Hutch Goodrow waited on the dock. It was night now and he hadn’t caught a damn thing. His fishing line had been cast for what felt like a quarter hour but five previous beers had made it difficult to tell time. He didn’t own a watch or much else nowadays. Work had dried up and any money the government mailed him went to alcohol and food, in that order. None of this bothered Hutch these days though. His eyes felt older than his bones after losing Grace Goodrow.
Cancer had taken her a month ago. Hutch had been handed a pamphlet on grief in the hospital waiting room. It said to seek support and not to drink. Hutch did neither. He was tired of what came at the end of a good marriage. Watching your spouse rot in bed for the better part of a year can steal the soul out of a man. You keep calm until you realize that the twilight years would never come. Then there is nothing to do but cry and hope for another day.
Since then Hutch would sit on this dock. He counted the stars in the night sky while fish ate his bait and he got drunk. He had to sell Grace’s telescope to pay for chemotherapy and kept her notebook for himself. Pictures made him sad to look at, but handwritten words were different. Her illustrations of star charts and constellations felt more personal and intricate. Hutch would guide his hands over the pages in the dark. Feeling the ridges and indents from Grace spent hours pouring into as an astrologist. The crickets and the frogs along the shoreline kept him company.
As Hutch guided his hands along the pages he remembered a note Grace had left about a comet showing up at this time. He mentally found the spot where it would appear and saw the white shimmering streak cross the sky. It was fast and bright. The light left an afterimage cutting the black space into a flashing green in his vision.
Hutch closed the book and set it beside his fold out chair. About a year ago this was the time of night where Grace would tell Hutch to “Make a wish Pinocchio”. Hutch abided by that request out of an odd sense of respect for his dead wife.
“I wish Grace was here to see this.” Hutch said. He cracked open the last beer and raised it to the sky. Hutch tossed back a gulp and watched the lake as he sat in misery.
A ripple appeared in the water. Hutch didn’t process it at first and chalked it up to wind. Then another ripple. The reflection of the stars in the pitch black jumped along quarter inch waves. Hutch put down his beer and gripped his fishing rod with both hands. The white fishing bobber jumped up and down as the water was disturbed. Hutch reeled the line in a couple of strokes to try and bait a fish.
The disruption moved past the fishing bobber and Hutch could make out the struggle that came from the depths. He stood up and reeled the line in a little closer. Now the water was full of waves. As the source drew near he gritted his teeth in a fake drunken courage.
White foam formed ten yards away. Waves crashed onto the rocks around Hutch. He lost track of his fishing bobber and his nerve. It was coming for him. Water splattered the wood of the dock in front of Hutch and he stepped back in anticipation. His grip on the fishing rod was frozen, he was frozen.
Movement whirled in the inky water sprinkled by the twinkling stars that shone above. A hand shot out of the water and slammed onto the wooden planks. Hutch shook at the knees and his shoulders shuttered. Another hand came out of the water and pulled the rest of the naked pale body onto the dock.
The figure was a woman. Her drenched hair hung down in matted strips and she seemed unbothered by the cool night air blowing against her bare body. The darkness hid her face for a moment then she lifted her chin to stare back at him.
“Wha- what the hell. Grace is that you?” Hutch asked.
Hutch dropped his fishing rod. He walked towards Grace. She smiled at him with brilliant white teeth and healthy plump cheeks. Hutch didn’t know what to think. Confusion, thankfulness, fear that he had lost his mind after being consistently drunk for a month?
“How are you here? You’re dead and gone. I buried you!” Hutch said.
Grace twisted away from Hutch to look at the night sky. “You wished upon a shooting star, didn’t you?” Grace responded.
Hutch didn’t hear Grace. He raised a hand and touched the hair on her bare back. It was warm and alive. He let out a choked cry as he ran his fingers through her auburn strands.
“Oh my god, Oh my GOD. It’s really you. OH MY GOD.” Hutch hugged her from behind and sobbed.
She touched his arms wrapped around her and said, “It’s me. I’m only here for a bit.”
He turned Grace around and held her by the shoulders. “No, no, no. Where are you going?” Hutch asked, wide eyed and scared.
“I’m going back up.” Grace replied.
“Why? Why are you leaving me again?” Hutch shouted in Grace’s face. Tears ran down his face.
“You called and I answered. You could have wished me back for longer, but you only wanted me to see this.” Grace pointed behind herself to the portion of the sky that the comet had raced across.
“Every comet has one wish in it, but you have to be first. You got that wish Hutch.”
Hutch looked up at the sky where Grace pointed and spoke, “You mean I was the first one on earth to wish on that shooting star?”
Grace nodded, “And now I’ve seen it.”
Drops of water flecked from her hair and into the night air. They glowed in the milky light of the moon like new stars rising to the heavens.
“But I take it back. My wish! I want you here.”
“That’s not how it works dear.” Grace replied.
“Can’t I come with you?” Hutch sputtered.
Grace smiled and squinted at Hutch. She touched the tip of his nose with one finger and Hutch quieted down. His head slumped and he looked up at her. Her hair flicked upward towards the sky in wet strands.
“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of room in the sky when you get there.”
Hutch ran his hand over her cheek. It was indented in all the places he knew. The same as Grace’s notebook.
“My Hutch Goodrow. I’ll see you sooner or later.”
Grace rose from the ground and disappeared into the night sky without a sound.
×
It had been years since Hutch Goodrow lost his wife. He never remarried even though opportunities presented themselves. People in his small town said he was too heartbroken. They were probably right.
He put his life back together after he got off the booze and into AA meetings. Work came back to town and Hutch was the first in line at the signing office. The crippling medical debt was a hole he got out of with enough begging and lawyers. Hutch was eventually able to build enough credit to finance a three-hundred square foot cabin on a lakeside. It was near the dock he used to never catch fish at but always came to watch the stars at night.
He showed up to work everyday with dark circles under his eyes and took naps at lunch or in his car after work. Once a salesperson came by saw inside Hutch’s cabin; they claimed that Hutch didn’t even own a bed anymore. His neighbors said that he sat on the dock all night with a fishing line in the water.
One neighbor said she saw Hutch with an old notebook once. Rubbing his hands over the pages as he told himself jokes or recounted his day to some invisible voice in the sky.
Hutch always knew when the next comet would come. He kept notes on it and made sure to be outside when it happened. He watched the sky trying to catch the nearest comet and wish on it. Hutch knew he would get one before his time was up, sooner or later.