It is late summer, my daughter, Riley, is unclogging a stream beside the trail we are walking along, and there is an ulcer in my stomach that’s been there for years. Riley is carrying a branch she broke by stomping on it, and is unaware of how far behind my wife, Juli, and I are. I haven’t told them that the pain makes it almost unbearable to walk. Being a father has caused me to hold back the world from Riley and reassure Juli that everything—even the descent of our marriage—will be okay.
In reality, it rains more often than not in Southeast Alaska. My gastroenterologist says the ulcer is a symptom of something larger, and I don’t know how long I can pretend to love Juli anymore.
We are walking because I promised Riley there will be a beach flocked with eagles at the end of this tunnel of Sitka spruces and brambles and trampled stairstep moss, their bodies broad and nimble and fierce.
We are also walking, though I can’t tell them, because at the end of the trail there is a Boy Scout camp with cabins and lashed poles. There are echoes of a childhood and a boy I can just barely remember. There has been an ache in my stomach for me to return.
#
I had a friend once who wore glasses as thick as ice cubes and contained within him the spark of a blooming stutter. We used to tape over Kidz Bop cassettes, pretending we were the ones singing. He practiced over and over how to speak, as if his body wasn’t fighting against him. Once taped, we rewound our voices until we could hear the breaths return to our lips and critiqued what they sounded like after. I took them to our mothers, showing that we sounded like men and not boys with soft voices—too soft for the world that was held from us. My mother cooed, smiling at me as if I had given her something too special for anyone else to hear. I am sure she still has a drawer full of every voice I have ever given her.
Because we were in the same Boy Scout troop, the same classes, and essentially the same neighborhood, we did everything together. Once behind his house, I took out a lighter I stole from my mother’s junk drawer and lit a spruce tree’s sap with its flame. We watched as a pocket of the tree crinkled into orange, folding into itself before extinguishing the heat it was born from. Too hot, yet still as dazzling as I would’ve thought. Its heat was just enough for two boys to crowd around and appreciate the burn.
#
The tree line breaks and before us there is a beach that seems to stretch beyond Riley’s grasp. She still runs from one end of the expanse to the other, chasing seagulls and blue jays, but wonders where the eagles have gone. The sun seems to have hidden behind a heavy curtain, and I try to tell her to stay close. But she is happy, unaware that Juli isn’t holding my hand anymore and is instead pulling apart the seaweed from the beach and popping the air pockets contained within their thin bodies.
Juli waves me to Riley, tells me that our daughter is more important than her. That when she is gone (God forbid), at least there will be something between me and Riley beyond our last name. And so, I go to Riley, pretend I believe the birds before us will stop for just a moment before they fly away. I laugh when she laughs, and I tell her for the first time about some of the legends the Native Alaskans have about the place: the Frog Girl, the Otter People, the raven that stole the sun from the world to hold for himself. These stories, I tell her, are just as real as the people that tell them. She nods, points to an eagle far in the distance, and asks me if it will get close enough for us to see its feathers.
Yes, I lie to her, yes, you will be able to see the trust it gives you. You will be able to see your own reflection in the sheen of its beak.
I notice how the ocean mist tastes just like tears, and I worry that maybe Riley can tell too. The eagle dips and sways in the air, first cartwheeling then riding the breeze above us. Not long ago, there was an eagle that ventured too close to people, and its beak was shattered by their .22. The eagle was unable to live on its own, so needed to be caged and fed a slurry of sockeye and marionberries through a tube in its throat.
I know you don’t love Mom anymore, she says frankly, the wet sand swirling under her fingers.
We both know she is right.
#
Years ago, I took Riley to go see the injured eagle, far before its plumage greyed. It lived in a corrugated metal shed and was cared for by a Forest Service ranger next to a nature preserve. She didn’t like eagles back then and was apprehensive at the clucking it made when we first saw it through the shed’s window. We were waved into the shed by the ranger, his thin body framed by khakis and a sap-stained jacket. As we entered, the shed smelled thickly of ammonia, blended fish, and iron.
The ranger’s voice, though the stutter now stifled, was unmistakable as he greeted us and motioned to the eagle. Her name’s Daisy—the guy who runs this place doesn’t think it’s a good idea to name wild animals, thinks we’d see them too much like pets.
Riley stood frozen at the doorway; her eyes were locked on the eagle’s talons, clenching a branch the size of her throat. The ranger softly took Riley’s hand in his, and walked her through the scattered hay to the eagle. It shifted its weight, turning its head, and soon we understood why it had to be held in captivity. The left half of its beak was gone, blown out and jagged like a tidal coastline. And through the right side, there was a perfect hole.
Daisy’s not going to harm you—see—she’s scared just like you.
I tried to tell the ranger, whom I remembered from so long ago, that I was Adam and that I knew him. That we used to be best friends, and I was happy to hear his stutter had faded. But he was focused on Riley, Daisy, and what it meant to be okay with vulnerability.
He hadn’t changed, or really, my memory of his awkwardness hadn’t changed. He still was gangly, and his knees seemed to rattle like they were made of dry beans. He’d grown a light mustache, which only fit him if he kept on his green boonie. I was in awe of him, which I knew I had to contain. For Riley, for Juli (who was napping in the passenger seat of our Subaru), and for me.
Daisy balked once Riley touched her, the feathers shimmering a mirage, but didn’t leap from its branch. It stood there resolute and made of bones too light for gravity to hold onto. Riley giggled, the ranger caught my glance, and we left before I could tell him what he had meant to me.
#
I pull Riley from the sand and before she can ask me why, I begin walking toward a building on the far edge of the beach. Juli reluctantly follows. When I was young, the large atrium-like building was used as a dining hall for the Boy Scout troops that would flock there for summer camp. But now, because there hasn’t been a troop here in ages, its logs have grown over with blueberry bushes and clovers. Its wide windows facing the ocean have shattered into silica dunes that are now too dangerous to breathe.
Inside, the long tables have been raided, the chairs have been stripped of their nails, and the floor is bowing uneasily below our feet. The structure hasn’t failed yet–the shingles have held off most of the damage–but soon it will crumble. Soon, the ocean waves will take the beams and metal collars and insulation, and the only remaining thing will be the concrete slab of the foundation. Maybe, years from now, the surveyors, carpenters, government officials, taxpayers, and I will strike the concrete with our pickaxes, toss the fragments into the forest, and pretend none of it ever happened.
It’s unsafe. Riley, come back here. I think Dad just needs a moment to himself.
In the room, I am alone now. I am alone and the loss is deeper than our failing marriage. Juli knows that I haven’t touched her since we’ve had Riley, since I was young and too horny to work through the confusion. Is it wrong for a husband to become a ghost? I have given her Riley, a home, the warmth of another body, but I know that isn’t enough. She wants something that I cannot give anymore. And because our time is spent caring for Riley, helping with homework, taking her on walks, I am unsure Juli and I have anything else to connect us.
The building is dilapidated, but it is home. The girders are painted with the slogans of our troop, there are empty guidon holders for flags we wove with our emblems, and bits of charcoal graffiti scratched on the doorframe. The boy wrote our names there one night when everyone else was away, hoping that with our names paired, our bodies would be too. The markings are gone, smudged by rain or hands or his own disappointment.
Outside, Juli is twirling a cedar leaf between her fingers, and Riley is watching as it descends into a puddle at her feet. Neither are looking at me, they have found their own moment to exist in. It concerns me, of course, that I can see them inhabiting a world I am not a part of. That I will be their corner deli cashier or shoe fitting salesman, always close but still separate. That I will be whole, but different, and that thought makes me wonder if that had happened with me and the ranger. We had met, we had liked (maybe even loved) each other, and now we were nothing more than dog ears in each other’s stories.
The boy was here once, so long ago. The boy with his glasses and stutter and awkwardness that never failed to hold me. Though, I didn’t have the words to understand what closeness meant to two boys gurgling the saltwater between their mouths.
After dinner once, after the cooks had rung the bell for seconds and the spaghetti or beef casserole were scooped away, it was only the two of us left. The rest of the troop had sped to a ceremony involving a bonfire, an effigy, and brand-new neckerchiefs. He touched me hesitantly, and then I touched him, and the bus boys were in the kitchen scrubbing the charred food with steel wool. It was quiet, confusing. All the things I knew about my body, I could find on his. And before I could understand what had happened, we returned to eating the last of our seconds from our plates. We returned our dishes to the smoke-wafting broilers, the sinks bubbling like cauldrons, and I left to join the other boys on the beach in the distance, a ring of them singing around an orange flame.
Dad, Riley calls, an eagle.
The eagle is young, too young to have gained the white plumage of an adult but is just as adventurous as one. It has climbed onto one of the shattered windowsills, and is peering up toward the ceiling, as if it already knows I won’t be a threat. Riley is excited, and from inside the building, I can tell she has lost interest in the leaf. She is solely focused on the wholeness of the eagle’s beak. Juli holds her wrist, afraid the wildlife less than ten feet away could harm her only daughter. At times, her overprotective nature has harmed us. Once, with Riley already growing too big for our baby carrier backpack, Juli strapped Riley in and severely torqued her back while climbing up Mt. Juneau. She was bedridden for weeks.
I tell Juli it’ll be fine, and that Riley has done this before. There is trust in her eyes when she lets go of Riley, trust that was built over years of my half-truths, and it pains me to know she still believes we will be able to make it through the turbulence. There isn’t another woman, but it is as if the love I thought I could give her has sucked itself out of existence.
Riley eagerly runs to the eagle. The eagle turns its gaze to her, pitches its wings, forcefully squawks, and snaps its body into the air. It floats on a pillow of wind, then dives talons first toward Riley with the little momentum it has gained. The eagle grabs her forearm intending to carry her away, as if all her dreams and hobbies and light that she contains can be taken from us so easily. It struggles for a moment; Riley screams; I stand frozen; Juli swats the bird away.
The talons have scored her skin, deep red gashes draining Riley of herself. She is crying now, and the eagle has returned to the overcast sky. I fling shards of glass at its disappearing body, but they all just glint like winks in the air. Juli undoes the sweater from her waist and wraps it around Riley’s arm, but when I try to help her, she scorns me. Says I was better as a parent when I was absorbed in my own memories. But it can’t be my fault, I wasn’t the one who hurt Riley. It was the eagle—it was her trust in the eagle.
#
It’s been a week since Riley’s injury, and Juli has stopped talking to me. Over dinner, her eyes burn with fury, seeing through the façade I built over years of my confidence. Now that she sees me for who I am, I wonder if maybe it is for the better. The love for Riley is the only thing holding me here, in this home I bought on fake promises.
It wasn’t Dad’s fault, Riley says to Juli as she scoops out a steaming pile of corn onto her plate.
My stomach hurts too much for me to eat tonight. The ulcers have flared up, and I know I won’t be able to hold anything down. They’ve only gotten worse, and my doctor has narrowed the cause down to two things: marital stress and self-repulsion. Both he cannot fix. He gave me a pack of Tums and a half-hearted, I hope you feel better, on my last visit.
I know, Juli pats Riley on her head and bandaged arm, but she cannot look at me.
I leave the dining table and exit to our front porch. The wind here is calm enough to light a cigarette, so I do. Partway through, Juli comes out. Her hands have pruned, and she smells like sweet grapes.
I know you don’t love me anymore.
We settle in her words and wait for the mosquitos to be caught in the sticky traps above us. I think back to the ranger, and the way he made Riley believe that all eagles were safe to touch.
Go to him, Juli threatens, go to him and tell him you love him more than me. What does it say about a man if he is willing to let his daughter get hurt and do nothing about it?
#
The shack under the ranger’s care has begun to crumble. It’s been years since it’s had an animal living there due to the rust and the hawkweed sprouting from the foundation. A white Forest Service truck is parked out front, and the crackle of its radio is unmistakably his voice. The truck is running, as if it isn’t meant to be left alone, but it is. The ranger’s voice comes again through the static.
Coming back with the body of another, he stutters, static filling the space, eagle, over.
He waits for someone to respond, and before I can think to say anything through the radio, someone else does.
Third this month and all pretty close to the road. Someone’s getting bold, over.
I lean on the truck, its exhaust thrumming my chest, knowing that if I simply wait, he will return.
Ten minutes later, just long enough for my anger to rise, I hear rustling from a trail behind the shack, and then the ranger appears. His hair is disheveled, and his beard is something new and tangled. He is wearing latex gloves while carrying a limp body, its wings loose and dragging against the path.
Jordan, I say angrily, hoping to hide my sadness and pain and confused nostalgia. My daughter is hurt, and it’s because of you.
He looks at me, sees a collection of cigarette butts at my feet, and responds with glassy eyes. He doesn’t say anything, or maybe, he can’t out of terror or sadness. Once near me, he unlatches the tailgate, lays a trash bag down, and places the dead eagle on the truck bed.
An eagle, just like this one, cut my daughter’s arm open. They’re dangerous fucking animals, and you let my daughter believe they weren’t.
The eagle’s blood has leaked out and crusted over its white feathered head. In a way, with its wings spread and its head twisted to the right, it looks as if the eagle is still flying. The talons are curled, legs kink incorrectly, and rib shards poke through the matted feathers.
Daisy’s dead, he finally says while outlining the wings with his fingers. She’s dead—and this one is, too.
At summer camp, the same year we touched each other but told no one, we had found Daisy. A group of three boys had stolen a .22 from the camp’s shooting range and were shooting at anything that moved. They killed rabbits, squirrels, and didn’t stop until they shot down Daisy. The ocean waves were breaking just before her body. We ran to her after seeing her dive lifeless to the ground.
Jordan was first to Daisy, and first to pick her frail body from the beach. Her beak was shattered, the shards were already slipping under the sand. She was squawking and snapping at Jordan, who cradled her in his thin arms. His stutter had overcome him.
Leave it, I told him, leave it. It’s already dead.
But he shook his head and he let it scratch and peck him while he tried to force out words. The boys with the rifle had run, but I was still scared they would come back. Had they known what we had done? Called us queer behind our backs? Were they already aiming at us? Were boys with their hearts twisted into each other what they would kill next? We were animals, and as animals, we were meant to be shot from the sky.
It’s not safe here. I tugged at his sleeve.
And still, he sat there, pulling a granola bar from his pocket, chewing it, and then feeding it to Daisy. I took one last look at the eagle, saw the hope drain from its eyes, and I left. It upset me that he would care for something so openly and deeply.
I avoided the dining hall for the rest of camp. I stole Red Vines from the snack shack, drank gutter water, and even tried a salmon’s rotting flesh. My stomach hurt constantly after, and I was worried I had swallowed a bullet from an animal that was shot. I couldn’t tell anyone because if they found out, they would’ve sent me home, and I would’ve had to tell my mother about the eagle and the dining hall and the truth I knew was never meant to be said aloud.
I offer him a cigarette, thinking he won’t accept since he’s got eagle guts all over his hands. But he nods and takes one from me. The pain returns to my stomach, and the anger dissipates like steam from a dying body.
She died from an infection caused by her feeding tube, he says while I light the cigarette.
I reflexively cradle my stomach with my arm. The pain usually comes in bouts, and if I can last the first minute, the rest comes much easier. He takes a single drag and extinguishes it. After inspecting the eagle’s body, he tucks it into the trash bag, gazes at me pitifully, and climbs into the truck.
You’re not even going to apologize? I manage to say, My wife thinks I’m seeing someone else.
Are you?
But, of course, before I can say anything, he drives off. The trash bag full of the eagle hops as the truck hits pothole after pothole, and for a second I think it’s alive. Who would trap and suffocate such an innocent thing?
Juli will be seething if I return. She will be cold in bed if I ask to hold her, she will pretend the couch is more comfortable. She will hug Riley, reapply ointment and bandages every few days until her arm is healed. She will not ask me about today because she will think she knows what happened, and if she asks, it will mean she believes it did.
I call Juli when I am on the road, but it is Riley who answers. She wonders where I have been, and I tell her I went to look for the eagle that hurt her. That because the beach was so large, I had to search all day, but I wasn’t able to find it. So, I will go to the next beach over and the next beach after that until I find the eagle and make it apologize. I tell her it may take months, even years, but that I will find the eagle and I will bring her back something she will accept.
She knows this is a lie; she knows I am abandoning her; she knows that once I hang up, I will forget about her and Juli and the hikes. One day, I will call her back and she won’t remember who I am, won’t recognize the aging voice of her father. Still, I will tell her I found that terrible eagle, and he is ready to tell her the truth.
###
Maxwell Suzuki is a queer writer who lives in Los Angeles. Maxwell's work has appeared or is forthcoming in CRAFT, Lunch Ticket, and South Dakota Review. He is the Prose Editor of Passengers Journal and reads for Split/Lip Press. He is writing a novel on the generational disconnect between Japanese American immigrants and their children.
Photo by Cotton Bro