*
Every day she moves a little farther from the cabin. One day she goes to the bottom of the stairs. Another day her feet touch grass. Today she moves onto the dirt, knowing all the while that I sit at the window and watch her. She sits on the cold, hard earth, becoming numb as she draws. I imagine the air closing in on her, her fingers stiff. I can’t see what she’s drawing, but I imagine: bark and branches, what’s left of the trees now that the leaves are completely gone. She draws tree after tree. She doesn’t waste an inch of the precious paper.
She closes the notebook and starts to walk down to the lake, where she sits on the banks alone. I watch as she finds rocks and attempts to skip them across the surface of the lake. They all sink. She lets her feet take her along the lake’s shore. Not too far. A dozen or so feet to a spot that she’s never been before.
It isn’t that I think she’s gonna go. It’s that suddenly I don’t want to be in the cabin alone. She turns at the sound of crunching leaves behind her. I’m tromping out toward the lake, my hands stuffed into the pockets of my jeans, my neck buried into the scruff of the coat.
“Checking on me?” she asks impassively before I arrive.
I stop beside her. “Do I need to?”
We stand side by side without saying a thing. My coat brushes her arm and she steps away. I wonder if she could ever get this right. This scene. In her sketch pad. The shape of the blue lake and the leaves spilled across the ground. The forest-green pine and evergreen trees. The enormous sky. Could she ever get the wind whipping through the remains of trees? Could she draw the cold air that eats at our hands and ears until they burn?
I start to walk away. “You want to walk, don’t you?” I ask when she doesn’t follow. She does. “Then let’s go,” I say, though all the time I stay two steps ahead. Between us, there’s nothing but dead air.
I don’t know how big this lake is. It’s big. I don’t know how deep it gets at its deepest point. I don’t know what its name is. The shoreline is rugged, with rocky overlooks that peek down on the water. The evergreen trees come right up to the shores. There’s no beach. They circle the entire periphery of the lake, huddled close together, fighting each other for a view.
The leaves crunch beneath our feet like foam chips. She fights to keep her balance on the jagged ground. I don’t wait for her. We continue for a long time, until we can no longer see the cabin through the trees. I’m sure her feet are killing her in those stupid shoes, the ones she had on when we left. Fancy work shoes. But the cold air and the exercise feel good. A change from sitting around in the cabin feeling sorry for ourselves.
She asks something but I don’t hear. I wait for her to catch up. “What?” I ask sharply. I’m not one for small talk.
“You have any brothers?”
“No.”
“Sisters?”
“You always have to talk?” I ask.
She passes ahead and takes the lead. “You always have to be so rude?” she asks. I don’t say a thing. This is the gist of our conversations.
The next day she’s outside again, moving aimlessly around the lot. She isn’t stupid enough to go where I can’t see her. Not yet, because she knows she’ll lose this privilege.
She’s afraid of the unknown. Of Dalmar, maybe, of what I’d do if she tried to run. It’s fear that keeps her within my line of sight. She could make a run for it, but there’s nowhere to go.
She has the gun. She could shoot me. But of course she hasn’t figured out how to shoot the damn thing. As far as she’s concerned, I’m worth keeping around just for that.
But with the gun in her possession, I don’t have to listen to the bitching anymore. For the time being she’s content. She can go outside and freeze her ass off. She can draw God-knows-what all day long.
She comes back in sooner than I expect. In her arms there’s a filthy cat. It isn’t that I hate cats. It’s just that food is scarce. Heat is scarce. There isn’t enough room for the two of us in here, much less three. And I’m not sharing.
Her eyes beg please.
“If I see that cat in here again,” I say, “I’ll shoot it.”
I’m not in the mood to be a Good Samaritan.
Gabe
Before