The Poacher's Son (Mike Bowditch 1)

it. But I couldn’t make myself believe it. I just went to bed and cried.”
    I went around to the sofa and sat beside her. “You could have called me.”
    “Thank you.” She patted my hand, but I could tell that she never even considered it.
    I cleared my throat. “When was the last time you spoke with him? Before this morning, I mean.”
    “It’s been a while. He stopped calling about two years ago.”
    “Did he ever mention a woman named Brenda?”
    She looked up, and for an instant I thought I saw a spark in her eye—a little of the old fire from her trailer trash days. “Who is she?”
    “Soctomah says she’s his girlfriend up at Rum Pond. The state police are holding her as a material witness.”
    “I don’t know the woman.”
    “Was there anything else about your conversation? Maybe just something you sensed?”
    “He’s frightened. You father would never admit to being scared. But I could always tell. Michael, you have to help him. You’re in law enforcement. Can’t you tell people he’s innocent?”
    In her mind, it was as simple as that: If I said he was innocent, they’d believe me. “He has to give himself up.”
    “He doesn’t trust anybody.”
    “Well, he’s going to have to start.”
    She pinched the gold cross around her neck between her thumb and forefinger. “It’s too late.”
    With that she rose to her feet above me. She wiped the corner of her eye again and then smiled and took my face in her hands. “How are you, Michael? You don’t look well.”
    “I’m fine. I’ve just had an exhausting week.”
    “But you still like your job?”
    “Yeah, I do.”
    “Do you still think about applying to law school?”
    “No.”
    She nodded. “How’s Sarah?”
    I’d never told them about Sarah moving out. In the two months since she’d been gone, it had never once occurred to me to tell my mother about it. That’s how estranged we’d become. Part of me was tempted to tell her the truth now—she’d been so candid with me—but instead I heard myself say, “She’s fine.”
    She studied my eyes, and I wondered if she could detect my lie. “I’m sorry we never get up to see you two.”
    “We all have busy lives.”
    “Seeing you reminds me of so many things, Michael. You look so much like your father.”
    I was beginning to realize that my mom—the rebellious Catholic schoolgirl who had gone from life in a backwoods trailer to suburban affluence—had depths to her heart I’d never be able to fathom.

 
     
    18
     
    W hen I was sixteen I told my mother I wanted to spend the summer with my dad. She tried to talk me out of it. She said I didn’t know what he was really like. I said, “That’s the reason I want to go.” Eventually, she gave in. She knew I hadn’t spent any significant stretch of time with him since the divorce, and I think she realized that the experience was something I needed to get out of my system. And I’m sure she didn’t mind being rid of me for three months during the tennis season.
    “It would be great to see you!” my father said when I finally reached him over the radio phone that was Rum Pond Sporting Camps’ only connection to the outside world. “The only thing is, I don’t have space for you at my cabin. And I doubt Pelletier would give you a room.”
    I said I would camp outside all summer in a tent, if need be.
    “Let me think about it a bit and get back to you.”
    But he never did. So I kept calling. I said I was willing to do what ever needed to be done at Rum Pond—washing dishes, splitting firewood, anything—in exchange for food.
    “I guess we can find work for you,” he said. “But you know I’ll be busy, too. I don’t want you to expect too much.”
    I said that wouldn’t be a problem.
    *   *   *
     
    Two days after school let out in June, I was on the bus from Portland to Waterville. My dad had said he would pick me up at the station, but there was no one there when I arrived. I waited and waited. When I finally got through to Rum Pond, Russell Pelletier said my father was off somewhere in the woods, and I’d just have to hitchhike the eighty or so miles up Route 201 to The Forks and from there find my way down a logging road—another twenty miles—to camp. If I was lucky, he said, I might be able to catch a ride into the woods with one of the pulp trucks. “Otherwise you’re looking at the longest walk of your life,” he said with undisguised amusement.
    I wandered out into the parking