“No,” Mama said. “Hardly ever.”
Leni tried to put it all together in her head, make it make sense, but she couldn’t. How could this be love? How could it be Mama’s fault?
“We have to understand and forgive,” Mama said. “That’s how you love someone who’s sick. Someone who is struggling. It’s like he has cancer. That’s how you have to think of it. He’ll get better. He will. He loves us so much.”
Leni heard her mother start to cry, and somehow that made it worse, as if her tears watered this ugliness, made it grow. Leni pulled Mama into her arms, held her tightly, stroked her back, just like Mama had done so many times for Leni.
Leni didn’t know how long she sat there, holding her mother, replaying the horrible scene over and over.
Then she heard her father’s return.
She heard his uneven footsteps on the deck, his fumbling with the door latch. Mama must have heard it, too, because she was crawling unsteadily to her feet, pushing Leni aside, saying, “Go upstairs.”
Leni watched her mama rise; she dropped the wet, bloody rag. It fell with a splat to the floor.
The door opened. Cold rushed in.
“You came back,” Mama whispered.
Dad stood in the doorway, his face lined in agony, his eyes full of tears. “Cora, my God,” he said, his voice scratchy and thick. “Of course I came back.”
They moved toward one another.
Dad collapsed to his knees in front of Mama, his knees cracking on the wood so loudly Leni knew there would be bruises tomorrow.
Mama moved closer, put her hands in his hair. He buried his face in her stomach, started to shake and cry. “I’m so sorry. I just love you so much … it makes me crazy. Crazier.” He looked up, crying harder now. “I didn’t mean it.”
“I know, baby.” Mama knelt down, took him in her arms, rocked him back and forth.
Leni felt the sudden fragility of her world, of the world itself. She barely remembered Before. Maybe she didn’t remember it at all, in fact. Maybe the images she did have—Dad lifting her onto his shoulders, pulling petals from a daisy, holding a buttercup to her chin, reading her a bedtime story—maybe these were all images she’d taken from pictures and imbued with an imagined life.
She didn’t know. How could she? Mama wanted Leni to look away as easily as Mama did. To forgive even when the apology tendered was as thin as fishing line and as breakable as a promise to do better.
For years, for her whole life, Leni had done just that. She loved her parents, both of them. She had known, without being told, that the darkness in her dad was bad and the things he did were wrong, but she believed her mama’s explanations, too: that Dad was sick and sorry, that if they loved him enough, he would get better and it would be like Before.
Only Leni didn’t believe that anymore.
The truth was this: Winter had only just begun. The cold and darkness would go on for a long, long time and they were alone up here, trapped in this cabin with Dad.
With no local police and no one to call for help. All this time, Dad had taught Leni how dangerous the outside world was. The truth was that the biggest danger of all was in her own home.
TEN
“Come on, sleepyhead!” Mama called up bright and early the next morning. “Time for school.”
It sounded so ordinary, something every mother said to every fourteen-year-old, but Leni heard the words behind the words, the please let’s pretend that formed a dangerous pact.
Mama wanted to induct Leni into some terrible, silent club to which Leni didn’t want to belong. She didn’t want to pretend what had happened was normal, but what was she—a kid—supposed to do about it?
Leni dressed for school and climbed cautiously down the loft ladder, afraid to see her father.
Mama stood beside the card table, holding a plate of pancakes bracketed by strips of crispy bacon. Her face was swollen on the right side, purple seeping along the temple. Her right eye was black and puffy, barely open.
Leni felt a rise of anger; it unsettled and confused her.
Fear and shame she understood. Fear made you run and hide and shame made you stay quiet, but this anger wanted something else. Release.
“Don’t,” Mama said. “Please.”
“Don’t what?” Leni said.
“You’re judging me.”
It was true, Leni realized with surprise. She was judging her mother, and it felt disloyal. Cruel, even. She knew that Dad was sick. Leni bent down to replace the paperback book under the table’s rickety leg.
“It’s more complicated than you think. He doesn’t mean to do it. Honestly. And sometimes I provoke him. I don’t mean to. I know better.”
Leni sighed at that, hung her head. Slowly, she got back to her feet and turned to face her mother. “But we’re in Alaska now, Mama. It’s not like we can get help if we need it. Maybe we should leave.” She hadn’t known it was even in her head until she heard herself say the terrible words. “There’s a lot more winter to come.”
“I love him. You love him.”
It was true, but was it the right answer?
“Besides, we don’t have anywhere to go and no money to go with. Even if I wanted to run home with my tail between my legs, how would I do it? We’d have to leave everything we own here and hike to town and get a ride to Homer and then have my parents wire us enough money for a plane ticket.”
“Would they help us?”
“Maybe. But at what price? And…” Mama paused, drew in a breath. “He would never take me back. Not if I did that. It would break his heart. And no one will ever love me like he does. He’s trying so hard. You saw how sorry he was.”
There it was: the sad truth. Mama loved him too much to leave him. Still, even now, with her face bruised and swollen. Maybe what she’d always said was true, maybe she couldn’t breathe without him, maybe she’d wilt like a flower without the sunshine of his adoration.
Before Leni could say, Is that what love is? the cabin door opened, bringing a rush of icy air with it, a swirl of snow.
Dad entered the cabin and shut the door behind him. Removing his gloves, blowing into the chapel of his bare hands, he stomped the snow from his mukluks. It gathered at his feet, white for a heartbeat before it melted into puddles. His woolen tuque was white with snow, as were his bushy mustache and beard. He looked like a mountain man. His jeans appeared almost frozen. “There’s my little librarian,” he said, giving her a sad, almost desperate smile. “I did your chores this morning, fed the chickens and goats. Mom said you needed your sleep.”
Leni saw his love for her, shining through his regret. It eroded her anger, made her question everything again. He didn’t want to hurt Mama, didn’t mean to. He was sick …
“You’re going to be late for school,” Mama said quietly. “Here, take your breakfast with you.”
Leni gathered up her books and her Winnie the Pooh lunch box and layered up in outerwear—boots, qiviut yarn tuque, Cowichan sweater, gloves. She ate a rolled-up jam-smeared pancake as she headed for the door and walked out into a white world.
Her breath clouded in front of her; she saw nothing but falling snow and the man breathing beside her. The VW bus slowly sketched itself into existence, already running.
She reached out with her gloved hand and opened the passenger door. It took a couple of tries in the cold, but the old metal door finally creaked open and Leni tossed her backpack and lunch box on the floor and climbed up onto the torn vinyl seat.
Dad climbed into the driver’s seat and started the wipers. The radio came on, blastingly loud. It was the Peninsula Pipeline morning broadcast. Messages for people living in the bush without telephones or mail service. “… and to Maurice Lavoux in McCarthy, your mom says to call your brother, he’s feeling poorly…”
All the way to school, Dad said nothing. Leni was so deep in her own thoughts, she was surprised when he said, “We’re here.”
She looked up, saw the school in front of her. The wipers made the building appear in a foggy fan and then disappear.