Red asks. I haven’t stopped scrubbing my hands with scalding hot water, antibacterial soap, and a Brillo pad for the last fifteen minutes. “I could have stuffed two of these for dinner,” Red says. “And the biggest was really five pounds, three ounces?” I am scrubbing off skin now, but I don’t care. That fishy smell is still there. “You could have had the big one mounted,” Red says, setting the world’s largest cast-iron skillet on the stove and firing up a gas burner. “It’s bigger than anything Dante has ever caught up here.” Really. So that’s why he wasn’t speaking. I not only outfished him, I caught a fish bigger—in only thirty minutes—than any fish he’s ever caught in years up here. “Christiana, why aren’t you speaking?” Red asks. I smile and turn off the water, smelling my hands. They still don’t smell nice, but at least I know they’re cleaner. “I’m just proving I can tenere provare without speaking.” “You didn’t speak the entire time you were fishing and hiking?”
