“Take me fishing,” Sherri said. “I’ll fish you under the table.” She scrunched up her face and nodded, agreeing with herself. “Let’s hit Skokie.”

“Here I was hoping you could drag me out to brunch followed by hours of thrifting.”

She lit up. “Brunch!”

“No.”

“Thrifting?”

Nolan wondered why he still used words. “Where to?” he asked. “Skokie or Lake Michigan, at Belmont? Or your dad’s?”

“Skokie. Or brunch.”

“Nobody said brunch,” he said.

Sherri arched an eyebrow. “You keep pronouncing the word wrong. It’s ‘jasslight.’ Skokie.” She won.

North of Chicago, pretty far north of Skokie, even, was a designed chain of lakes called Skokie Lagoons. Longtime Potawatomi marshland prone to flooding, the lakes were carved out in the largest Civilian Conservation Corps project ever undertaken, from 1933 to 1941. Fifty years later, the Forest Preserve spent most of the ‘90s dredging out sediment, removing forty tons of carp and other invasive species, restocking bass, walleye, channel cats and bluegill, and planting cattail and other filtering reeds to restore the wetlands to a pristine state. Pristine when first reopened to the public, that is. But give city folk a picturesque picnic table tucked away in the switchgrass on a point overlooking the water, surrounded by flowers of purple aster and goldenrod. Then watch as they take a collective dump on that haven. Watch them trample every wildflower and drive home, unburdened by their own litter. Or conscience.

Sherri and Nolan’s favorite new fishing hole deteriorated every time they returned, despite how much trash they’d truck out with them. Early days after reopening they fished in unspoiled wilderness just north of the city. Then they noticed tackle packaging tossed by other fishermen along the bank and took to carrying bags in their pockets. Their bags grew ever larger, as picnickers began leaving everything behind as if simply walking out of McDonald’s without bussing their table. When construction bags couldn’t hack it, they stopped fishing there altogether.

“You sure, Skokie?” Nolan checked. “Pretty messy. We could sight fish largemouth at Belmont Harbor now. Zebra mussels aren’t the worst thing in the world. The water’s so clear you can see bottom. Lots of old tires down there, but some of the bass are using them as nests. You wouldn’t recognize Belmont from last year.”

“I want to go to Skokie.” So stubborn.

“Which is where we’re going. I’ll get the tackle ready.”  

Nolan pulled their rods from the closet, got his tackle box and sat at the black table, filling two segmented plastic trays with crankbaits, spinners, topwaters, various jig heads, plastic lizards and crayfish. One mini tackle box for each of them.

He respooled their reels with ten-pound braid and tied on a fluorocarbon leader. The bass in Skokie were spooky, so the fluorocarbon helped the line disappear, and acted as a shock absorber for the space-age braid, new to the market. A few winters prior, Nolan was filling his basket with freebies at a fishing Expo in the burbs, and fishing line that couldn’t be bitten through sounded amazing. And it was.

“Sandwich?” Sherri asked.

“No, let’s go.”

“I’m not going hungry because you’re ready. I’m making a sammy. And I’ll make two but say so.”

“Please and thank you,” Nolan said.

Sherri’s sandwiches were legendary. She bought her Kalamata bread at a hippie-dippie Rogers Park bakery, roast beef and horseradish from Paulina Market, veg from the food co-op, and Nick B’s chimichurri from a catalog. The towering result fed a family of four for a week.

Sherri ruminated while building. “Fishing could be a pain in the ass when you were drinking. Always with that heavy cooler so we couldn’t cover any ground. It was nice but got boring sometimes.”

Nolan nodded. “Couldn’t fish without beer. We’d drag it out to a spot and that was that. No walking the bank. Caught a lot less fish that way. Less fun. I’m sorry about that.”

“I had fun. I’m not saying we didn’t have fun. We’d lay around getting buzzed and nobody got hurt. Remember the time we brought sangria and I got out of hand? That couple who walked up on us while we were having sex? That was embarrassing, but fun. You were running back and forth, flopping all around. You’re right, though. Less fish back then.” She winked. “Get the plastic wrap.”

“You miss it?” Nolan asked. “The way we were?”

Sherri reflected, then said, “The way we were was young and stupid, so life was unpredictable, which sounds exciting, but gets old real quick. More and more, ‘unpredictable’ meant ‘in horrible ways.’ As far as you were concerned, the party was over years ago. You just never got the memo.”

“That’s my line.”

“It’s accurate. You kept doing the same thing, every day. Twelve, fifteen beers. That was boring. And bad for you. Bad for us. Then you’d drink way more than that for no reason and that just got scary. I never knew when that was going to happen. I don’t miss it much at all, sweetie. Here. Let’s go fish.”

They broke the bad news to their spaniel Nitwit and headed out. City streets became easier to stomach as they left them in the rear-view. Potholes, litter, and busted-out hoopties gave way to smooth roads and green trees. The drive took under an hour and still left Nolan shocked they didn’t come out here every day. They parked on the scenic road and trekked across the fields to the water’s edge. The scene was so overwhelming, it felt staged, like Hollywood’s idea of last night’s high school blowout. Beer bottles and cans, Solo cups and empty boxes were strewn all around. With a single, pitifully overmatched trash can, spilling piles of garbage around its base like feral offspring.

“I didn’t remember the bags,” Sherri said.

“Me either.”

“This is why we stopped coming here.”

Nolan bit his tongue. All from drinking, he fumed, wishing rectal violence upon those responsible. Abandoning this much filth took an epic lack of personal responsibility and oversight. Lasting restoration took constant vigilance, he thought. Like recovery.

“I feel sick to my stomach,” Sherri said. “This is too much.”

“I know. It’s still early and you packed lunch. Belmont Harbor?”

“No,” Sherri said. “They don’t get to win. I’m casting.” She clicked open her bail, took up position next to a half-submerged fallen tree, and cast parallel to it, and dangerously close.

“Wait,” Nolan said, but her floating mouse was already wet. “You’re going to get hung up. I’m not crawling out on that log. You’ll have to break the line, and it’s braid. Got a knife?”

Sherri ignored him. She twitched her rod tip with motions so slight she looked to be playing the world’s tiniest drum kit. Miniature ripples in the water spread outward from her lure. She paused for a three count and repeated the effect, then reeled a bit, making the rubber mouse swim over and climb up onto the log. Again, she waited, as if her bait were considering options, then with a flick she made it jump off the other side, landing with a soft “plop” in the lake and WHAM!

The water exploded as an absolute beast struck. Nolan jumped and Sherri set the hook. The mouse came flying back at her face, ripped from the fish’s mouth, and she ducked.

“Feel the weight of the fish on topwater, then you set the hook,” Nolan said.

Sherri was already flipping the mouse back at the log’s edge. “I know,” she muttered. “Your instincts do what they do, though…” A few twitches and the water blew up again. Sherri grunted and set the hook, meeting paydirt this time, her drag singing in response to the fish fleeing for deeper water.

“Oh, it’s big,” Sherri said. “Oh, my God.”

“Why don’t you say that in bed anymore?”

“You know what? I will push you in when I’m done with this.” She was enjoying herself.

Twenty yards out in the lagoon the largemouth jumped and shook back and forth before landing broadside with a huge splash–bulging, black goggle eyes bearing testament–for cold northern waters with brief growing seasons, this was one big bass. Nolan was cowed.

“Oh,” he said.

“Mm hmm,” Sherri answered, biting down on her lip and reeling.

“Yeah, that’s big,” Nolan said.

“I’m aware.”

“I’m eating your sandwich.”

“You’re dead.”

Nolan cracked up, admiring his wife.

Sherri stood on the bank in her black cargo shorts, combat boots, and a white Pixies’ tee featuring a dancing, bare-breasted Surfer Rosa. Her short frame leaned back against the fish, as she kept her rod tip high in the air.  Her mouth drew tight while she edged closer to the bank, approaching a buckthorn. She was about to get the line tangled in its prickly branches and Nolan was on the verge of saying something when she leaned out over the water, holding her rod out with her right hand, and passing it around the buckthorn, to her left. She took a few steps back from the bank, switched hands again, and kept playing the fish.

Nolan whistled. “Nice moves.”

“I’ve picked up a few. He would have broken me off on those branches.”

“You never know with braid, but that was perfect. Don’t horse him now. Quit horsing him.”

“Shut up, Dad,” she grinned, slipping on a flattened twelve pack. “Goddammit.”

Nolan looked around, kicking aside the bottles, cans and cartons that might trip her up. He kept sneaking glances back at her. She started reeling quickly.

“He turned! Coming towards me.”

The bass was racing back to cover, and Nolan kept his mouth shut. She knew. Now on the opposite side of the fallen tree, the fish was looking to break off in the tangle of underwater branches, but Sherri was having none of that. She reeled hard and muscled the bass out of the water, over the tree, and back in. Nolan had seen braid do a lot, but never that. Sherri used it like a pro, trusting her equipment, working her rod and reel like extensions of her own skilled and talented hands.

She dropped to her knees, keeping the rod up, guiding the fish toward her left hand and lipping it, then letting the rod drop and getting her other hand around the bass’ jaw. Both her fists could have fit inside its mouth.

“Sweetie!” she crowed.

“Oh, that’s massive.”

“You think?” She struck a pose–really feeling herself.

The goggle-eyed mama was five to six pounds, her white belly bulging with spawn. Sherri popped the topwater lure out of the corner of its mouth.

“This might be one of the original fish they stocked after the cleanup,” Nolan said. “Years ago. Look at how fat. That’s a queen. Pumping out new bass year after year.”

“Say goodbye,” Sherri told him.

“Good for you. Not my fish.”

“Not mine either. Just wanted a looksie. Go make more fish, buddy… ma’am.” She knelt on the bank, supporting the massive bass horizontally to avoid damaging the jaw, and lowered her into the water. She wet her hands to keep from stripping away the fish’s protective slime coating before grabbing ahold of the tail. From there, she eased the fish back and forth, passing water over the gills until it thrashed free, splashing Sherri’s face and shirt, leaving her wet, flushed and beaming.

Smoking hot, Nolan thought. You’re one lucky prick.

We can’t all spawn, though. Not every life is fated to create offspring. Some lives are better at restoring, catching and releasing, leaving behind a world that others might also enjoy. Recovery taught you that much.

“So, Belmont Harbor,” Sherri said. “I won’t catch anything bigger than that here, and I’d like to outfish you somewhere else.”

He laughed. “Holy moley. I didn’t even cast yet,” he informed the surrounding trees. “Okay, then. City fishing. Too much trash out here in the country anyway.”

“Seriously. Doesn’t it piss you off?”

“I… I’ve never been better,” he assured her, attuned to the merits of being a good date.

But on the drive back to Chicago, he got thrown off course by a few loud and aimless kids, walking damn near in the road.

“You still don’t want kids, right?” he asked.

“Right… Where the hell did that come from?”

“Those doofuses we just rolled past. Before that, though. Your preggo bass–I think about it a lot. Not everybody’s cut out to be parents, but a bunch of them do it anyway. We could be good at it, or we could be lousy. I’m convinced I’d be lousy, which would put undue pressure on you, and I don’t have any burning desire to pass on my genes. I’m pretty fucked up, and I don’t want to do that to some… innocent baby.”

She frowned. “Your meds have helped. Therapy helped. Getting sober helped tons. You’re not as bad as you think, Nolan. You’re so much better than you were.”

“That’s the thing, though. I might have gotten an upgrade but the base model’s still trash. That’s what I’d be passing on. Depression. A life of therapy. Meds. Cancer genes. Alcoholism. And I’m not exactly what you’d call patient.”

Sherri held up her hand. “Don’t mistake my argument for ‘Sherri wants kids.’ She doesn’t.”

“Thanks for clarifying.”

“I know you don’t believe me or whatever, but I really don’t. Never have.”

“I believe you. I just have a gigantic fear of that biological clock turning on the closer you get to… middle age.”

“Menopause,” she said. 

“Menopause.”

“How old do you think I am?”

“I’m not saying it’s around the corner.” But it only ever gets closer.

“What are you saying?” she pressed.

“All the wrong words?”

“Foot in mouth disease. Look. We’re in agreement, sweetie.” She placed a hand over his.

He exhaled and nodded. “I need to hear that sometimes.”

“You are not the father,” she quoted Maury Povich. “And I am not the mother. Satisfied?”

“It helps, knowing we’re still on the same page. If you want, I’ll try to check less often.”

“Do that,” she said. “I get it, but at some point you’ve got to have faith in me.”

“Jesus. You’re right.”

“Course I’m right. Move it, pigeon!” She tapped the brakes, which worked perfectly–another benefit of sobriety–and the pigeon strutted out of the way.

Nolan thought of the enormous bass swimming freely somewhere in their rearview, carrying her eggs into waters they might never again return to, continuing to stock future generations, despite all that trash along the bank. The image stayed with him–not because of what Sherri had caught, but because of what she’d let go. And regardless of any chaos along the edges of Nolan’s restored life, that too, remained successful but required more upkeep.

Life used to be unpredictable in ways that left scars. Now, things were steady and deliberate, more like a precise cast from Sherri. Or those micro-movements she gave her black rubber mouse, a bait he’d never had much faith in before today.

He glanced at her as she drove, her face calm and intent. Sherri was the kind of person who could haul an absolute trophy out of the water, and let it go without hesitation, knowing the value of leaving things intact.

Maybe that’s what we’re doing, too. Choosing not to hold on, but to catch and release.

“We can’t all spawn,” he said aloud, surprising himself.

Sherri smirked, eyes on the road. “Meaning?”

“Nothing.” He smirked, too.

Or everything.

– Sean McFadden