted to tell her dad so they could see how accurate it was, but Sophie can’t remember the equation now, and wonders how anyone was able to define and count the chirps, the sound to her nothing more than a constant, continuous buzz. She hears voices and opens her eyes, two canoes going down the river, a woman laughing at something the man said, the others quiet, looking ahead, the movements of their paddles smooth and confident.
The car ride home is quiet and cool, Sophie’s mom driving and her dad in the front passenger seat. The sound of the lawnmower grows louder as they turn onto their block. Sophie’s brother is on the front lawn, wearing a white t-shirt and cargo shorts. His hair is long enough that it cover his eyes and he throws his head back to get it off his face, her mom always telling him he’ll have to cut it before he leaves for school. The gravel of the driveway crunches beneath the tires as they pull in, and Sophie’s mom slows and then stops, not driving to the back of the house as she usually does.
“What on earth is he doing?” she says. Sophie looks from her mom back to her brother. He is not pushing the mower up and down the lawn in neat rows, but in a long, circular arch, across the walkway leading up to the front door of their house, and continuing on the other side. They get out of the car, and he sees them, yelling something over the mower, but Sophie can’t hear what he says. He releases his grip from the handle, the motor turning off, and yells again: “It’s a fish!” he says, pointing. “The head is over there.”
Sophie looks at the shape he’s cut in the grass, two long, curved lines meeting in points, bright green in color against the taller, darker grass. None of them say anything, and her brother continues. “I bet you can see it better from the second floor window.” “For Christ’s sake,” her dad says. “Just mow the lawn, Charles!” Sophie notices the shape of a tail on the edge of the grass near where they’re standing and looks at her brother, a slight smile on his face, and Sophie smiles, too.
“I hope you’re not taking notes,” her dad says. He turns away, and walks towards the house. “Go with your dad,” her mom says. She reaches her hand out to Sophie, and brushes back the strands of hair still clinging to her forehead and cheeks. They fall, and she does it again, her fingers combing Sophie’s skull, and the strands stay in place. Sophie follows her father through the side door and into the cool, tiled hallway between the kitchen and living room. They walk upstairs, through her parent’s bedroom and into their bathroom, where her dad opens the linen closet, and takes his black, leather dopp kit from the top shelf.
“Take off your shirt,” he says. Sophie turns her back to him, facing the sink and mirror, and pulls her t-shirt over her head. Her dad stands behind her and releases the clasp of her bra. He gently pulls the straps forward, and Sophie folds her arms over her chest to hold the bra in place. It was just a year ago that she didn’t need a bra at all, and now, looking into the mirror at the roundness of her chest that still surprises her, she feels her cheeks turn hot; she is too old to be standing nearly naked in front of her father. He removes the antiseptic and bandages from his kit, resting them on the windowsill, and reaches his hand around Sophie’s torso and turns on the faucet, wetting a clean washcloth, touching it to her back, lightly at first. As he begins to press harder, Sophie winces in pain and jerks her torso forward.
“Sophie, I’ve got to get this clean,” he says, taking his hand to her shoulder and pulling her back towards him. Sophie’s eyes start to water but she is quiet while he continues. She looks out the window, where she can see her mom talking to her brother, but can’t hear what she’s saying. Her brother was right, she can see the fish clearly from where she stands, not only its shape and the head and tail, but a fin cut in the grass on the side of its body. Part of her knows he did it out of boredom, to entertain himself during this mundane task. But she also knows he wanted an audience for it, and she bangs on the window until he looks up. She gives him a thumbs up and he laughs. Her mom shakes her head and walks away and the two of them look at one another, the same look they’ve been giving each other for years, an acknowledgement that they are on the same side of things, their parents on another.
“This will sting,” her dad says, picking up the can of antiseptic and spraying it on. Sophie lets out a small, high-pitched cry. He sprays it again, and puts the cap back on, picking up the bandages. Sophie looks at his concentrated face in the mirror as he applies them, pressing the sticky edges to either side of her spine.
“Let me see your hands,” he says, and Sophie turns towards him, still pressing the tops of her arms into her chest to keep the bra in place. She holds out her forearms, her palms faced upwards, and braces herself while her dad cleans the skin with the washcloth. “Okay,” he says, putting two large bandages across her palms. “You won’t have much use of your hands in the next day or two,” he says. He picks up her shirt and lays it over one of her forearms. Sophie takes her other hand, gently pressing her fingertips to the bandage on her back. “Will it scar?” she asks. “Yes,” he says, “But you’ll never see it.”
He puts the dopp kit back in the closet and leaves the bathroom, and Sophie waits for him to go downstairs so she can walk to her room and get a clean t-shirt. She watches as her brother pushes the mower in straight lines, starting on the left side of the lawn, reaching the head of the fish first, and row-by row, mowing over its body. His head is down, determined now, she knows, to finish the chore so he can do something else. She thinks of his nighttime drawings, of his determination to map out the stars for himself, when humans having been doing the same thing for centuries. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t feel the same need, content instead to think of all the things that will never make sense, the things that may never have an answer.
Charles may not be back next summer, a suggestion during the trip they took in early June that it might be one of their last summer vacations as a family, with Charles soon to be doing internships or getting jobs on his breaks. They had driven up North for their vacation, to the headwaters of the Mississippi. As they walked the trail towards where the river was said to start, there were educational signs telling them how determined the settlers were to find the source. They rarely sought the knowledge of the Native Americans to try and understand the river, making it a race amongst themselves. One sign said that the Ojibwe couldn’t understand why the single source was so important, when the entire river provided them with life. A Native American Chief finally agreed to take a settler to Lake Itasca to try and satisfy their demands, to the place where Sophie and her family were standing, a line of rocks creating small rapids between the outlet of the lake and the narrow, slow, moving water, more like a stream than a river. A guide was standing near them, talking to a group of people. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he said, not lowering his voice. “The real source was actually further into the lake. But it was rerouted in the early twentieth century to make it more enjoyable for all of us.”
Sophie looked at the sky, radiant colors of blues, the sun reflecting on the water and so bright in parts that it hurt to look. Charles and her mom walked towards the rocks, her brother leaping over them while her mom took careful steps behind him. They waved when they reached the other side and Sophie waved back, her dad turning towards her.
“You know, it’s not just him leaving home that’s hard,” he said. “It’s knowing that you’re growing older, too.” Sophie looked up at her father, their eyes meeting briefly before he turned back towards the lake. A cloud covered the sun and the surface turned darker. Tall pines wrapped around the shore, still in the windless air where Sophie stood, reaching out for her father’s hand.
Written in 2015