He ran his thumb over the ridged handle of his father’s pocketknife in slow, even movements as the fingers of his other hand searched idly through the leaf litter beneath his feet for a suitable piece of wood. He didn’t need to look, or even to think. His fingers would know when they’d found the right one. His whole body would know. He shifted his backside on the log beneath him, searching for a more comfortable position. Decades of serving as a seat had worn it almost completely smooth, yet still sometimes he felt like he could never quite find a place where he fit, where there wasn’t some odd little bump or divot that made his backside hurt or his body ache. It was as if the very essence of the tree itself had never been meant to hold him.
The sound of gently lapping water reached him from the edge of the pond in front of him, a little postage-stamp sized patch of water nestled between two hills in the woods that surrounded his childhood home. The gentle whoosh might have been relaxing if it hadn’t been taking him so long to find what he was looking for. Finally, his fingers wrapped around a small branch just as he was about to give up on the log and rise to his feet. Just a touch over an inch around, with an interesting little bend near one end. He twirled it between his hands for a few moments, the pocketknife wedged securely in his palm, then snapped the branch in two a few inches past where it bent. His movements became more fluid as he let his mind wander, trusting his hands to find their own way. The pocketknife opened and began stripping the bark from the wood in long, delicate strokes. He never had to think about it. Never had to worry. Never had to wonder. His hands did everything for him. His mind could be wherever he wanted it to be.
Today it wandered back to the day his father had given him the very pocketknife he was holding. They had been sitting on the same log he was sitting on now. It had fallen just a few weeks before, the tallest oak on the property for generations, laid low by a five-minute squall. His father had handed him the knife without much ceremony. Simply said he was old enough. Told him not to lose it. It had been years before he learned that it had been his grandfather’s first knife, and his great-grandfather’s before that. He had opened and closed it obsessively while his father fished that day, marveling at the way the blade shone in the morning light. He could still remember the consternation on his father’s face when he’d handed over a little wooden fox hours later. He’d simply picked up a piece of wood and begun carving, just as he was now, the fox forming more from instinct than intent.
A quiet swish and splash ripped his mind from the past with a lurch, his eyes racing to where his brother stood at the edge of the water, fishing rod in hand. He grunted softly, his gaze drifting back down to his hands, where the knife had finished stripping the wood and was now carving a notch into the inside of the curve. He let a long, slow breath out through his nose. His brother. He had forgotten his brother was here. His brother, who looked so much like his father that they could have been twins, differentiated only by the ravages of time. His brother, who had been born the year after the tree he sat on now had fallen. His brother, who had lost the pocketknife he was now holding when they were kids and just grinned. No apology. Just a smile. His father’s smile, wide and bright and confident. One more thing they had in common.
One thing among so many. The way they looked, the way they smiled, the way they walked and talked and ran and slept and swam and snored. So alike they could have been cloned. They had even, to his father’s immense pride, chosen the same profession. His father had written dime novel Westerns under a dozen pseudonyms, the kind of paperbacks that proliferated in every bookstore and library and newsstand in the country and made a fortune in royalties. Enough for his father to bulldoze their ramshackle farmhouse a few years after his brother was born and rebuild it from the ground up as Western style ranch house. His father had also had fish transported from the Rockies to stock the pond. Cutthroat trout, the eponym of the fictional Cutthroat Lake, the setting of his father’s most famous novel as well its title, which his father had then chosen as the new name for the pond.
It was a big name for such a little patch of the world and his brother had loved it, coming out to the pond almost every day to act out scenes from his father’s novels or even create his own. Maybe his brother’s career had started right there, on the muddy banks of Cutthroat Lake, where he’d learned to create something from nothing. Or maybe it had started with the encouragement of their father, who had placed a little desk in the corner of the study along with a children’s typewriter atop it for his brother to use whenever he wished. Regardless, it had blossomed under the admiring eyes of the teachers at their school, who couldn’t help but repeat over and over how different his brother was from him, how much his brother had defied the expectations he’d given them during his own time under their tutelage years earlier. It was hard not to read between the lines, to see criticisms of him lurking beneath the surface of their praise for his brother.
He’d never excelled at writing the way his brother had. The only class he’d ever gotten top marks in was shop. His father hadn’t seemed to care much about those sorts of achievements. But every time his brother had brought home another story, their father had doled out a hearty slap on the back, a pleased little chuckle, and a broad smile. The smile his father and brother shared. The backslaps had only gotten heartier when his brother had been accepted into their father’s alma mater, the chuckles even more pleased when his brother had graduated with an English degree, the smiles broader than had seemed possible when his brother had gotten the first of what turned out to be dozens of popular novels published.
Most of the time, it felt like his father had all but forgotten him in the glow of his brother’s accomplishments. It was like his father had had so much in common with his brother that he hadn’t had the time to find something in common with him. When his brother had gone to college, he had stayed home. Yet somehow his father had managed to spend more time his brother than him. While his brother earned an English degree, he had worked odd jobs, moving into his own place, paying his own way. Yet his father had seemed more proud of his brother, who had lived off their father’s generosity. And as his brother had published bestseller after bestseller, he’d established himself as the town handyman. His father hadn’t seemed to care. Too busy bragging about his brother while he smiled his brother’s smile
A small scuffing sound from his brother’s direction brought his eyes back into focus. He gazed down at the piece of wood in his hands. There was a second notch now, a little farther back from the first along the opposite edge, and the knife had begun to taper one end of the wood into a point and the other into a wide triangle. He wondered for a moment what he was making, then his mind drifted away from the thought as he listened to the sounds of his brother casting his lure into the water a second time. Fishing was another thing his father and brother had had in common. Their father had taken them both out to the pond one day as kids, laid out fishing gear with far more ceremony than had come with passing down the family pocketknife, and tried to teach them the “art and science of fly fishing.” His brother had taken to it right away, his lure looping back and forth elegantly before landing in the water with a delicate plop. He hadn’t. Every time he tried his line tangled. His father had given up on him, focused on his brother. They’d ended up coming out to the pond every weekend. He hadn’t been invited.
He’d almost gotten used to it by then. Almost. Over time it had gotten easier, or at least easier to pretend to ignore. Fifty odd years in and he thought he’d almost conquered it. Until his father had died. Heart attack in his sleep. He’d made the arrangements. Booked the funeral home, picked the coffin, paid for the headstone. He’d even written the obituary. First time he’d ever written anything for his father. His brother’s plane had been delayed. He’d gotten there late.
His mind sprang back into the present as the ridges of the pocketknife’s handle dug painfully into the skin of his palm. He was holding it too tight. He tried to loosen his grip, but his fingers didn’t seem to want to obey. He looked down at the piece of wood in his other hand. The knife had etched a series of overlapping diamond shapes into the sides. His eyes rose to where his brother stood, back turned, fishing rod in hand. His hand squeezed even tighter on the pocketknife, began to shake.
He pushed the blade back into the wood, forced his mind away from the present, back to this morning, when he and his brother had learned the contents of his father’s will. His brother had gotten everything. The copyrights to his father’s books, all of his financial assets, the house. He didn’t need the money, didn’t care about the copyrights, but the house? He’d poured his heart and soul into that house. He hadn’t just grown up there. When his brother had left town, he’d been the one to keep the place running. He’d had to teach himself everything: electrical, plumbing, carpentry, all so the ridiculous ranch house his father had paid for didn’t end up collapsing in on itself. When it needed a new water heater, he’d replaced it. When the breaker box had blown, he’d installed the new one. When termites had infested the basement, he’d treated it himself. The new roof, the new trim around the windows, the new, hand-carved banister for the main staircase. He’d done it all, and in the process he’d become the handyman he was today. That house belonged to him, and he belonged to it.
With a start he realized his hands had stopped moving. He looked around. He wasn’t sitting anymore. When had he stood up? His brother still stood in front of him, back turned, the setting sun outlining the contours of his frame. How had it gotten so late? It had been early afternoon when he’d sat down and his brother had started fishing, hadn’t it? His hand began to shake again as it gripped the handle of the pocketknife, the muscles in his palm rigid with tension. He took a step forward.
He’d done so much for his father. He hadn’t just kept the house from running into disrepair. He’d nursed him back to health after his first heart attack. Helped him move from one room to another as it got harder and harder for him to walk. Cooked for him. Cleaned for him. Even typed for him when inspiration hit and his father’s hands shook too hard to type. Shook like his hand was shaking now. Violent and uncontrolled. He took another step forward.
And had his father ever uttered one word of thanks? Even shown that he even noticed how hard he worked? How hard he tried? The blade began to cut into the flesh where his fingers met his palm. He was holding it wrong. He didn’t think he’d ever held that knife wrong in his life.
He’d found it again this morning, after decades of feeling like he’d lost an appendage, like his brother had ripped away a piece of his flesh when he lost it. He and his brother had gone to the ranch house after the will reading so he could show his brother everything that had changed. They’d gone into the study. He’d shown his brother the new bookcases he’d built into the walls ten years ago. His brother had walked right by them and to where his little corner of the study still stood untouched. He’d pulled back the chair and sat down, then tugged open a drawer. And there was the pocketknife, wedged into a back corner. He’d never looked there. Because it was his brother’s desk. It was inviolate. He’d felt tears building at the corners of his eyes when he’d held that pocketknife again after so long. His brother hadn’t apologized. He’d just given him one of their father’s smiles, just like the one he’d given him all those years ago.
He took another step forward. His brother was within arm’s reach. No apology. No thanks. No mention of gratitude or contrition. No mention of his hard work. No mention of his accomplishments. No mention of him at all. He felt invisible. Had he ever even existed? Had his life ever even happened? His grip on the pocketknife hardened to steel.
His brother let out an excited little gasp. He’d caught something. He began to reel the line in bit by bit, cajoling the fish shoreward. He remained frozen as his brother tugged the fish closer and closer moment by moment until, with a hollow little plopping sound, it rose into the air at the end of his brother’s line and wriggled to get free. His brother caught it as it swung by, removed the hook from its mouth with a deft twist of his fingers, and turned around with the fish gently grasped in his palm.
He looked down into his brother’s hand, ignoring the start of surprise his brother gave to find him standing so close. It was just a baby. Just a little longer than his brother’s hand was wide. His eyes rose to meet his brother’s.
His brother smiled, shook his head. “Never could stand to do anything other than toss them right back in.”
He looked down at the fish without answering, then let his eyes drift toward the ground as his brother turned back toward the water and knelt to release the fish. It made a small splash as it hit the water, just loud enough to cover the sound of his pocketknife hitting the leaves beneath his feet as he dropped it. He lifted his other hand up to study the piece of wood nestling there in his palm. He’d carved a little fish. A little cutthroat trout to be more specific, just a little smaller than the one his brother had just caught.
He held the carving up as his brother turned back in his direction. “I made this for you.”
His brother smiled again. “Thanks.”
He stepped up beside his brother and gave him a slap on the back. The blood from where the pocketknife had cut into his hand smeared into the fabric of his brother’s shirt. “Don’t mention it.”
He looked out across the water toward the setting sun. It wasn’t his father’s smile. Not really.
📸Photo by Joshua Hanson on Unsplash
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