Friend of My Youth

for sure I can get to a phone around noon. I’m at the hotel here but then I got to go someplace else. I’d just as soon leave him the message. Somebody’s going to meet him at the airport in Thunder Bay three o’clock tomorrow. O.K.?”
    “O.K.,” says Karin.
    “You could tell him we got him a place to live, too.”
    “Oh. O.K.”
    “It’s a trailer. He said he wouldn’t mind living in a trailer. See, we haven’t had any minister here in a long time.”
    “Oh,” says Karin. “O.K. Yes. I’ll tell him.”
    As soon as she has hung up, she finds Megan’s number on the list above the phone, and dials it. It rings three or four times and then Megan’s voice comes on, sounding brisker than the last time Karin heard it. Brisk but teasing.
    “The lady of the house regrets that she cannot take your call at the moment, but if you would leave your name, message, and phone number she will try to get back to you as soon as possible.”
    Karin has already started to say she is sorry, but this is important, when she is interrupted by a beep, and realizes it’s one of those machines. She starts again, speaking quickly but distinctly after a deep breath.
    “I just wanted to tell you. I just wanted you to know. Your father is fine. He is in good health, and mentally he is fine and everything. So you don’t have to worry. He is off to Hawaii tomorrow. I was just thinking about—I was just thinking about our conversation on the phone. So I thought I’d tell you, not to worry. This is Karin speaking.”
    And she just gets all that said in time, when she hears Austin at the door. Before he can ask or wonder what she’s doing there in the hall, she fires a series of questions at him. Did he get to the bank? Did the cold make his chest hurt? When was it the Auction Barn truck was coming? When did the people from the Board want the parsonage keys? Was he going to phone Don and Megan before he left or after he got there, or what?
    Yes. No. Monday for the truck. Tuesday for the keys, but no rush—if she wasn’t finished, then Wednesday would be O.K. No more phone calls. He and his children have said all they need to say to each other. Once he’s there, he will write them a letter. Write each of them a letter.
    “After you’re married?”
    Yes. Well. Maybe sooner than that.
    He has laid his coat across the bannister railing. Then she sees him put out a hand to steady himself, holding on to the railing. He pretends to be fiddling around with his coat.
    “You O.K.?” she says. “You want a cup of coffee?”
    For a moment he doesn’t say anything. His eyes swim past her. How can anybody believe that this tottery old man, whose body looks to be shrivelling day by day, is on his way to marry a comforting widow and spend his days from now on walking on a sunny beach? It isn’t in him to do such a thing, ever. He means to wear himself out, quick, quick, on people as thankless as possible, thankless as Brent. Meanwhile fooling all of them into thinking he’s changed his spots. Otherwise, somebody might stop him going. Slipping out from under, fooling them, enjoying it.
    But he really is after something in the coat. He brings out a pint of whiskey.
    “Put a little of that in a glass for me,” he says. “Never mind the coffee. Just a precaution. Against weakness. From the cold.”
    He is sitting on the steps when she brings him the whiskey. He drinks it shakily. He wags his head back and forth, as if trying to get it clear. He stands up. “Much better,” he says. “Oh, very much better. Now, about those pictures of the ice, Karin. I was wondering, could you pick them up next week? If I left you the money? They’re not ready yet.”
    Even though he’s just in from the cold, he’s white. Put a candle behind his face, it’d shine through as if he were wax or thin china.
    “You’ll have to leave me your address,” she says. “Where to send them.”
    “Just hang on to them till I write you. That’d be best.”
    * * *
    So she has ended up with a whole roll of pictures of the ice, along with all those other things that she had her mind set on. The pictures show the sky bluer than it ever was, but the weaving in the fence, the shape of the organ pipes are not so plain to see. There needs to be a human figure, too, to show the size that things were. She should have taken the camera and captured Austin—who has vanished. He has vanished as completely as the ice, unless the body washes up in the spring. A thaw,