My sister, Starr, had a new baby boy out in Portland and we were already thick as thieves. Tanner was only six months old and I hadn’t met him in person, but I went to the library every Saturday so we could Skype and I swear that baby wouldn’t stop smiling once he set his eyes on me. Starr kept saying she would pay for my plane ticket if I came to visit, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her I couldn’t—that Mama had fallen off again and couldn’t be left alone.
Starr and her husband, Bobby, had been out west about eight months and were just getting settled. Bobby’s uncle was a big-deal contractor out there and had nothing but work for Bobby since they landed. They put a down payment on a house, with some help from Bobby’s uncle, and the last thing I wanted was to worry Starr about what was going on back in Cutler.
Mama was sober when Starr left and I didn’t see any reason to tell her otherwise. Starr wanted me to go with her, to move in with her and Bobby, but I told her we might as well pour Carletta a drink ourselves if we both took off and left her all at once. I told her we needed to give Mama a real chance to make it this time and she finally backed off when I swore up and down I’d call the second Mama slipped.
I never did call, though. Starr preferred not to speak to Mama directly, so whenever she asked I told her Carletta was doing fine and made up some bullshit about how she was still waiting tables and going to meetings.
I don’t know if Starr believed me, but I don’t think she wanted to outright accuse me of lying. Not when she was out in Portland with a new baby and couldn’t do anything about it anyway.
The bigger deal was school. I hadn’t been to class since October, when I went full time at the furniture store to keep Mama and me afloat. That was the one thing Starr would not abide. I was officially a high school dropout and if Starr found out she would go scorched earth and probably file for custody. Either that or drug my ass and crate-ship me to Portland herself.
I was thinking about Starr and how well she was was doing, about how much I missed her, when it hit me who the girl in the farmhouse was: Kayla Hawthorne. She’d been in Starr’s grade all through school and a total train wreck from the jump. I didn’t recognize her at first because she looked about a hundred years old, but the fact was she couldn’t have been a day over twenty-two. Kayla Hawthorne had been to jail herself and already had a two-year-old in Porcupine County she’d lost to the state.
I looked at Jenna and realized how glad I was to have her with me. If I wasn’t certain about that before, I was now. She was out of that farmhouse and safe in my arms and that was no small thing.
I listened to the creak of the floorboards beneath the rocker and lost myself in her slow, steady breathing. I watched the rise and fall of her chest and followed a few brambles of vein that traced down her neck. I listened to the firewood crackle and focused on the beautiful baby in my arms.
Eventually I fell out and must have slept hard because I’d forgotten where I was by the time Portis burst through the door all angry and soaked with whiskey. I sat up startled and found Jenna crying in my arms.
“You parked that truck on a goddamn slope,” he said. “The snow just piled in there and set. It’s up to the wheel wells, which isn’t to mention that you’re five feet off the trail to begin with.”
“What?” I said.
“You’re stuck,” he said. “That truck ain’t going nowhere.”
“I thought I stopped in time,” I said. “I didn’t think I went in too far.”
“You were wrong.”
“Can we dig it out?”
“We ain’t digging nothing,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “We don’t have time for it. But how many times have I told you not to park on a slant in the goddamn snow?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me that.”
“That’s bull,” he said.
Portis stripped off his snowmobile suit and told me to pack some jerky in his rucksack. He told me to get two bottles of whiskey and pack those too.
“Where are we going?”
“Get the bottle of clean water,” he said. “And take that for her formula.”
“Portis,” I said. “Tell me where we’re going!”
“Hurry up and pack,” he said.
Portis cut the hood off his snowmobile suit with a buck knife while I set Jenna down and packed the ruck. My hoodie and shirt were nearly dry on the woodstove and after I pulled them on Portis tossed me a sweatshirt.
“It’s big,” he said. “But it’s clean.”
It was baggy and gray. It said RESTORE THE ROAR above a faded Detroit Lions helmet. It seemed these were the woman clothes Portis had promised, and I pulled the sweatshirt on over my hoodie and winced a little at the smoke-soured cotton.
Portis had cut two holes in his hood and run them through with rope. He told me to come over with the baby, handed me the hood, and said to set Jenna down inside it. He looped the rope over my head, then arranged it on my shoulders. When I said the fit was right he tied it off. I looked down at Jenna, nestled and secure inside. She was no longer crying.
“That’s your papoose,” he said.