We park in a small lot surrounded by snow-covered trees.

“I’ve never been ice fishing,” I say. “So if I don’t catch anything, that’s why.”

Elisabeth laughs. “Getting your excuses ready early?”

“Yeah,” I say. “That way if I do catch something, it looks even more impressive.”

“You’ll catch something,” she says. “This is my favorite place to fish. I always catch something.”

“The pressure’s on, then.”

She smiles at me, and I get the big bag of gear out of the trunk.

“Need help with that?” she asks.

“Nah,” I say. “I got it.”

We walk down the road for a few hundred feet, and then I see the lake. It’s fucking beautiful. The sun is just barely peeking up over the top of the trees, and the ice is frosted over and covered in fresh snow.

“You sure it’s safe?” I ask.

Elisabeth nods. “It’s a small lake, the ice won’t be thinned out for a few more months.”

We trek out onto the ice, and I’m careful with each step I take.

“You gotta be a penguin,” Noah says, watching me walk awkwardly.

He does a little penguin walk behind Elisabeth, and I emulate him. It does seem more stable this way.

We don’t go all the way to the center. Elisabeth stops us about one-third of the way across. I throw down the equipment, pulling out the fold-out chairs.

We set the chairs up together, and I lift Noah up so he can sit down in one.

“Now what?” I ask.

“Take this,” she says, handing me a huge drill.

“This is pretty hard-core, huh?”

“Put the drill into the ice, and crank it.”

I slam the tip of the drill in until it cuts an inch or so into the thick ice. I grab the hand crank and get to work. It feels pretty similar to lumberjacking. It’s like drilling into a tree to extract the sap, basically.

I crank for several minutes, until I feel the resistance completely stop. “I think I hit water.”

I crank in the opposite direction, getting the drill out and setting it aside. “Now what?” I see a chisel in the bag and pick it up. “This thing?”

Elisabeth nods.

I slam the chisel into the ice as if I’m swinging an axe. I get three or four good swings in, but Elisabeth laughs and grabs my arm. “Calm down there, Jack the Lumberjack. You need to work your way out from the hole you drilled. We want a small little opening, don’t break the whole lake open.”

I smile and swing the chisel again, being more gentle with each swing. After a few minutes, I’ve expanded the small drill hole out into a hole with a six-inch diameter.

“You think a trout will fit through here?” I ask. “Maybe I can double the size, since I’m gonna catch such big fish--”

“This is big enough,” she says. “Any bigger and it might actually be dangerous.”

I look over at Noah. The hole is small enough that he couldn't fall through.

“Ah,” I say. “Good call.”

We cast the lines into the hole, and we build small little mounds of snow to stick the poles into. Once everything is set, we sit back and wait.

Elisabeth opens a thermos of piping hot coffee and pours us each a cup. She gets out a smaller thermos for Noah, filled with hot chocolate.

We all sit back and enjoy the serene silence of the icy lake. The coffee is warm as it hits my stomach, and--

One of the lines shakes.

“Fish!” Noah says, pointing.

I grab the rod as Elisabeth helps Noah down off his chair, setting his cup of hot chocolate on the ice.

“Don’t get too close,” she says to Noah.

I pull on the rod, and I feel a fairly heavy weight fighting me. “It’s big.”

“Reel it in!” Elisabeth says, keeping her voice low.

“You don’t have to whisper,” I say, starting to reel. “It’s hooked, you won’t scare it off.”

I reel carefully, pulling and tugging a bit as I go to tire the fish out. After about 30 seconds, a huge trout pops out of the water, hits the ice, and flaps around all over the ice.

Noah cheers, and I grab the line with a hand and lift it up so it won’t slide all over the place.

I unhook the fish and throw it down into the icebox.

“Alright,” I say, sitting back down. “Your turn, Elisabeth.”

* * *

The Alaskan winter sun barely goes up above the tree line, and by mid-afternoon it’s already sinking back down, turning the landscape to a golden, surreal hue.

“We should get going,” Elisabeth says. “It will be dark soon.”

We’ve caught five or so trout; I caught three, Elisabeth caught two. I won.

“I may not have gone ice fishing before,” I say, “but I know how to cook a nice trout.”

“Sounds good,” she says. “I have a grill at home.”

“Perfect.”

We get back to Elisabeth’s place, and I get the charcoals going on her back porch. When they are white-hot, I throw them into the grill, and then I put three of the trout onto the grill.

I doubt Noah will be able to eat a whole damn trout, but I’ll gladly eat whatever he can’t finish.

I throw some potatoes and corn wrapped in foil on the grill. I like to eat trout with baby asparagus, but I doubt that Noah will be down for that.

When the fish has finished cooking, I squeeze some lemon juice all over the trout and throw everything together onto three plates.

I open the sliding door and put everything on kitchen table. “Ready to eat?”

We sit down together, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve had a real home-cooked meal--or any meal--with my son and Elisabeth.

Elisabeth pours Noah some apple juice, and then she gets two beers from the fridge for us. It feels like we’re a real family. I mean, shit, we are a real family, but this is the first time I’ve really felt it. If I can find a way to resolve things with Aldus, then maybe I could stay here for good. Every weekend could be like this, going hiking or fishing, eating a nice meal together.

Suddenly, I think of a solution. One I’d never even considered before. One that I’d sworn to myself was never a real option. I start to mull it over in my mind as I eat.

“If you want to watch TV or something while I get Noah ready for bed--” Elisabeth starts to say, but I cut her off.

“No,” I say. “I’ll help you.”

“Oh,” she says. “Yeah, sure.”

We get Noah into the bath, and he plays with some floating ships while Elisabeth fights him to get the shampoo into his hair.

When we’re toweling him off, he looks at Elisabeth and asks, “Is Dad gonna live here?”

We both look at each other, our mouths opening and closing. I don’t know how to answer. I want to say “yes,” but I don’t want to lie to him. I don’t know if I can stay.

“I want to, buddy,” I say. “But I might have to go soon...for a while. But I’ll be back.”

We get Noah to bed, and Elisabeth opens two more beers. She hands me one and says, “Okay, tell me about Aldus now.”

I take a long swig of the beer, put the bottle onto a coaster on the kitchen table, and lean back in my chair. “Aldus’s mom died when he was young. He was just a few years old. I never really got the full story, but I get the impression that it was a rocky marriage between his mom and my dad. If she hadn’t died, I don’t think they’d have stayed together.”

Elisabeth nods, listening. She doesn’t say anything.

“So,” I say, “my dad remarried soon after, to my mom. Aldus was only five years old when I was born, and my dad really loved my mom. It’s not like Aldus was already a teenager when I was born. We were both so young, so really we should have been close, like full brothers.

“I remember growing up, I thought Aldus was my real brother. I mean, I knew he was a half-brother, but it never really felt like it. My mom treated him like he was her own son. My dad’s company took off shortly after I was born. He was always busy, but he made time for both of us, even when the company really took off. Making millions, and then billions.”

“So…” Elisabeth says, “Aldus just inherited the company?”

I let out a dry laugh. “We were both supposed to inherit it. As equal partners.”

“What happened?”

“I made the mistake of trusting Aldus. After college, I didn’t want to go straight into working under my father. I felt like...I knew I was going to have this fortune basically handed to me. Something about that didn’t sit right with me, so I wanted to do something else first. I wanted to be sure I could make it on my own if needed, and I wanted to give something back. So I joined the Army.”

“That was in...2005 or so?” Elisabeth asks. “You knew you’d have to go to war.”

“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “I knew, but that didn’t stop me. My father was only in his 50s at that point. Aldus and I--by that point--were not on great terms. He’d always seemed to resent me growing up, and after he left for college, I’d heard little from him. He’d come back for holidays, and he treated me with a cool indifference whenever we were together.”

Elisabeth scoffs. “So he was always a fucking dick?”

I laugh. “In hindsight, yeah, he was. At the time, though, I was the little brother. I thought that going to war would make me more of a man in his eyes. I thought I’d come back on equal footing with him--earn his respect.”

“So what happened?” Elisabeth asks.

“Well,” I say, “the military did to me what I expected. I learned I could be my own man, and I learned that even if my father didn’t hand me the keys to his company, that I’d be able to make it on my own.”

“You liked being a soldier?” she asks.

I shrug. “I thought I did. Honestly, though, war wasn’t for me. It felt good to fight for my country, in theory I guess, but it didn’t feel good to have to kill people. Even those who deserved it.”

She gives me a sympathetic look. “I can understand that. I’ve thought about killing Aldus, but even him…”

I nod. “I’ve thought the same thing. I’m still thinking about it.”

“You can’t--”

“I know,” I say. “Jane told me the same thing. I’m pretty sure that it was Aldus who killed my parents. Even knowing that...I still don’t want to have to kill him. But if he came after Noah, I’d--”

“He killed his own father?” Elisabeth asks, gasping.

I sigh. “I think he was just trying to kill my mother. The brakes on her car failed. My father was supposed to be on a business trip, but he cancelled. They were in the car together.”

“I’m sorry, Jack, I--”

I shake my head. “You see why I’m afraid? Why I have to consider doing something?”

“Other than trying to kill him…what could--?”

“He thinks I took everything from him. My father was adamant about us running the company together as partners. In Aldus’s eyes, if I had never been born, it would be his alone. I think he always resented that our father loved my mother more than his mother. Aldus would have never made it in Iraq, so it was more reason to feel envious of me. He couldn’t stand the idea of me coming back, stronger than him, and competing with him for our father’s praise.

“Aldus somehow changed my father’s will. I was cut out entirely. All I had left of him was that ring--”

“God, Jack,” she says, grabbing my hand, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. “I’m so sorry...if I had known--”

“No,” I say. “You did the right thing. For Jane. It’s just a ring. It doesn’t change how my father felt about me. That’s the difference between Aldus and me. He thinks that taking the ring from me somehow changes things. As if stealing the ring can retroactively change my father’s love for me.”

I down the rest of my beer, then say, “Up until now, I’ve been fighting Aldus. When I started investigating the car crash, he struck back. He wielded my father’s fortune like a hammer, bribing the right people until I was dishonorably discharged.

“With that black mark, it was hard to get good work. I used what little money I had to continue the investigation, to sue him over the will. That’s why he sent you to take the ring. That’s why he’s still keeping tabs on me, because I keep fighting him.”

“So,” Elisabeth asks, “you’re going to stop fighting?”

“I’m going to fight for Noah,” I say. “And if fighting for Noah means letting Aldus win, I’m willing to do it. I’ll go to Seattle, and I’ll sign whatever he wants me to. Whatever it takes to get him out of my life for good. I thought hard about this, Elisabeth, and Noah is more important than my pride, or revenge...or anything else.”

Elisabeth looks up at me, biting her lip. “My room is on the other end of the apartment from Noah’s...and Jane is going to be out late.” She takes my hand.

I grin. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

She nods.

We stand up together, hand in hand.

She leads me toward her bedroom. The buzz from the beer has really hit my head, but not too much. It’s just enough that I feel a nice, warm buzz.

She shuts the door behind us. “We just can’t be too loud,” she says, leaning up to kiss me.