“It’s dead,” he said, coughing. He stared at the road, still twisting for miles in front of us up over a high peak, down the other side of the mountain.
The cold air chilled my bare skin. I pulled the hood of the jacket up, trying to block the wind as Caleb took the supplies from the trunk and loaded them into a backpack. “We should start moving. It’ll be easier to keep warm.”
I studied the map, which was crinkled and worn. It was only twenty miles over the ridge of the mountain and down the other side. “We should be able to do it in two days,” I said, starting up the path. “Maybe less.”
Caleb was already moving, his eyes locked on the sky. “Let’s hope the weather holds.” He pulled the jacket around him, tucking his bare hands beneath his arms as we began our climb. My ears popped from the height. The incline made it hard to breathe, but I kept at the path, picking up a weathered stick along the way to help me forward.
We ate cans of pineapple and pears as we went, the cold juice sliding down our throats. Caleb told me about his family: how his father had worked at the local newspaper, sometimes bringing home large boxes so he could construct make-believe houses in the backyard. I told him about the cottage with the blue shingles I had grown up in. Only I could get into the crawl space in the basement, with its thick pink fluff for walls. I told him about the day at the mailbox, my fingers gripping its wooden post as the truck came around the neighborhood. Caleb’s father had gone to the pharmacy and never come back. With his mother and brother sick, he’d taken his bike through the streets, searching for his dad until the vandals came out in the dark. When he finally returned home, his family was already gone, their bodies rigid with death.
“I sat there for three days, holding my mother. The soldiers found me when they were storming houses, and they took me to the camps.” My feet kept moving, climbing the steep ground beneath me, but my mind was in that house with Caleb.
We climbed in silence for a while; our fingers laced together, turning pink with the chill. We’d gone five miles when the sky released tiny white crystals. They piled up in the wrinkled folds of my jacket.
“Is this”—I held out my hand, loving the cold feeling on my palms—“snow?” I had only seen it in the distance, dusting the tops of the mountains, or in the pages of books.
Caleb glanced at the thin layer covering the road like a sheet. “It is, and it’s falling fast.” He kept moving, not stopping to watch.
I knew it was serious from the sound of his voice, but I just stood there, staring at the white dots in my hand. I thought of snowmen and forts and igloos, like the ones from the stories of my childhood.
Within ten minutes the wind had picked up. The flakes were thicker and fatter and piled inches on the ground. The sweater wasn’t enough, my jacket wasn’t enough. The sneakers on my feet weren’t enough. I felt the chill through my clothes, the wind sending my body trembling.
“We need to set up the tent.” Caleb’s hood blew back, exposing his hair. We pulled the fabric from its sheath, struggling to land its spokes in the hard ground. Only one went in, as the flakes blew down faster, stinging my cheeks and making it hard to see.
Caleb kept hammering one spoke with another, but the metal bent. After a long while, my body shaking with the cold, I couldn’t stand it anymore. “Like this. We have to get under it now.”
I pulled the fabric from the one stable rod to the ground, anchoring it with a few rocks. The back of it faced a boulder, making a small triangular space. I darted under, Caleb following close behind. It wasn’t much space, but the fabric fell over the sides, giving us a little respite from the storm.
“How long will it last?” I asked. My hands were already numb. The chill reached through my sleeves.
Caleb pulled his hood up again. His hair was dusted with snow. “I don’t know. Maybe the whole night.” Then he pulled me toward him, tucking my body underneath his arm. His other arm wrapped around me. I immediately felt warmer, my face looking up into his.
My breaths slowed; my fear subsided; my chest no longer trembled. Caleb brought his hand to my cheek, wiping the last of the snow from my eyelashes. “Benny told me that loving someone meant knowing that your life would be worse without them in it.” He smiled. “Where did he get that idea?”
My skin felt hot underneath his fingers. I smiled back at him, not saying anything.
He leaned in closer, tracing invisible lines across my cheekbones. “That’s why I had to find you.”
His lips pressed against mine, his arms tightened around my shoulder. I lifted my chin up, surrendering into his kiss. I couldn’t stop. I thought fleetingly of the years of lessons—of Juliet’s foolishness and Anna Karenina and Edna Pontellier. But for the first time, I knew:
It was all for a moment. It was all too good to be missed.