“What?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Just change the damn diaper.” Portis was through with the auger and kneeled to scoop the pile of ice shavings into a green, ten-gallon bucket. He took the bucket outside to empty it, then flipped it over to use for a seat. I feared he had cleared the hole to shit in it, but he cracked the seal on his second bottle of whiskey instead. He smoked a cigarette and seemed contented for the moment.
I hated to upset Jenna with her so still in my arms, but I knew she needed changing. Portis was right about the diaper and it seemed to me that he might be right about the frostbite too—though I did not allow myself to linger on the thought of what his field remedies might include. There were two wool blankets folded up behind him but I did not want to ask him to grab me one. I didn’t want him to think I couldn’t walk over there and get it myself.
I braced myself before I stepped but couldn’t help my wobble. I gritted my teeth and stepped again and when I grunted Portis stood up from the bucket.
“Hurts when it warms, don’t it?”
He handed me the blanket and sat back down.
“Piss off,” I said.
“Don’t be mad at me,” he said. “Be mad at your toes.”
Portis tipped up his bottle and drank from the whiskey. He sat on his bucket and stared at his little piece of ice-cleared lake.
I spread the blanket on the floor and whispered to Jenna. I told her everything was going to be just fine.
“Just change the damn thing,” he said. “Get it over with.”
“Okay,” I said, and took a breath.
I unzipped the onesie, then offered my finger to Jenna. She gripped it and then looked up at me and said, dun-dun.
“Hi, Sweetgirl,” I said. “I see you.”
Her eyes were as blue and as clear as pool water and I swear her vulnerability blew a tunnel clear through my chest. I wiped some spittle from the bottom of her lip and she said, Thththth.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, and unhinged the diaper.
She flinched when the cold air hit, then looked at me in wide-eyed betrayal. Her chin wavered, then caved. She kicked her legs and flushed purple and I had never heard such terrible screaming, such honest-to-goodness hurt. It was like the screams came from some hidden depth, like they surprised her, too, and her whole body vibrated on their sharp-cut treble.
The welts were red and hard in the cold. They were still oozing at the diaper line and I hurried to put the dry one on.
“Baby girl,” I said.
Jenna heaved with breath, then cried out louder.
I fit the new diaper, zipped the onesie back up, then held her to my chest. And she sobbed for some time like that, with her shoulders going up and down as she wet my shoulders with spit and snot.
“Sweetgirl,” I said, and patted her back.
Portis had stood up from his bucket to look down into his hole. His jaw was clenched and he looked stricken.
“How in the world can that child’s mother not have any diaper cream?” he said.
“That’s pretty low on the list of her failures,” I said.
“How bad is it?”
“Bad,” I said. “Worse than it was. I think she needs antibiotics.”
“Too bad she don’t need decongestant,” Portis said. “Plenty of that around these hills.”
“I don’t know what could happen,” I said. “I don’t know how long she’s been infected. We’re running low on that formula, too. I feel like we need to get her to the hospital, Portis.”
Portis ground out his cigarette on the plywood floor, then went to fix Jenna a bottle with the jug water.
“Her diaper was wet,” I said. “Really wet. We should have changed her earlier.”
“Wet is good,” Portis said. “Wet means she ain’t dehydrated.”
He handed me the bottle and Jenna took it through her crying and eventually it calmed her. I sat on the cot while she fed and Portis drank his whiskey.
“I can’t take it,” he said, and wiped some runoff from his chin. “When she cries like that.”
“I know,” I said.
“I’ve never been angrier in my life,” he said. “Than when I hear that cry.”
I leaned back against the wall and pulled the blanket up around Jenna. The fire was roaring in the stove but outside it seemed the storm had returned. The wind had reached a full-on howl and I couldn’t see a thing through the window—a square foot of glass already buried in the snow.
Jenna was on her way to sleep in my arms. Portis put the papoose on the woodstove to warm it and I wondered if there was anything holding the shanty down. I wondered if we could get blown clear across the lake in the wind, but decided not to ask.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Portis said. “You’re next.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about me getting too comfortable,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “’Cause we’re going to get right to it.”
“Get to what?”