But she swam back anyway to lay her eggs. Seven years later at the island, Amanda and I soon heard the baby cry again. The crescendo of infant distress reached Amanda at a spot where she'd knelt at the edge of a pool in front of a fish-though not the pool or the fish I'd intended for her to see. The salmon she'd spotted was hiding under a mass of fallen twigs and branches, nearly camouflaged by detritus. I tugged at Amanda, trying to get her over to the other side, my side, where I'd seen the salmon years earlier. I was in love with the idea that the daughter of the fish I'd watched had returned to spawn, and I wanted Amanda to love that idea, too. But she pulled gently away from my hand and stayed settled on her knees at this other water, intrigued with the female that hid in a dark water cave under fallen Douglas fir limbs and thick moss for minutes at a time, breathing, resting- that then suddenly pushed her way out again to thrash at her redd with the last bit of strength in her battered body. The baby wailed louder and Amanda got to her feet. "I should go," she said. As she brushed the loose dirt from her pants, glancing back into the stream to keep track of the salmon she'd been watching, I realized how much she wanted to stay. I thought about how good it would be for her to sit there and begin to sort out the meaning of fortitude, as I had seven years earlier-I'd left the salmon island that earlier time with the tiniest speck of renewed hope and the faintest glimmer of faith in my own unwillingness to give up on my daughters. Now, I took her hand and said, "Stay here. I'll take care of him." "Really?" she said. "Is that okay?" I wanted her to beg me to stay; I wanted her to claim the experience wouldn't be right without me. I wanted her to wrap her arms around my shoulders and say she was sorry for every bit of hurt or fear she had inflicted on me those months she and Stephanie were away, and plead with me to not part from her now. But even then I understood that was my fantasy, not hers.
SALMON
I 167