First, his mother had taken sick.
But the dominoes had been falling for years before that, hadn’t they?
His father, a giant man with hands like paws and a booming laugh, plowing his pickup into a tree during a snowstorm.
On the way home from the bar, as usual.
His mother running the meat shop on her own, spine straight and eyes ahead.
Asking Ray’s help—hefting carcasses, cracking bones at the joint like kindling.
That was his life.
Bone saws and skin.
Blood and sinew.
“Have a little backbone!” she’d say when he shied away from the work.
His mother had backbone. She was fearless, unflinching.
He hated it, and sometimes he hated her.
So when his mother took to her bed with headaches, the room shades drawn down to dark, her pained voice raspy as she called out, “Keep the racket down would you please, Raymond?” when he let the front door snick shut behind him as he came in, he knew it was bad.
Her illness brought him to his knees, and hefted far more responsibility onto his eighteen-year-old shoulders than any kid should have been forced to bear.
He ran the shop and nursed his mother until the tumor in her brain made her crazy with pain. And all the while he looked into the future like a promise. He would sell the shop when his mother was gone and go to college and he would marry, because of course she would wait, would say yes, yes, Ray, it will always be the two of us against the world.
But she had slipped away when he wasn’t looking. First his mother, gone in the night and buried in the plot beside his father at Trout Creek Cemetery, and then his girl, right out from under him like some magic trick, him still standing there, struck dumb with wonder. Robert “Bud” Plano had come in with his big Texas accent and his big money and his big game ambitions and the man had taken his girl.
There was a time in his life Ray could have been anything.
Anyone.
Now he was nothing.
No one.
“Ray?” Luke reached for one of the trays to take back to the walk-in but the bigger man grabbed his arm and stopped him.
“You go on.” Why had he even hesitated? He’d planned on sending the kid home early anyway. “I got enough work here to keep me ’til dawn.”
“See ya tomorrow.” Luke hesitated at the door, shrugging on his coat. “I’m sure she’ll be in tonight.”
“Who?” Ray turned to hide the color in his cheeks, picking up a knife, his hands moving with deft precision but without thought as he trimmed the fat edge from a steak Luke had left too marbled, creating something as close to a work of art as he was able.
“I heard Bud got a six-pointer yesterday.”
“Well good for him.”
And that wasn’t all he got, was it?
Even that bitter thought couldn’t stop the jolt of anticipation mixed with dread that clenched his stomach at the thought of her arrival.
Ray called to the kid as he walked out the door. “Hope you get lucky!”
Luke poked his head back in, grinning. “With Burnham or the bear?”
“Which one do you want more?”
Luke hesitated.
“Young bucks.” Ray shook his head. “Go! Before I change my mind. And drive careful on those roads!”
The door closed behind him with a sticking shudder and a faint tinkle. The bells that had been on that same door since he was a little kid were still there, letting him know when a customer had arrived. He hated those damned things, but as closing time grew near, he found himself listening for them anyway—listening for her.
3
The gales of November were capricious. By the time Ariana walked into Koski’s, the snow had turned to an angry sleet. The ground was lightly covered, making a bright palette for deer sign and blood trails.
The bells over the door tinkled.
Koski’s was small but brightly lit. Ray had started clean-up early, half of the long, silver counters already emptied of their contents. There were heads—two deer and a moose—mounted on the wall, an ironic reminder to customers of what they were really buying.
Ariana stopped at the register, and Ray didn’t even bother with eye contact. Just wiped his hands off on his apron and headed for the door without a word. She heard the muffled squeak of the tailgate coming down, and with Ray outside, it was quiet in the shop. Luke had gone home for the day. Just the two of them now.
She stared into a display case half-filled with bright red ground chuck.
Outside, Ray groaned, struggling to heft the meat.
He finally appeared in the doorway, shoulders wet with sleet, hauling the game bag through the shop and muttering something under his breath about how goddamn heavy it was.
Ariana grabbed one of the nylon cords hanging off the polyester, rip-stop material and helped Ray drag the bag to the freezer. He glanced at her, surprised at the aid.
The latch on the freezer door stuck and Ray had to yank it open. It creaked on its rusty hinges, the old-fashioned kind. His mother had never invested in anything new and neither had he. Ray grabbed a door stop off a shelf and dropped it to the floor, using his foot to shove it under. Pushing past the black floor-to-ceiling rubber flaps that kept in the cold, they struggled to pull the bag behind them, both out of breath, both sweating, Ariana lagging behind under the strain.
Ray hit the switch. Overhead, the fluorescent light buzzed like a mass of carcass flies, pausing to flicker in protest before illuminating something raw and unrecognizable on the butcher block.
Ariana’s right boot grazed against something on the floor.
It nearly tripped her, and she just managed to catch herself before falling, struggling to keep up with Ray.
Wasn’t a loud noise.
Just a quiet click.
Ray said, “Oh, fuck.”
“What?”
Ariana looked back toward the door, obscured by the insulating rubber. The bright light from the front of the shop was gone now.
Ray glared at her. “Do you have any idea what you just did?”
“I think my foot knocked the door stop. Sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“Yeah, it was an accident. What’s the big deal?”
Ray laughed, but there was anger in it. “That door only opens from the outside.”
“You’re joking.”
Ariana let go of the nylon cord and walked over to the door, looking for the latch. There was nothing but smooth metal. “Who would make a door that opens only from the outside?”
“It’s old.”
“No shit. And Luke’s gone?”
“Yeah, I sent him home a half hour ago. Guess we’ll have to call Bud.”
“My cell’s in the truck.”
“Well, shit.”
“You’re telling me there’s no way to open that door?”
“Luke will be in tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? I can’t be in this freezer all night.” Ariana looked at her watch. “It’s ten of five. Maybe you’ll have another customer.”
“I locked the doors behind you. The snow. It was getting heavy. I didn’t think—”
“You can say that again.”
“I’m not the one who knocked that door closed.”
“Is that door even up to code? Jesus!”
Ray looked at her. “Some of us don’t have your money.”
“It’s common safety, Ray. Now we’re gonna freeze to death.”
“We are not gonna freeze to death.” Ray looked up toward the ceiling. “I can block off those vents up there. It’ll be cold. I’ll grant you that. But we can make it ’til tomorrow afternoon.”
“Afternoon? What time does Luke show up for work?”
“I told him to be in around eleven.”
“You have got to be kidding me. Great management there, Ray. Top notch.”