Sailing Lessons by Hannah McKinnon

Author:Hannah McKinnon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-04T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Three

Caleb

M oonlight illuminated the motel room in soft-blue light, spilling over the white bedding. He rolled over to face it. It was quiet, save for the reassuring thrum of peepers in the woods outside, and even they were only interrupted the occasional car passing on Route 28. It was warm, and he slept bare-chested, his arms free from the sheets. He stared at his hand resting by his pillow as if it belonged to someone else. In the glow of the moonlight, it was just a silhouette, transformed. Gone were the ropy lines of veins and the age spots, the crepey skin that gave acknowledgment to the years behind him. He made a fist and held it up in the light. Anger had found him. It was not meant for the girls or Lindy. Or the fact he’d made it back here. His grip softened, and he let his arm fall back onto the bed. Already he could feel himself losing strength.

They had passed two liquor stores when Piper drove him back to the motel, and it had been hard to avert his gaze. It had been three years that he had been truly sober. There had been many times before that he’d tried, stretches where he made his AA meetings and stayed the course religiously. In the beginning the attempt to get sober was all about the family he’d left behind. He owed it to them. He would not let go of the vision he had for their future. But as the years passed and his attempts failed, he turned back to the bottle. At times because he’d given up on that future; at others because he was afraid to remember the past.

Though he’d decided that his family was better served by his absence, there was still his work. The singular hunger he had, stronger than his desire to drink. He didn’t care about paying rent or putting food in the fridge; but he needed to work. Luckily, he’d kept some contacts over the years. Some who were loyal friends, some who simply appreciated his work. In the beginning, he learned how to pull himself together for short stretches when he landed an assignment. But it grew harder. There were times when he lost assignments for showing up hungover or worse, like the time he staggered onto the set of a documentary project he’d been brought on board for in Santa Fe. They were shooting in the Native Nation reservation west of the city documenting a Navajo man who was a revered silversmith. Caleb had no memory of the drive from his hotel to the reservation that day. He arrived late and more than a few days unshowered. The thing was, he was excited about this project. It had been some time since he’d had real work, something substantial like this. What was more, he liked the man, Josef Nez. He’d spent the day before at the artist’s home, talking to his wife and three of his grown children, following Joseph around his small workshop in a shed behind the house.

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