Our laundry hangs over the deck rail. We wash our clothes in the bathtub and then hang them out to dry. We use a bar of soap. It’s better than nothing. They’re cold and stiff when we slip them on, and sometimes they’re still wet.
A thick fog hangs over the lake and drifts toward the cabin. The day is depressing. Rain clouds fill the sky. Soon it will begin to rain. I tell her to hurry up. I wonder how long these sticks will last. There’s already a wall of firewood lining the cabin. I’ve been out here day after day with an ax, splitting fallen trees and taking the limbs off the rest. But we gather sticks anyway so we don’t get bored. So I don’t get bored. She isn’t going to complain about it. The air is fresh, and so she makes the most of it. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever get another chance like this.
I watch her gather sticks. She carries them in one arm as the other bends down to swipe more from the ground. It’s one swift, graceful movement. Her hair is draped over a shoulder so it stays out of her eyes. She gathers until her arms can hold no more, then stops to catch her breath. She arches her back to stretch. Then down again. When her load is full she brings them to the cabin. She refuses to make eye contact with me, though I’m certain she knows I’m watching. With every passing load she ventures farther and farther away, her blue eyes locked steadfast on the lake. Freedom.
It begins to rain. It’s one torrential downpour: one minute, nothing, the next, we’re soaked. The girl comes running from the far end of the property with a bundle of sticks in her arms. She’d been working as far away as I let her. I kept my eyes on her the entire time, making sure I could catch her if I needed to. I don’t think she’d be that stupid. Not again.
I’ve already begun to haul the sticks upstairs and into the cabin. I dump them into a pile beside the stove. She follows me inside, drops her load, and then down the stairs again. I didn’t expect such cooperation. She moves slower than me. Her ankle is still healing. It’s only been a day or so since I haven’t seen her limp. We brush past each other on the stairs and it’s without thought that I hear myself say sorry. She says nothing.
She changes her clothes and hangs the wet ones from a curtain rod in the living room. I’ve already brought in the clothes from outside and draped them around the entire cabin. Eventually the fire will help them dry. The cabin feels wet. Outside, the temperatures have dropped by as much as ten or fifteen degrees. We trekked wet footprints throughout the cabin. The sticks puddle rainwater onto the wooden floor. I tell her to find a towel in the bathroom and wipe what she can. Sooner or later the rest will dry.
I’m making dinner. She moves silently to her chair and stares out the window at the rain. It drums on the roof of the cabin, a steady rat-tat-tat. A pair of my pants, hanging from the curtain rod, disrupts her view. Ambiguity fills the earth, the world smothered by fog.
I drop a bowl and she jumps, glaring at me with an accusatory look. I’m loud, I know that. I don’t try to be quiet. Bowls pound on the countertops; cabinets slam shut. My heavy feet stomp. Spoons fall from my hand and clatter on the burnt-orange countertops. The pot on the stove begins to boil, spilling over onto the stove.
Dusk falls. We eat dinner in silence, thankful for the sound of the rain. I watch out the window as blackness takes over the sky. I flip on the small lamp and begin to feed sticks to the fire. She watches me out of the corner of her eye, and I wonder what she sees.
Suddenly I hear a crash outside and I jump to my feet, hissing, “Shhh,” though she hadn’t said a word. I reach for the gun and grip it in my hand.
I peek out the window, see that the grill has blown over, and feel relieved.
She stares at me, at the way I part the curtains and look out into the yard, just in case. Just in case someone is there. I let the curtains close and sit back down. She’s still watching me, staring at a two-day-old stain on my sweatshirt, the dark hairs on the backs of my hands, the casual way I carry the gun as if it doesn’t have the ability to end someone’s life.
I look at her and ask, “What?” She’s slouched in that chair by the window. Her hair is long, rolling. The wounds on her face are healing, but her eyes still hold their pain. She can still feel me press the gun against her head and she knows, as she scrutinizes me from ten feet away, that it’s only a matter of time before I do it again.
“What are we doing here?” she asks. It comes out intentional, forced. She finally gets the guts to ask. She’s been wanting to since the minute we arrived.
My sigh is long and exasperated. “Don’t worry about it,” I say after a long time. Just some offhand answer to shut her up.
“What do you want with me?” she asks instead.
My face is plastered with a deadpan expression. I don’t want anything to do with her. “Nothing,” I say. I poke around at the sticks in the fire. I don’t look at her.