She stopped dead and stared, disbelieving. Was it another hallucination? She’d had so many, of Mark holding out his hand and smiling, of Nina laughing, of Linda’s table strewn with beads, of her mother’s fried chicken, of Maalaea Bay on Maui, where she had spent so many vacations, and where it was so very, very warm.
She took a hesitant step.
The cabin did not vanish into the snow and the fog. There might even be voices.
There was a door.
She stumbled into a run.
Old Man Creek, September 6
“Hey!”
“What? You unnatural brat,” Moses added, somewhat unfairly, since he’d been awake for an hour.
“It snowed!” Tim opened the door wider. “Look!”
The snow lay two inches on the ground, and the pure, pristine white lightened the low, leaden look of the sky.
Moses came to stand behind him. “And more coming, I bet.” The snow swirled up in a sudden gust of wind and he shivered. “Come on, get out or get in.”
“I gotta pee,” Tim said, and dashed around the corner.
Amelia yawned and stretched. Moses looked at her approvingly, or as close to approvingly as he ever looked at anyone. The bruises had nearly faded from her face, there was color in her cheeks, and even rumpled with sleep her hair had regained a healthy shine. She looked good. “You look good,” he said.
She was startled, and a little wary. “Thank you, uncle.”
“Get your pants on, let’s stand a little post while my woman makes us some coffee.”
Bill sent him a haughty look, and he grinned.
They assumed the position, and Tim walked in. “Oh man. It’s too small in here to do tai chi.”
“I’ve done form in airplane bathrooms,” Moses said. “Where there ain’t even enough room to crap, I might add. There’s all the room in the world. Get your butt over here.”
Grumbling, Tim complied, and Bill noticed that both kids were moving more easily. The price of a good teacher is above rubies, she thought. She made coffee then, but only because she wanted some herself.My woman, indeed.
She looked out the small window over the counter. Gray skies, swirling snow, and only yesterday it had been Indian summer. The thermometer mounted to the outside wall of the cabin read thirty-nine degrees. The snow would be gone by noon. She peered skyward. The storm looked as if it were taking five before turning around into a real nor’wester.
She lit the Coleman stove and put the pot on to boil before checking the woodstove. The wood box was nearly empty after she stoked the fire. “Hey guys, sorry to interrupt, but we’re about out of wood.”
“Then go get some,” Moses growled.
She turned and gave him a smile. “Your woman gets the coffee made. Her man gets the wood in.”
That surprised him into a laugh and he stood up. “I can’t be freezing my ass off out there alone. Come on, boy.”
He and Tim donned jackets and went outside. Amelia continued to stand post, forearms perpendicular to her torso, forming a gentle curve, legs bent with her knees directly over her toes. Bill admired her for a moment before going back to the counter and getting out the ingredients for her famous oatmeal. The secret was lots of butter and brown sugar, but steel-cut rolled oats were also very important, as was the evaporated milk. Heart attack in a bowl, she thought fondly, and dumped raisins into the pot.
“Bill?”
“What, honey?”
“How did you come to Newenham?”
Bill turned with the bag of oats in her hands to meet Amelia’s inquiring gaze. “What brought that up?”
“I don’t know,” Amelia said. “No reason, I guess.”
Bill looked at her thoughtfully. She was asking for something, Bill wasn’t sure what, exactly, but she was asking, and Bill had the feeling that Amelia hadn’t asked for much in her life. She turned back to the counter. “I was married once. To an Army officer. It didn’t work out. I left him, and came to Newenham. I’ve been here ever since.”
“Why did you leave him?”
“He hit me,” Bill said matter-of-factly. She measured the oatmeal, added more because she hated soupy oatmeal, shook some salt into it, stirred both into the raisins.
Amelia’s breath sucked in. “He hit you?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Somebody actually hit you?”
The mixed note of disbelief and awe in Amelia’s voice made Bill grin out the window. “Yeah.”
“What did you do?”
“I told you. I left him.”
“After the first time?”
“Yeah. You only get one shot at me.”
A brief silence. “I let my husband hit me again and again and again.”
Bill sighed. She covered the pot and set it on the stove. She turned and leaned back against the counter and folded her arms. “What are you going to do about it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You told Moses you weren’t going back to your husband. Did you mean it?”
“I meant it.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay, then. You’ve taken action. You’ve made a decision. Stick to it.”
Amelia looked at her. “You don’t think I will.”
Bill shook her head, let out a breath. “Amelia, I don’t know you well enough to say what you will or you won’t do. I will say that I’ve seen a lot of women in your position, and that I’ve seen a lot of women take it and take it and take it. I’ve even seen a few men in that kind of situation. It’s never pretty. But it wouldn’t happen if the person letting it happen didn’t get something out of it.”
“I didn’t get anything out of it except hurt.”
Bill raised her eyebrows.
“I didn’t want to get hurt! I didn’t like it!”
Bill shrugged. “Then don’t go back.” She unfolded her arms and stood straight. “Understand one thing, Amelia. Whatever happened to you in your marriage, whatever happened to you before that”-Amelia went white beneath her newly acquired tan-“none of that matters a good goddamn. It’s what you do now that counts. It’s what you do tomorrow. It’s your life. Moses has given you a breather. What happens when we leave here is up to you.”
“I know that.”
“Good.” Bill peered through the window. The woodshed was around back and she couldn’t see the menfolk, but she heard Moses curse and Tim’s laughing oath and was satisfied.
“Why do you want to go to New Orleans?”
“What?”
Bill turned to see Amelia pointing at the Frommer’s guide to New Orleans lying open on the bunk. “Oh. Why? Why not? Best music, best food in this hemisphere. Who wouldn’t want to go?”
“What’s it like there?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been.”
“When are you going?”
“I don’t know. Sometime. Have to get free of the bar.”
“Dottie’s taking care of the bar right now,” Amelia pointed out.
Bill turned, half laughing, half exasperated. “What’s going on? You want to come?”
Amelia’s eyes lit up. “Sure!”
Bill shrugged. “Okay. Start saving your money for a ticket.”
“Oh.” The light in the girl’s eyes faded. “I don’t have a job.”
“Get one.”
A silence. “Yeah,” Amelia said slowly. “I could do that.”
A rustle of clothing told Bill that the girl was getting dressed. “One more thing.”
“What?”
Bill turned to meet her eyes. “Don’t hurt that boy out there. Not any more than you have to, anyway.”
The girl flushed. “I won’t.”
“Good.”
“Bill-?”
“What?”
“We saw you,” the girl said in a low voice. “You and uncle. On the porch. When we were coming back from the pond.” She sneaked a look through her hair and saw that Bill looked more amused than appalled.
“You did, did you? That must have been an eyeful.”
“I-we-”
“Never mind,” Bill said. “I can guess.” She turned. “It was okay?”
Amelia blushed a deep vivid red this time. “Yes.” She hesitated.
“Go ahead. Tell. Ask. Whatever you need to know.”