The Dredge by Brendan Flaherty

Author:Brendan Flaherty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2024-02-20T16:37:45+00:00

17

Ambrose hung up when his call went to Cale’s voicemail again. He opened another beer in his cold truck. The snow had started a little after eight that Wednesday morning, blowing up and down and sidewise in a swirling wind. It came on fast and didn’t quit.

Ambrose had bumped around at work in a haze that day. He was still staggered by his conversation with Lily the afternoon before. A few times, one of his guys asked if he was feeling alright, and he said he was fine. They worked for an hour in the snow that morning, stiff and puffed up like birds, until Ambrose said they’d call it a day. He kept working, though, and he knew they were watching him through their windshields.

Even after they left, he walked around through the snow, moving quickly, accomplishing nothing. He spent hours like that, his mind spinning, without clarity or direction, until four inches covered the places he hadn’t been. His unlined leather gloves were soaked through to his numb hands. The cold went well down into him, into his bones. Instead of a late lunch, he picked up a twelve-pack of beer and sat in his truck on the side of an untraveled road, staring at his phone, wondering what to do.

And now it was night and he was parked again, just down the road from Lily’s. He hadn’t gone home yet. Kate had put Sadie to bed alone. The second night in a row that’d happened, after two years during which he’d never missed her bedtime routine.

The night before, he’d knocked on Lily’s door, startling her. He’d come to tell her that, after careful consideration, he was eager to accept the job dredging Gibbs Pond. His acceptance, he’d decided, couldn’t wait until the morning. She was surprised to see him, and, he felt, disappointed. She said she’d hired someone else already. She hadn’t thought Ambrose was interested, and perhaps he wouldn’t be well enough to do the work on time, on account of his food poisoning or stomach bug or whatever it was. He let his desperation show, offering to do the job for free, just him, no crew needed. When she asked why he’d do that, he mumbled “never mind” and stepped off the porch. She stepped outside then and asked if he agreed that the job required two people, bare minimum, given the need for a dump truck, as well as the excavator, but even that would likely be insufficient, and at the very least inefficient. His response was to fade off into the night without a goodbye or closing comment.

But a day later, he had an answer for why he’d made that offer, why it had to be him. Doubling down on his initial half-baked pitch, he got out of his truck and walked along the edge of the field that he knew too well. The wet snow squeaked and groaned under each step. The flakes falling were barely visible now. He could hear them sizzle on his collar, melting on impact, even with his pulse pounding in his ears.

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