Chapter 9

9

I was staying in an Airbnb in a town called Beckford and for two weeks now my morning routine was a five-mile, crack-of-dawn run on the bike path along the Farmington River to a Starbucks near the college.

And keeping closely with this ritual, it was about an hour from when I'd tightened my sneaker laces that I was pushing out of the Starbucks door with my back.

At the corner of the brick coffee shop was a white painted metal outdoor table where I set down the Venti Blonde in my left hand. In my right hand was the warm brown bag of the sausage, egg and cheese that I'd already scored from the bagel place beside the Starbucks and I set that down as well before I screeched out the metal chair and sat.

After making short work of my breakfast, I put my feet up on another of the chairs and leaned back with my coffee. The sky was almost full light now and it was very pleasant to just sit and chill and take in the autumnal action. The buckshot barrages of passing birds heading south; the morning light pushing away the shadows from the undersides of the slowly passing string of clouds; the fox-red leaves from an old maple tree beside the coffee shop doing summersaults into the parking lot.

What was also great to watch were all the young college kids coming in and out of the coffee shop. Sleepy-eyed, some wearing pajamas and bunny slippers with their Beckford College sweatshirts, they reminded me of my son, Declan.

Speaking of which , I thought as I took out my phone.

"Hey, there," I said to Declan, who appeared on the FaceTime screen.

"Dad. Hey," he said with a yawn. "What's up?"

"Nothing much. Weather here is awesome. I'm going to fish myself silly today."

"Are you? Get out of here. Shocker," Declan said, laughing.

"Did you see that rainbow trout pic I sent you yesterday?" I said.

"Oh, yeah, Dad. Really nice," he said with a yawn.

"The pink lateral stripe on her? Wasn't it the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?"

"Simply stunning, Dad," he said as he closed his eyes. "I'm having it framed."

"How's things with you out there, son? How's Stephanie?"

"She's great. What time is it, Dad?" Declan said.

"Oh, I don't know. Eight or something."

"Uh, Dad, you have heard of the time zones, right? It's two hours earlier here in Utah. Little early to shoot the breeze, don't you think?"

"Up and at 'em, son," I said. "You're a ranch hand now. You should be thanking me for the wake-up. You'll be late for work."

"Dad, I love you, so don't take this wrong, but I'm hanging up the phone now."

"Dec, wait. Before you go," I said.

"What, Dad?"

"Show me the watch."

From his bedside table, Declan lifted up the stainless-steel Rolex I had recently bequeathed him for his twenty-first birthday.

"That's a fine timepiece, son."

"Sure is, Dad."

"Remember, since it's an automatic watch, you have to wear it to keep it wound."

"I remember, Dad."

"Also remember to keep the crown screwed down tight otherwise the waterproof hermetic seal will be broken."

"Got it, Dad. I'll call you later when the sun is up."

Then the screen went black for some reason.

"Weird," I said as I put my phone down onto the table.

I went back to my coffee. There was a road called Route 4 on my left with a bridge over the Farmington River, and as I sipped, I looked out at the cars coming over it. Inside of them were mostly tired and grim-faced folks in medical scrubs and business attire heading out to work at the nearby UConn Health complex and the Connecticut state capital of Hartford some twenty miles to the southeast.

As the busy bee drivers periodically stopped at the light and glanced down zombielike at their phones, a part of me wanted to walk over and knock on their windows and point out the fly-fishing mecca of the Farmington River right there beside them that they were totally missing out on.

"Or then again," I said, quietly nodding to myself as I blew on the coffee cup lid.

"Maybe it's just best for all concerned to keep the most beautiful trout river on Earth to me and the cormorants today after all."

Still basking in the zen of the New England fall, I was thinking about taking out my burner phone to get an Uber back to town to get another storybook day of my American fishing odyssey underway when I glanced over at a woman getting out of a car in the coffee shop's parking lot.

Some people from your past you could be sitting next to in a subway car or a plane cabin and look right through one another. But with other ones, the slightest glance of eyes on eyes clicks things back in time instantly, and five or ten or even twenty years suddenly disappear like they'd never even happened at all.

"Mike?" Colleen Doherty said as she stepped over.

"Michael Gannon?"