The wheel turns an old man and his son by the river

The old man sat by the river. The water was good. It was clear and moved well over the stones. He had fished this river for forty years. Maybe more. He did not keep count anymore.

His son sat beside him. The boy was thirty-six and not a boy.

“Do you remember the big brown trout?” the old man said. “The one under the fallen oak.”

“No,” the boy said.

“You caught it when you were twelve. Maybe thirteen. Your mother made a special dinner.”

The boy did not remember. The old man looked at the river.

“It was a good fish,” the old man said.

They sat quiet. The river made its sound.

“I made a count once,” the old man said. “Of all the fish I had taken from this river.”

“How many?”

“I do not remember now.”

“That’s not important,” the boy said.

“No. It is not important.”

The old man had kept the count in a small notebook. He had made marks. Columns for each species. Measurements of the largest ones. A true accounting.

The notebook was lost now. Maybe in the cabin. Maybe in the fire when the cabin burned. It did not matter.

He remembered making the count but not the number.

The wheel turned. That was what his father had called it. His father who had fished this same river.

“The wheel turns,” his father had said, “and what was whole becomes broken, like ice in spring.”

He had not understood then. He had been a boy wanting only to fish and not to hear old men talk.

Now he was the old man. The wheel had turned. He had been a boy, then a soldier, then a husband, then a father, then an old man by a river.

“I made a calculation once,” the old man said.

The boy waited.

“The average size of all the fish. The median. The statistical distribution.” The old man made a small laugh. “I was very thorough.”

“You’re an engineer,” the boy said.

“Was.”

“Was an engineer.”

The old man nodded. It was true. He had built bridges. Good bridges that would stand after he was gone.

“What did you learn?” the boy asked. “From the calculations.”

“Nothing,” the old man said. He watched the river. “Nothing true.”

They were quiet again. A kingfisher dropped from a branch upstream, struck the water, came up with something silver and struggling.

“You look ahead,” the old man said. “To the next promotion. The next project. I look back. To when you were small. To when your mother was here.”

The boy nodded.

The boy reached out and put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. The hand was warm through the old man’s shirt.

The old man looked at the river. The boy looked at the river. They saw only the water as it was, moving over the stones, carrying leaves from somewhere to somewhere else.