Why did I go back?

I’m not sure.

It would be easy to say it was because of my life back in Houston and a job I hated. But maybe it was something else, a need to finally make things right, even if I knew, deep in my heart that it was a foolish notion.

It was October, that splendid time in northcentral Pennsylvania when the trees drip the colors of wine and the air turns crisp and the aroma of fall—wood smoke from the cabins along Miler’s Creek, fills the air. It’s not a time of beginnings, but of settling in— for the long winter. The stream-bred trout of Miller’s Creek enter the spawning season as the chill sets in, a time to begin reflecting on the sins and bad decisions of the passing year.

My old man had done what he said he might do: He had purchased Stone General Store.

My return home did not become a reality without its share of long and hard consideration. There were more than a few long-distance phone calls, some with my old man, others with my mother.

“We can make this work,” my old man said more than once.

“Make what work dad?” I asked. “Make what work?”

I found a place to live, a small one-room cabin, a few miles from my boyhood home.  

My old man found his own place as well. He had given up his sales job and living part-time elsewhere.  

“Does this make us a family?” I asked my old man.

I had just locked the front door to the store and watched the last of the customers, a hunter in camouflage clothing and a red vest, drive out of the parking lot after filling his pickup with gas. The two of us were all alone in the store. It was the end of the day around dusk, the opening of small game season, and it had been a particularly busy day for us.

My old man gave me a funny look.

“I don’t know what the hell you mean?” he said.

“C’mon. You and me and mom. The three of us … owners and operators of this store.”

He hit the light switch and the back of the store where the fly shop was located went black before he moved past me. “It just makes us business partners,” he said. I watched him disappear out the side entrance door. I heard his car start up and drive off up the two-lane road.

Those first years owning and operating the store were good ones. The change in ownership did not chase off any of the old customers. We were busy most days, although winter brought a lull to the business, as we expected it would.

The start of fishing season in April brought the customers flooding back, and summer meant tourists and travelers and bikers flocking to the store as well.

We had expanded the small delicatessen to include ice cream. It seemed like a small enough addition, but it certainly meant a boost to our fortunes, especially on the days when families toting kids had no other reason to come into the place.

My old man took care of the fly fishermen who came in for flies and other angling needs. He relished this part of the business, and I suspect it was the principal reason he decided to be part of the operation. He loved nothing better than to point fisherman to the right flies to use and jaw with them about the fishing conditions on Miler’s Creek and some of the feeder streams in the valley.

My old man had a way with people, honed no doubt from his years as a salesman. Laughter and lusty jokes often filled the fly shop area of the store.

Mom worked the deli along with a few locals, a couple of young women, making sandwiches and checking out the fishing accessories or other knick-knacks and items customers picked up at the store.

I kept the books, ordered supplies, maintained inventory, and assisted with different things both in the fly shop and the deli.

I think the store gave us all a sense of purpose if nothing else, even if the work left me tired and weary many days. Still, it was nice to see the store turning a profit, if a slim one.

It was the 1990s. The movie, A River Runs Through it, about a father and his two boys connected by fly fishing in the wilds of Montana, had captured the fancy of the nation, and many people were taking up the sport for the first time, and our store seemed to be catching the wave of its popularity.

But then came the drought years, when Miller’s Creek and other streams throughout the valley ran low. Trout turned belly-up in sections of creeks by mid-summer two straight years. Fishing served such a large part of the store’s income, and dry seasons proved to be disastrous for our business.

A deep sense of first frustration and later helplessness set in.

“We just have to be patient,” my mom said. “It will all come back. Mother Nature has a way of balancing things out.”

My old man suggested we cut our losses and sell. He saw little reason for continuing with what he saw as a losing proposition. Increasingly, he had stayed away from the store. The store’s daily operations unconnected to fishing mostly bored my old man anyway, and with fewer anglers coming in, he had grown restless.

“What do you suppose he does with himself when he’s not here?” I asked my mom.

I was in the deli sweeping the wooden floor. It was the end of another slow day at the store.

My mom frowned. “Maybe looking for a job or hanging out in upstate New York.”

“You mean in Rochester? But I thought that was all over.”

“Over?” My mom shot me a look of utter disbelief.

“You don’t know the whole story? Do you?”

She sprayed some disinfectant on an area of the food counter before wiping it with a cloth.

“The whole story?”

We were the only two in the place. A pickup truck shot past the store along the two-lane road.

“Your father has another family.”

“What?”

“Yes. Up in Rochester. He’s got a wife, two grown sons.”

“Two grown sons.”

There came a ringing in my ears. For a moment, the room seemed to sway.

“What? You mean …”

“I mean he has two families. Us and them.”

My mom stood there with hands on her hips, staring at me, expressionless.  My mind began to reel. The long absences over the years. The tension and fights between my old man and my mom. Sure. It all made sense.

“The diary?” I said, choking back the words.

My mom nodded.

“Nana knew and you didn’t?”

Her eyes grew moist. “Don’t ask me how she knew, but she did.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” I asked.

“Oh honey. Would it have mattered?”

“I guess not,” I said.

There was nothing more to say.

He’s pulling out. Taking his share of the store. It will just be you and me.”

“Fine,” I said. “That’s just fine with me.”

From the book, The Dying Light by Mike Reuther. https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Mike-Reuther-ebook/dp/B0989DDHGZ