Free Sea Change by Diane Tullson Page A

main building, a lodge worker jogs toward the helicopter. With the coveralls, I don’t notice at first it’s a woman, but up close I see she’s young, about my age. She’s wearing a headset over a cap, on backward, dark brown hair sticking out from under it, and yellow safety glasses. She opens my door and points at my headset. I take it off and leave it on the seat. The noise is huge. I get out and grab my bag. I’m taller than the girl, and she taps my arm and points up—the rotor. I duck my head.
    Dad is already out, tossing duffel bags and boxes from the storage compartment in the tail of the helicopter. He secures the door and waves for me to get out of the way. The helicopter lifts and veers up the inlet, the noise of the engine echoing off the steep slopes, then disappears and leaves us in silence.
    The girl in coveralls shoulders a duffel bag from the pile of stuff on the grass. Dad strides over to her—he’s not smiling now.
    â€œYou do that again, Sumi, and I’ll fire your ass.” He stabs his thumb at the dead deer. “Get that thing out of here.”
    The deer’s eyes are open and it still has grass in its mouth. There’s a round black hole just behind its shoulder, a bullet hole, and there’s blood on the grass. It has pronged antlers but it’s not a big animal.
    Sumi shrugs. She tosses the duffel bag to me and then heads to the lodge. I glance at my dad but he’s got his back to me, his hands on his hips, looking out at the water. So I follow Sumi.
    The lodge windows are boarded up for the winter and the entrance is sheeted in heavy plastic. It doesn’t look like we’re staying in the lodge.
    â€œWhere should I put our stuff?”
    She gives me a long look, up and down, like she’s assessing me. I’m wearing shoes I’ve had for a year and a rain jacket I bought when I still lived in Vancouver. I’m suddenly aware I need a haircut. She grabs a wheelbarrow leaning against the porch. I wait for her to answer, but she doesn’t. She goes back to the dead deer and hauls it into the wheelbarrow in a smear of blood. Its hooves bounce over the side as she wheels it behind the buildings.
    That went well.
    I dump my bags on the porch and go to the pile from the helicopter. I grab a couple of boxes of what I hope is fishing gear and head down to the water. Dad has put on rubber boots, and he’s loading an inflatable boat pulled up close on the stony beach. I hand him the boxes.
    â€œSo, those coho hungry?”
    Dad looks at me, then at the sky. “Too late to go fishing now, Lucas.”
    It’s maybe three in the afternoon. We left LA early in order to catch the flight from Vancouver to Sandspit.
    I say, “We’re not going fishing?”
    He rubs his hair. I hate it when he does that. When he tries to get out of something, he always rubs his hair. “I’ll be back tonight or first thing tomorrow. We’ll go fishing then. We’ll spend the whole day.”
    â€œTomorrow! What am I supposed to do until tomorrow?”
    He unties the boat and pushes it off the beach, stepping in as it floats clear. “You still do that whiny thing with your voice.”
    Whiny thing? “You’re going to see her.” I’m so mad I don’t care what my voice sounds like. “You’re going to see Deirdre.”
    His mouth tightens. “Tomorrow, Lucas. I promise.”
    Deirdre is the reason for the divorce. “What does that mean exactly—you promise?”
    He starts the engine and gives it some gas. He waves, like he hasn’t heard me. He motors over to one of the aluminum open fishing boats moored in the bay. He transfers the stuff, ties the inflatable to the mooring buoy and starts the engine on the fishing boat.
    I do not believe this.
    The fishing boat backs off the mooring and then powers up. White water curls off the front of the boat. It gets smaller and farther away.
    I