Mr. Lund pulled the anchor and started the motor on the third pull. He said come on, old girl, without being told. He ran us slow along the edge of the break, the Evinrude just muttering, and Tyler let out line behind the boat and sat with the rod tip low, watching it tick.
We made one pass. Nothing. We made a second.
On the third pass the rod bent over double and stayed there.
Nobody said a word. Tyler stood up, the way you’re not supposed to in a boat, and Mr. Lund slipped the motor out of gear and reached for the net. It came up slow and heavy and gold out of that gray water, shaking its head, and Mr. Lund got the net under it on the first try.
A walleye. Mr. Lund laid it against the ruler Mike had painted on the inside of the hull in black shop enamel. Twenty-one inches.
“Not bigger than his,” Tyler said. He was laughing and crying both. “Not even close.”
“He’d have been glad to tell you so,” I said.
Tyler knelt on the floor of the boat and held that fish in the water over the side with both hands, moving it gently forward and back until it got its breath. Then it kicked once and was gone. He stayed there on his knees a little while with his wet hands hanging over the rail.
Mr. Lund found a ballpoint pen in his shirt pocket and passed it forward without comment.
Tyler peeled the lure off his line, dried it on his pant leg, and laid it back in the twentieth compartment without its cardboard box. Under his father’s printing, on the same strip of tape, he wrote the date. Then he wrote: 21 in. Let it go. Didn’t cry much.
His printing looks just like Mike’s. I had never noticed that before.
We were back at the dock a little after ten, the way Mike had promised him on Labor Day.
Abby’s car was in the drive. She was standing at the end of the dock in one of Tyler’s sweatshirts with a box of gas station donuts, and one look at her husband’s face told her everything. He climbed out and she held on to him and neither one of them said anything.
Mr. Lund tied off the bow and sat a minute with his hands on his knees.
“Tyler,” he said. “Come here. I have a business matter.”
Tyler came back down the dock, wiping his nose.
“I’ve got two grandkids in Maple Grove. Ben is nine and Katie is seven. I bought this boat for them, because the one I had is too big and too fast and my daughter won’t let them in it.” He flexed his right arm and winced. “What I failed to consider is that this shoulder won’t run a tiller for more than an hour, and I can’t see to tie a knot anymore without my glasses fogging. I need a guide.”
Tyler waited.
“They’re coming up for the long school weekend in two weeks. That’s two mornings. Next summer they’re here from the second week of June until the middle of August, and I count ten Saturdays in there. That’s twelve mornings altogether.” He looked up at me, and I’ll swear his eyes were laughing. “Your mother set the going rate herself yesterday. Fifty dollars a Saturday.”
Twelve times fifty. I had it before he said it.
Specialty: Quiet Comebacks & Personal Justice
David Reynolds focuses on stories where underestimated individuals regain control of their lives. His writing centers on measured decisions rather than dramatic outbursts — emphasizing preparation, patience, and the long game. His characters don’t shout; they act.