Leni nodded. She retrieved the cards from the rosewood box that held her mother’s favorite things and sat down on the floor beside the mattress.
“I’m so lucky to have you, Leni,” Mama said, trying to organize her cards with one hand.
“We’re a team,” Leni said.
“Peas in a pod.”
“Two of a kind.”
Words they said all the time to each other; words that felt a little hollow now. Maybe even sad.
They were halfway through the first game when Leni heard a vehicle drive up. She tossed the cards on the bed and ran to the window. “It’s Large Marge,” she yelled back to Mama. “And Mr. Walker.”
“Shit,” Mama said. “Help me get dressed.”
Leni ran back to Mama’s bedroom and helped her take off her flannel pajamas and get into a pair of faded jeans and an oversized hooded sweatshirt with sleeves big enough to accommodate the cast. Leni brushed Mama’s hair and then helped her out to the living room, got her situated on the ragged sofa.
The cabin door opened. Snow fluttered inside on a wave of icy air, brushed across the plywood floor.
Large Marge looked like a grizzly in her huge fur parka and mukluks, with a wolverine hat that looked to have been handmade. Earrings made of antler bone hung from her sagging earlobes. She stomped the snow from her boots and started to say something. Then she saw Mama’s bruised face and muttered, “Son of a freaking bitch. I should kick his beef-jerky ass.”
Mr. Walker came in to stand behind her.
“Hey,” Mama said, not quite making eye contact with him. She didn’t stand; maybe she wasn’t strong enough. “Would you like some—”
Dad pushed his way in, slammed the door shut behind him. “I’ll get ’em coffee, Cora. You stay put.”
The tension between the adults was unbearable. What was happening here? Something, that was for sure.
Large Marge took Mr. Walker by the arm—a firm, fish-landing grip—and led him to a chair by the woodstove. “Sit down,” she said, shoving him into the chair when he didn’t move fast enough.
Leni grabbed a stool from beside the card table and dragged it into the living room for Large Marge.
“That itty-bitty thing?” Large Marge asked. “My ass is going to look like a mushroom on a toothpick.” Still, she sat down. Planting her fleshy hands on her hips, she looked at Mama.
“It’s worse than it looks,” Mama said in an uneven voice. “We had a car crash, you know.”
“Yeah. I know,” Large Marge said.
Dad came into the living room, carrying two blue-speckled cups full of coffee. Steam rose up from them, scented the air. He handed Tom and Large Marge each a cup.
“So,” he said uneasily. “We haven’t had winter guests in a while.”
“Sit down, Ernt,” Large Marge said.
“I don’t—”
“Sit down or I’ll knock you down,” Large Marge said.
Mama gasped.
Dad sat down on the sofa beside Mama. “That’s not really the way to talk to a man in his own home.”
“You don’t want to get me started on what a real man is, Ernt Allbright. I’m holding on to my temper, but it could run away with me. And you do not want to see a big woman come at you. Trust me. So shut your trap and listen.” She glanced at Mama. “Both of you.”
Leni felt the air leave the room. A chilling, weighted silence came in, pressed down on them.
Large Marge looked at Mama. “I know you know I’m from D.C. and that I used to be a lawyer. Big-city prosecutor. Wore designer suits and high heels. The whole shebang. I loved it. And I loved my sister, who married the man of her dreams. Only he turned out to have a few problems. A few quirks. Turned out he drank too much and liked to use my baby sis as a punching bag. I tried everything to get her to leave him, but she refused. Maybe she was scared, maybe she loved him, maybe she was as sick and broken as he was. I don’t know. I know that when I called the police it was worse for her and she begged me not to do it again. I backed off. Biggest mistake of my life. He went after her with a hammer.” Large Marge flinched. “We had to have a closed-casket funeral. That was what he’d done to her. He claimed he’d taken the hammer from her and protected himself. The law isn’t kind to battered women. He’s still out there. Free. I came up here to get away from all that.” She looked at Ernt. “And here you are.”
Dad started to rise.
“I’d sit, if I were you,” Mr. Walker said.
Dad slowly sat back down. Anxiety shone in his eyes, showed in the hands he flexed and unflexed. His booted foot tapped nervously on the floor. They had no idea what this little meeting would cost Mama. As soon as they left, he’d explode.
“You probably mean well,” Leni said. “But—”
“No,” Mr. Walker said in a kind voice. “This isn’t for you to solve, Leni. You’re a kid. Just listen.”
“Tommy and I have talked about this,” Large Marge said. “Your situation here. We have a couple of solutions, but really, Ernt, our favorite one is we take you out and kill you.”
Dad laughed once, then went silent. His eyes widened when he realized they weren’t joking.
“That’s my choice, actually,” Mr. Walker said. “Large Marge has a different plan.”
“Ernt, you’re going to pack your shit up and go to the slope,” Large Marge said. “The pipeline is hiring men like you—it’s a Sodom and Gomorrah up there—and they need mechanics. You’ll make a pile of money, which you need, and you’ll be gone until spring.”
“I can’t leave my family alone until spring,” Dad said.
“How thoughtful you are,” Mr. Walker muttered.
“You think I’ll just leave her to you?” Dad said.
“Enough, boys,” Large Marge said. “You can clank antlers later. For now, Ernt is leaving and I’m moving in. I’ll stay with your girls for the winter, Ernt. I’ll keep them safe from everything and everyone. You can come back in the spring. By then, maybe you’ll know what you’ve got and treat your wife as she deserves.”
“You can’t make me go,” Dad said.
“That’s not the A answer,” Large Marge said. “Look, Ernt. Alaska brings out the best and the worst in a man. Maybe if you’d stayed Outside you never would have become who you are now. I know about ’Nam, and it breaks my heart what you boys went through. But you can’t handle the dark, can you? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Most folks can’t. Accept it and do what’s best for your family. You love Cora and Leni, don’t you?”
Dad’s expression changed as he looked at Mama. Everything about him softened; for an instant, Leni saw her dad, the real him, the man he would have been if the war hadn’t ruined him. The man from Before. “I do,” he said.
“Perfect. You love them enough to leave and provide for them,” she said. “Go pack your shit and hit the road. We’ll see you again at breakup.”
1978
TWELVE
Seventeen-year-old Leni drove the snow machine with confidence in the falling snow. She was all alone in the vastness of winter. Following the glow of her headlights in the predawn dark, she turned onto the old mine road. Within a mile or so the road became a trail that twisted and turned and rose and fell. The plastic sled behind her thumped on the snow, empty now, but she hoped that soon it would hold her latest kill. If there was one thing her dad had been right about, it was this: Leni had learned to hunt.
She hurtled over embankments and around trees and across frozen rivers, airborne on the snow machine sometimes, skidding out of control, sometimes shrieking in joy or fear or a combination of the two. She was completely in her element out here.
As the elevation increased, the trees became sparser, scrawnier. She began to see cliffs and snow-covered rock outcroppings.
She kept going: up, down, around, bursting through banks of snow, careening around fallen logs. It took so much concentration, she couldn’t think or feel anything else.
On a hill, the snow machine slid left, lost traction. She eased back on the gas, slowed. Stopped.