Vinnie was my neighbor, the only other person to share the old logging road that wound through the woods to my cabins. He was my friend, maybe my best friend, even though he was half a generation younger than me. Even though he’d disappear for days at a time, and I’d drive right past his place with absolutely no idea where he was. Even though there were gaps in his personal history that I could never fill in. Things he wouldn’t talk about, ever.
Even though the friendship had once all but ended, and we’d gone weeks without speaking to each other. He was always there for me, if I really needed him. He’d saved my life more than once. So of course I was here for him today.
I had lost my own mother when I was just a kid, so that much I could relate to. That was the first of those perfect-day funerals. Me standing next to my father, trying to hold it together. I don’t remember much else, but I do remember it being a pretty small affair. Twenty, thirty people? Hell, I don’t know. But it wasn’t like this. It wasn’t the whole town showing up to say goodbye. Or to celebrate a long and happy life, whatever kind of face you want to put on it. It didn’t feel anything remotely like a happy occasion when it was my turn to be the grieving son, and I was sure it didn’t feel any better to Vinnie.
Of course, the whole thing had started days before. On the night Hazel Nika LeBlanc died, the neighbors gathered in her yard to build the fire. They watched over it and kept it burning every single minute between then and today’s official service, which was held in the little Catholic church up the road. There wasn’t enough room to hold everybody, so I didn’t even try to get in the door. Extended family only, I guess. Although around here that could still mean a hundred people.
After that service, everything moved up to the graveyard on top of Mission Hill, all the cars nosing their way slowly up that steep road. With no guard rails, nothing to stop you from rolling over that steep drop-off. If it had been an icy winter day, they probably would have had to dig a few more grave sites.
Once we were all at the top, filling up that old burial ground, the priest and the medicine man held court together, the Ojibwa burial ceremony taking place now that the Catholic funeral Mass was over. The Catholic part, hell, they’ve been doing that around here for at least 150 years, and the Ojibwa part, with the four-day journey to the west, the tobacco offered to the spirits, some of the ceremony even done in the original Ojibwa language… I guess that part’s been around a little bit longer, like say a few thousand years. But somehow it all worked together and we all stood up there in the sunlight, looking out over Spectacle Lake and Monocle Lake just below us, and beyond that, the endless horizon of Lake Superior.
When it was done, we all drove back down the hill, nobody in any kind of hurry. The crowd ended up down the street, at the golf course. That’s where the big white wedding tent had been set up, and it was almost blinding in the sunlight. I stood there on the outer edges, trying to catch a glimpse of Vinnie whenever I could. He had two younger sisters, and each of them had a husband, a baby, and another kid just old enough to run around through people’s legs but not old enough to understand what was going on. Someone would end up chasing them down and returning them to their parents. They’d stay put for about five minutes and then take off again. There were cousins, too. I can’t even guess how many. I knew Buck to say hello to, a few others to nod to and give them a quick smile.
I looked around the place for Vinnie and finally saw him standing across the street, on the edge of the casino’s parking lot where it runs close to the shoreline. He was standing there looking out at Waishkey Bay. There were maybe a dozen boats tied up, but the parking lot was almost full. No matter how beautiful it was outside, or how heartbreaking this occasion, how many different good reasons you could come up with for not spending your summer afternoon inside a casino, still there were plenty of people filing in with a burning need to lose their money.
It was a big building, of course. There was something like fifteen thousand square feet of gambling space and a conference center and two restaurants and a hotel with 150 rooms. Vinnie worked here dealing blackjack so I knew what this place meant to him. He led downstaters on hunting trips in the fall, but that was nothing like a full-time job with benefits.
As I crossed the street, I heard some people laughing as they walked through the front door, ready to hit those slot machines. There were two fountains set in the bay behind the casino. They were both spraying water high into the air, and as I stepped next to Vinnie the white noise drowned out every other sound around us.
“How you holding up?” I said.
He took one quick glance at me and turned back to the water. Dark hair hanging free down his back. Wearing that suit I had seen only once before. At the last funeral, a few days after we brought his brother’s dead body back home from Canada. That day had the common decency to be cold and miserable. That’s the one thing you can say about that day.
“Place is packed,” I said. “Your mother meant a great deal to pretty much everybody.”
Vinnie nodded.
“It’s a lot to deal with all at once,” I said. “I can see why you needed a little break.”
He nodded again.
“Just wanted to check on you. I can leave you alone now.”
“No,” he said, finally speaking. “Stay here for a bit.”
I stood with him for a while, looking out at the water. Then I opened up my little booklet and took one more read through it. I felt like I should say something, but I couldn’t think of one word.
“Why do we do it?” he finally said to me.
“Why do we do what?”
“Why do we go through life every day without even noticing all the things we’re missing?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But you’re right. We shouldn’t take one single day for granted.”
This is the kind of insight you have at a funeral, I thought. Two days later, you’ve already forgotten it-that promise you may have made to yourself, to wake up every day and realize what a gift you’ve been given.
But no, Vinnie seemed to have something else in mind. Something more specific. More troubling.
“All we have is time,” he said. “That’s all we’re given. You ever think about that?”
“Sometimes. Not often enough.”
He turned to face me. His eyes were red. “I’m serious, Alex. This isn’t something you put on a greeting card. This is real. You’re given a certain amount of time on this earth and absolutely nothing else.”
I looked at him. I didn’t try to agree with him. Clearly that wasn’t what he wanted from me.
“You don’t get any back when it’s done,” he said. “You don’t get to do anything over. One shot through and then you’re done.”
“Vinnie, are you okay?”
“The last time, I saw her…” He stopped himself, swallowing hard and looking back out over the water. “She was almost gone. She could barely talk. We were all there, my sisters and me, just standing over her, you know. She looked up at me. You know what she said?”
“What?”
“She said, ‘I’m glad you came back. It’s been so long. Look at your children. Look at how they turned out. I’m so proud of them. I’m so glad we made them together. No matter what else happened, it couldn’t have been all bad.’”
He stopped again, took a deep breath.
“That’s what she said, and she was looking right at me. Right in my eyes. She reached up and took my hand.”
“You mean she thought…”
“That I was my father, yes.”
“Well, okay,” I said. “She was kinda out of it, right? I mean, with the drugs and everything.”