“Who didn’t?” I ask.
“He said no one had ever loved him as much in his life. No one had ever been as devoted.”
“As who?”
She looks at me. Duh, her eyes say. “Canoe.”
And that’s when it hits me: if seeing the cat brought this much back to life, what memories could we exhume if we placed Mia back in the homely log cabin? I have to find the person that did this to her, before I know for sure that she, and Eve, are safe.
Colin
Before
I tell her we’re going for a walk. It’s dark outside, after 10:00 p.m.
“Now?” she asks. As if we have something better to do.
“Now.”
She tries to argue but I won’t have it. Not this time.
I help her into my coat and we head outside. The snow is falling lightly and the temperature hovers right around thirty-two degrees. The snow is light. It’s perfect for a snowball fight. It brings me back to the trailer park, tossing snowballs with the other trailer trash kids before Ma bought a home that wasn’t mobile.
She follows me down the steps. At the bottom she stops to take it all in. The sky is black. The lake is lost to oblivion. It would be dark—too dark—without the brilliance of the snow. She catches it into her hands and the snow collects in her hair and on her eyelashes. I stick out my tongue to taste it.
The night is silent.
Out here, the snow makes everything glow. It’s brisk outside, not cold. One of those nights that the snow somehow makes you feel warm. She’s standing at the bottom of the steps. The snow is up to her ankles.
“Come here,” I say. We trudge through the snow for the crappy little shed out back. I pry the door open. I have to force the damn thing through the snow to get inside. It isn’t easy.
She helps me pull, and then says, “What are you looking for?” when we’re inside.
“This,” I say, holding up an ax. I thought I’d seen it in here before. Two months ago she would have thought the ax was meant for her.
“What’s that for?” she asks. She isn’t scared.
I have a plan.
“You’ll see.”
The snow must be four inches by now, maybe more. Our feet slosh in it and the legs of our pants become soaked. We walk for a while, until the cabin is no longer in sight. We’re on a mission, and that in itself is vitalizing.
“Ever cut your own Christmas tree?” I ask.
She looks at me like I’m nuts, like only some crazy hick would cut their own Christmas tree. But then I see that hesitation flee. She says to me, “I’ve always wanted to cut my own Christmas tree.” Her eyes light up like a child’s.
She says that at her home, it was always fake. Real trees were messy. Her mother would never go for it. There was nothing fun about Christmas in her home. It was all for appearance’s sake. The tree was decked out with all these breakable crystal ornaments. She’d get yelled at for coming within three feet of the thing.
I tell her to pick it out, whichever one she wants. She points to a sixty-foot fir.
“Try again,” I say. But for a moment I stare it down and wonder if I could.
I convince myself that she’s having fun. She doesn’t mind the cold or the way the snow gets caught in the ankle of her sock. She says that her hands are freezing. She presses them to my cheeks to feel, but I can’t feel a thing. My own cheeks are numb.
I tell her that as a kid, my mother and I forgot about Christmas. She’d drag me to mass, but as for the presents and trees and all that shit—well, we didn’t have the money. And I never wanted my mother to feel guilty about it. So I just let December 25th come and go like it was any other day. Back in school the kids would all brag about what they’d gotten. I’d always make something up. I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I wasn’t one to feel sorry for myself.
I tell her that I never believed in Santa Claus. Not one day of my life.
“What did you want?” she asks.
What I wanted was a dad. Someone to take care of my mother and me, so I didn’t have to do it myself. But what I tell her is Atari.
She finds a tree. It’s about five feet tall. “You want to try?” I ask and hand her the ax. Holding it in her hands, she laughs. It’s a sound I’ve never heard before. She gives the tree a whack.
After four or five tries she hands me the ax. I examine the base. She’s made a dent but not much more. It’s not like it’s easy. I tell her to stand back as I whack the hell out of it. She’s watching with the wide eyes of a five-year-old child. I’ll be damned if I don’t cut down this tree.