"Careful," he said. He took Audi's hand in his. They walked across the ice, their footprints sitting deep in the powdery snow.
"It's like walking on the moon," she said, her hand tight in his, warm, her eyes scanning the blue horizon. Her feet were soft on the ice.
A hundred yards offshore, Gerald spread out the blanket and sat down. He handed Audi a sandwich. They ate and looked out over the lake. The ice was cracked and shattered not far from where they sat, and beyond that there were huge gaps with water in between them. Silvery blue and white floes were broken off and drifting beyond, spaced farther and farther out toward the blue horizon.
"I used to take my wife here," Gerald said. "She liked it. She said it was like the world was trying to stay together, but it was too much. The pull of whatever's outside the world was too much, and it made the earth just break apart and float away."
"That's very pretty," Audi said.
"She said when we were here, she felt like we were sitting on the very edge."
Audi nodded and chewed her sandwich. She took Gerald's hand in hers and held it in her lap and squeezed it tight. The air was still and cold. Water birds cackled at the edge of the lake. The ice cracked and groaned.
"Audi," Gerald said, "what are you going to do?" He watched the birds as they pecked around in the snow. He felt Audi looking at him.
"What do you mean?" she said.
"I mean, with yourself?" He felt her put her other hand on his, closing his rough hand in her fists. "Don't you miss your parents?"
"They were mean to me, Gerald."
"Were they really? Is that why you left?"
She squeezed his hands. "I'm not going to lie to you," she said. They watched the ice float out over the deep water.
They headed home as the sun started to go down. The sky was cloudless and clean; the sun turned the horizon a bright yellow-orange as the light reflected off the snow and the ice. Audi leaned back in the passenger seat and shut her eyes.
"I'm stopping up here at this rest area," Gerald said.
Audi mumbled something, her voice heavy with sleep.
"You got to pee?"
She shook her head. Gerald pulled off the interstate and into a parking place at the rest area. He left the engine on, with the heater running. He used the restroom and came outside and stood in the cold, watching his breath form clouds in front of his face. In the parking lot a family rearranged the contents of their van.
Gerald shook his right leg, then his left. They felt stiff from the drive. He took some long steps around the rest area. He wandered over to the drink machines and bought a Coke. He opened it and took a sip and walked back to the kiosk with the map and the advertisements. He looked over the ads for car insurance and get-rich-quick jobs. In the top right corner were six pieces of paper with pictures of people on them, fliers advertising missing children, the rest-area equivalent of the back of a milk carton. Audi's was in the middle. He read her parents' address again, looked back at the car in the parking lot. The headlights were on and steam was easing out from under the hood. In the woods behind, the snow lay heavy on the limbs of the trees. The branches crackled with ice.
Audi slept in the passenger seat. Her mouth was open slightly and her right temple leaned against the window. She had her legs tucked into her chest and her arms pulled inside the sleeves of her shirt. Gerald turned the heater up and looked out the window. The dark in front of him grew brighter as the inky night slid past, and then the city rose up glowing and hard in front of them. He left the interstate and headed into the neighborhood.
Gerald drove slowly, scanning the dark houses for the address. The houses were small and weathered; the streets were lined with ghostly bare trees. The wind picked up outside and tossed snowflakes off the ground and into the air. It ripped and whistled around the car. Audi woke up. She yawned and scratched her nose, looking around. She stared out the window.
"What are we doing here?" she said.
Gerald didn't say anything. He turned the brights on to see through the swirling snow.
"Gerald. Where are we going?" Audi was glaring at him, her eyes piercing neat holes in the side of his head.
"I'm taking you home," Gerald said.
"I don't live around here."
"I'm taking you back to your parents, Nikki."
Audi sat up straight in the chair. "You son of a bitch," she said. "You knew? How long have you known?"
"Only a little while-"
"Have you been planning this? Is this your trick? Your trick to get me back to my parents?" She climbed onto her knees in the seat, one hand on the dashboard, the other on the headrest, and put her face close to Gerald's, yelling at him. "They rewarding you or something? Are you some sort of bounty hunter?"
"I only found out today," Gerald said. He stopped at a stop sign and looked at her. "I just found out."
"I don't want to go back. I told you they were mean to me."
"I know."
"They were awful! They never let me do anything. They wouldn't let me see my boyfriend. They locked me in my room. They locked me up, Gerald!" She was raving, her breath hot on Gerald's ear. "They were so mean. I told you they were mean."
Gerald sighed. "I know, Audi, but you've told me a lot of stuff."
"You son of a bitch."
"I just want to do what's best for you," he said. He started to pull forward.
"Stop the car," Audi said.
"What-"
"Stop the car!" She yelled it right in his ear. Gerald stopped and Audi sat back down in the seat. She looked out the windshield. The wind rocked the car and the snow made wispy patterns in the dark air. "Who the hell are you to say what's best for me?" she said.
Gerald sat quietly for a moment. The engine vibrated; snow melted on the hood. The air from the heater felt fusty and warm on his face. "I don't know. I don't know."
She didn't look at him. She stared down at her shoes. After a while she said, "You don't want to keep me?"
She was so small in the chair. She had her knees pulled into her shirt again.
"You know I can't, Nikki," Gerald said.
She turned to him. Her eyes were wet pieces of coal. "Stop calling me that," she said. She opened the door and the cold swirled through the car. She got out and zipped her jacket tight around her and slammed the door behind her. She walked up the street.
Gerald reached across the center console and struggled to roll the window down. "Nikki," he yelled after her. "Nikki, hang on. Audi! Audi." He checked the intersection and put the car in gear and swung around the corner after her. She was hurrying along the edge of the street, her feet tromping through the matted snow along the gutter. Her head tucked tight between her shoulders, hands deep in her pockets.
Gerald slowed beside her. "Audi, come on," he said.
She walked faster. The wind was high and the snow blew like a white sandstorm through the darkness. Street lamps lined the road, casting cold yellow pools of light on the asphalt. Audi walked through one; Gerald saw the snow stuck in her dark hair. She looked up at him, her eyes black, so black and cold. She began to run, cutting across a lawn, ducking between two houses.
Gerald got out of the car. The wind hit him and blew his coat open, blasting his chest, the cold stealing his breath. He ran a few steps. His legs were stiff from the drive, stiff from the cold, stiff from seventy-four years of life. Audi was just visible at the dark edge of an anonymous backyard. Gerald called out to her again. He stepped out of the light of the street lamp and into the hard winter dirt in front of the house. He stumbled, put his hand out to catch himself. His old heart pounded in the cage in his chest. When he looked up again, Audi was gone, disappeared into the dark, into the wind and the cold.
When Gerald got home, the house was empty and quiet. Upstairs Dolores's clothes, the ones that Audi had worn, were scattered across the floor. The bed was unmade. He left it all there. In the kitchen the remains of the biscuits sat in the sink. His Christmas present, Audi's artwork, audacious, lay on the kitchen table. He picked it up and carried it into the living room and propped it on the TV.