My old man always said the best time to be out on the water was around dusk.

“The dying light,” he said. “That’s when the trout are on the take.”

When I was a kid, those were mysterious words, haunting words.

“You mean, that’s when you can catch ‘em?” I asked.

My old man would nod his head and look off toward the creek, a cigar clenched between his teeth, a far-off look in his dark eyes.

For years, he never took me fishing when the sun disappeared behind the hills that threw shade across Miller’s Creek, the trout stream that flowed some hundred yards in front of our modest country house. He didn’t want me out on the water those spring nights when the trout were rising for the different species of mayflies over the water.

“When you get a little older,” he told me.

The problem was, when I got a little older, my old man was mostly gone.

Mom said he had restless feet. Mom’s own mother, we called her Nana, had a different interpretation. “He’s not the family-man type,” she said with a frown.

I was ten when I caught my first trout on Miller’s Creek, a stream-bred brownie with a belly the color of butter.  

It wasn’t dusk and my old man wasn’t there to see it, a thirteen-inch beauty I proudly put on a metal stringer and brought home to show off to mom and Nana.

I caught the trout with a spinning rod on a nightcrawler.

“That’s okay,” he said, when he next came around a few weeks later. “I’ll teach you how to use a fly rod one of these days.”

I watched him wiggle into his waders before tying a Green Drake onto his leader. The sun was falling fast over the hills across Miller’s Creek, and he was eager to get out on the water to catch the evening hatch.

“Can’t I go with you dad?”

“The other fishermen might not like it,” he said. He bit down on an unlit cigar. “You might get in the way.”

“I’ll just sit and watch.”

He pulled the knot tight on the eyelit of the Green Drake and studied it. “Maybe next time,” he said.

I watched him hop off the back porch facing the creek, stop to light his cigar, before trudging down the hill toward the water. Near the creek, he turned and started off along the well-worn footpath that ran along the stream before disappearing into the brush, the smell of his cheap cigar filling the spring night.

He never told me exactly where he went. Years later, I would fish many of the same holes and riffles where he likely caught trout on those spring evenings when the mayflies were in the air and the trout were on the take.

I would wake up the following morning and follow the smell of fish into the kitchen where I’d find a half-dozen or more brown trout soaking in the sink.

“You gonna clean those or what Frank?” Mom asked.

She always sounded perturbed, but the strange smile on her face belied any true anger.

“After some of those scrambled eggs and sausage you’re so good at cookin’ up Marie.”

It wasn’t long before the wonderful smell of eggs and bacon and freshly made coffee permeated the kitchen. “Yes sir. Nothing like a good breakfast to start the day,” my old man said.

Mom turned from the stove and smiled and went back to her cooking.

“Where did you catch ‘em?” I asked.

“Now that’s a secret Billy boy. You know a fisherman never reveals his best fishing spots.”

“You gotta lot of secrets. Don’t ya Frank?”

Nana stood in the doorway glaring at my old man. She held a small basket of strawberries, the first batch of the season.

“Well … look’s who’s here. The judge and jury herself.”

My old man gave Nana a long appraising wise guy look as if sizing her up for some sales pitch.

“How ya doin’?”

Nana shook her head and shuffled into the kitchen. She was hard of hearing and diabetic with bad legs. Mom flashed a disapproving look at Nana before scooping up some eggs, sausage and bacon onto a plate and setting it down before my old man.

“Think I’ll head into the living room,” she said as she plopped the basket of strawberries on the kitchen table and limped off.

Outside the kitchen screen door, a bird squawked. I spotted a robin sitting on one of the branches of our willow tree.

“She don’t like me too well … does she Marie?”

Mom ignored the question. “Those strawberries look good.”

I picked one up and sank my teeth into it. “They are good,” I said, the juice running down my chin. “Make strawberry shortcake mom.”

“Yeah mom,” my old man said.

Mom’s eyes were like lasers on him. “Sure. Like you’re gonna be around to eat it.”

“Aw c’mon Marie. We’ve already been over that.”

“Right. We’ve already been over that. Why can’t you get a job close by? Why do you always work hours away … Elmira, Scranton, Rochester.”

“I’m a salesman. On the road a lot Marie.”

“He’s a salesman Marie,” called out Nana in a mocking voice from the living room.

My old man grinned. “She sure hears pretty good when she wants to.” He pushed himself away from the table and headed out of the kitchen.

Soon, he was dressed in his creased slacks, sport jacket and tie, his uniform for selling whatever product he was pushing at the time. My old man worked for many companies, selling everything from insurance to home furnishings. And he was always on the road.

“On the road. Where all the bums end up,” Nana said with disgust.

“He does provide for us,” my mom said. “Usually anyway.”

“I wonder how many hussies he’s paying.”

“Nana,” said my mom with a reproving tone.

“What’s a hussy?” I asked.

My old man had roared off down Route 16 in his latest car, a beat-up Lincoln Continental with dice hanging from the rear-view mirror.

“Never you mind Billy. Just never you mind.”

I had an inkling what a hussy was, but I dismissed the thought. Just before leaving us, I’d watched my old man and my mom embrace right there on the front porch and kiss long and passionately. Surely, there were no hussies in his life. My mother and old man …. They loved each other. I made myself believe it. At ten years old, the two things I wanted most in life were to catch a creel full of trout in the dying light and to have a normal family life with a father who was always home.

From the short story, The Dying Light by Mike Reuther. The author’s books can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Books-MIke-Reuther/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AMIke+Reuther&page=2