The Long Thaw

His old bones practically creaked in the cold and Mac felt every day of his sixty seven years. Zipping up his jacket that last little bit to stop the warmth escaping he shrugged deep into the scarf, burying his short, thick grey beard.

Mac’s breath hung heavy in the still morning air as he stood at the edge of Moose Pond. He had been coming down every day since the local weather report had announced the start of the ice-out.

He had always liked this time of the year. Winter was beautiful in its own right, but there was something special about watching the steady determination of nature return to life after a long cold winter.

Soon it would be spring, his favorite.

He had met Cara in spring.

She had walked into the local green grocer with the sun behind her looking like an angel stepping out of heaven and into his world.

He must have stood there like a slack jawed mullet for a good thirty seconds before regaining his wits. Mac chuckled to himself at the memory.

He had never seen anyone so beautiful.

Then there was Adam, her husband.

Adam had walked in behind her, taken one look at Mac and asked, ‘You look like you know your way around a fishing hole, any recommendations?’

Mac had stopped at the grocer on the way home from a fishing trip earlier that day and was still wearing his waders and cap with lures stuck in it.

Mac and Adam hit it off straight away and soon became good friends.

Adam and Cara had moved out to Maine from New York for a ‘tree change’. As it turned out Adam loved fishing even more than Mac and they would find any excuse to hit the water as often as possible. Truth be told Mac always managed to find a way to include Cara in their adventures where he could. He really just enjoyed her company and he would happily take it from a distance if that was all fate could give him.

Mac, having been outgoing, generous and quite handsome in his day, never had trouble finding friends or a girlfriend to bring along on weekend camping trips so they could all hang out.

His own relationships never lasted long. Mac put it down to not having found real love and wasn’t one for settling. That had changed when he met Cara, but Cara was with Adam and they were ‘dizzyingly in love’ as Adam use to say, so just his luck.

‘Shit’ thought Mac. He looked at his boots and kicked a piece of snow. That was a good thirty years ago now.

Mac hung his head, his chest suddenly thick and heavy with grief.

A Gold Finch startled him as it flew close over his head.

Mac looked up in surprise and watched as the little yellow bird darted around over his head and then take off.

Mac took it as a sign. The Gold Finch had been Cara’s favorite bird.

Mac’s mind drew him back into the warmth of her memory.

‘Winged tennis balls’ she had called them.

Mac had stopped by their house one day to drop off a pair of Adam’s fishing boots but he hadn’t been home. After walking around the house to leave them by the back door for him Mac found Cara in the yard feeding the birds.

He had jokingly offered to catch a winged tennis ball for her and she had retorted she could picture him having about as much luck as Sylvester the cat.

They had known each other for a couple of years by this time and the connection was undeniable and that afternoon neither of them could fight it any longer.

That afternoon with Cara was the best thing that ever happen to Mac. He knew he would never be allowed to keep her, but he had always hoped she would change her mind and leave Adam for him.

Not long after that day Adam landed a dream job in the city so he and Cara moved back to New York.

Eight months later Mac got the worst news of his life. Cara had passed suddenly in a car accident. He thought he would die of a broken heart and could only imagine what Adam was going through. He and Adam kept in touch for a short while but then that stopped and life had rolled on.

Mac still found himself looking for Cara whenever he was at the grocer, especially on sunny afternoons, hoping to see her walk in one more time like she had that first day, but she never did.

Adam did though.

About five months earlier Mac had been picking through the apples when someone patted him on the shoulder. When he’d turned around it was Adam. All six foot nine of the guy with his broad smile and curls. The curls were grey now, but still as tussled as ever.

‘Hey old timer, know of any good fishing holes?’

Mac’s heart had jumped at seeing his friend and they both fell right back into the friendship like no day had passed. Adam had recently retired and thought with the ice fishing season about to begin he’d drop by the place and see if his old fishing buddy was still up for wetting a line.

Mac found himself afraid of his own thoughts. His memories had gone from the warmth of Cara to a scratching at the back of his mind.

Mac took a deep breath, closed his eyes and lifted his head to the pale sun above him. He could still hear the Finch twittering in the trees nearby. He let the breath out and opened his eyes.

The sky was clear and the snow around him seemed to make it even more blue.

He turned to look into the trees and found the Gold Finch sitting in the branches, still twittering away. It stopped and looked at him.

‘I miss you Cara’ Mac looked at the bird and his eyes filled with hot tears.

His mind playing tricks on him turned the cold winter air into the faint scent of her shampoo and he closed his eyes again. Mac let his mind take him back to that afternoon he had spent with her but it didn’t last, his thoughts involuntarily pressed Adam to the fore.

Mac opened his eyes again and looked out over the frozen pond.

He had picked up Adam from his motel and laughed at the amount of ‘junk’ he dragged with him.

‘We’re going fishing, not invading a continent.’

Adam didn’t care, he loved the toys as much as fishing itself, so the junk came with.

They had been sitting on the ice for about an hour and Mac’s mind was fully of fond memories and started laughing at one of them. ‘Cara use to hate this, sitting in the cold waiting for us to catch anything. Remember the day she brough the frozen fish fingers and set them on the hook pretending to catch them out of the hole!’

‘Yeah, wasted a lot of good time on that bitch’ Adam said darkly.

‘What?’ Mac sat bolt upright. What had he just said?

‘Turns out it was for the best.’

‘What was?’ Mac asked confused. Had Adam really just called her a bitch? Cara?

‘Her dying.’

‘What are you saying!?’ Mac was shocked.

‘I probably would have taken her back if she hadn’t and it would have taken a lot longer to get over her death if she hadn’t been such a lying bitch.’

‘Don’t talk about her like that!’ Mac found himself up on his feet.

‘You don’t even know what she was like. What she did.’ Adam said casually.

‘Yep. I met Laura not long after and luckily I was in a better place to make that work. We have been happily married for the last twenty eight years, two great kids, no complaints. Guess I kind of owe the bitch a thank you.’ Adam laughed

Mac snapped and launched himself at Adam.

‘Don’t talk about her like that! What is wrong with you?!’ Mac had Adam pinned to the ice.

‘She was lying to me!’ Adam yelled in Mac’s face.

‘She was leaving me! The day she died, she was leaving me. Driving off to be with some guy she couldn’t be without! I had no fucking idea! Here I am planning a future with her like an idiot and she is off planning her own with some jerk name Sylvester! Sylvester! what the fuck kind of name is that?! She was a lying cheating bitch and got what she deser..’ Mac snapped again and punched Adam right in the face, Adam’s nose exploded with blood.

Mac frightened himself with the violence of it and climbed off Adam.

‘I’m sorry.. I..’ he stammered

‘What is wrong with me! What is wrong with you!’ Adam had got up onto his feet holding his face.

Adam glared at Mac before realization flickered into his eyes.

The ice cracked and Adam disappeared.

‘ADAM!’ Mac screamed and ran forward but the ice cracked again and he was forced to stop. He tried again. ‘ADAM!’ the ice cracked louder and Mac had to retreat.

‘HELP! HEEEEEELPP, SOMEONE HEELP!’ Mac screamed in a panic.

The truck! He would have to get to the truck and drive into town. No Adam wouldn’t last that long, not in this water.

‘ADAM!’ Mac chocked. Oh god what had he done, he hadn’t meant to. Shit. He would never get help in time and he couldn’t bring himself to leave Adam all alone out here.

Minutes passed, there was no one else around and no cell coverage out that far. He’d yelled himself horse, helpless.

Eventually Mac had walked carefully forward again as far as he’d dared and just made out the red blur that was Adam’s cap and two white blurs that would be his hands as they hung over his head.

He wasn’t moving.

Mac’s head had reeled. Sylvester? Him! Cara had been coming back to him. She had never said anything after that day and Mac had assumed she had made her choice so he respected it and left her be. This news ripped open the old wounds and dug new ones, he had just lost her all over again.

And Adam, what he had said about her, it made his blood boil. Screw him he could stay there!

No, he couldn’t just leave him there. People knew they had gone fishing together, they might think he had killed him on purpose. The right thing was to call it in, tell them it was an accident.

Mac’s head spun again, he hadn’t meant to hurt Adam, but thinking back to Cara. Mac had loved Cara, enough to let her go. What Adam had said was unforgivable. He wasn’t about to go down for manslaughter, not for this guy, not now!

Mac wasn’t thinking clearly, he packed up all the gear and headed home. By the time he got there a snow storm had started and Mac was forced inside. The storm raged all night, over the next day and into the following night.

Mac had spent the whole time pacing his living room racked with guilt and grief.

He had just killed an old friend and lost the love of his life for a third time.

When the storm finally passed Mac had driven back to the pond. The ice had set, there was nothing left to do but wait for the thaw.