She flailed, screamed, felt herself falling, falling.
Over here, a voice yelled.
Matthew.
He could save her. She gasped, tried to claw her way to the surface, but something had a hold of her feet, dragged her down, down until she couldn’t breathe. Everything went dark.
Leni woke with a gasp and saw that she was safe in her room, with her stacks of books and the notebooks full of her pictures along the wall, and the box full of Matthew’s letters beside her.
Bad dream.
Already fading from memory. Something about a river, she thought. Spring breakup. Another way to die in Alaska.
She dressed for school in denim overalls and a plaid flannel shirt. She pulled the hair back from her face and wove it into a loose French braid. Without any mirrors in the house (Dad had broken them all over the years), she couldn’t assess how she looked. Leni had gotten used to seeing herself in shards of glass. Herself in pieces. She hadn’t cared at all until Matthew’s return.
Downstairs, she dropped the stack of her schoolbooks on the kitchen table and took a seat. Mama set a plate of reindeer sausage, biscuits, and gravy in front of her, alongside a bowl full of blueberries they’d picked from the sandy bluffs above Kachemak Bay last fall.
While Leni ate her breakfast, Mama stood nearby watching her.
“You carted water for an hour last night so you could take a bath. And you’ve braided your hair. It looks beautiful, by the way.”
“It’s called ordinary hygiene, Mama.”
“I heard Matthew Walker is back in town.”
Leni should have known Mama would put two and two together. Sometimes, because of Dad and all, Leni forgot how smart Mama was. How perceptive.
Leni kept eating, careful not to make eye contact. She knew what Mama would say about this, so Leni wasn’t going to tell her. Alaska was a big place; there were plenty of places to hide something as small as a friendship.
“Too bad your dad hates his dad so much. And too bad your dad has a temper problem.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?”
Leni felt Mama eyeing her, like an eagle watching waves for a splash of silver. It was the first time Leni had hidden something from her mother and it felt uncomfortable. “You’re almost eighteen. A young woman. And you and Matthew must have written each other a hundred letters over the years.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Hormones are like afterburners. The right touch and you’re in outer space.”
“Huh?”
“I’m talking about love, Lenora. Passion.”
“Love? Jeez Louise. I don’t know why you’d bring that up. There’s nothing to worry about, Mama.”
“Good. You stay smart, baby girl. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”
Leni finally looked up. “What mistake? Dad? Or me? Are you—”
The door opened and in walked her father, who had washed his hair this morning and put on relatively clean brown canvas pants and a T-shirt. He kicked the door shut behind him, said, “Something smells good, Cora. Morning, Red. Did you sleep well?”
“Sure, Dad,” she said.
He kissed the top of her head. “You ready for school? I’ll drive you.”
“I can ride my bike.”
“Can’t I take my second-best girl out on a sunny day?”
“Sure,” she said. She picked up her books and lunch box (still the Winnie the Pooh; she loved it now) and got to her feet.
“You be careful at school,” Mama said.
Leni didn’t glance back. She followed Dad out to the truck and climbed in.
He popped an eight-track tape into the stereo and cranked up the sound. “Lyin’ Eyes” blared through the speakers.
Dad started singing along, going strong, saying, “Sing with me,” as he turned out onto the main road and rumbled toward town.
Suddenly he slammed on the brakes. “Son of a bitch.”
Leni was thrown forward.
“Son of a bitch,” Dad said again.
Mr. Walker stood beneath the rough-timbered arch he’d erected over his driveway. Hand-carved into the top beam were the words WALKER COVE ADVENTURE LODGE.
Dad jammed the truck in park and got out, striding across the bumpy road, not even trying to avoid the muddy potholes.
Mr. Walker saw him coming and stopped work, shoved his hammer through his belt, so that it hung from the leather like a weapon.
Leni leaned forward, peered intently through the dirt-and-squished-mosquito-filled windshield.
Dad was screaming at Mr. Walker, who smiled and crossed his arms.
Leni was put in mind of a Jack Russell terrier straining aggressively at the end of his leash, yapping at a Rottweiler.
Dad was still yelling when Mr. Walker turned his back and walked to the arch and returned to his work.
Dad stood there a minute. Finally he stalked back to the truck, climbed in, slammed the door shut. He rammed the truck into gear and hit the gas. “Someone needs to knock that son of a bitch down a peg. I knew guys like him in ’Nam. Shitty, cowardly officers who got better men killed and got medals for it.”
Leni knew better than to say anything. All the way to school, he muttered under his breath. Son of a bitch, arrogant prick, thinks he’s better … Leni knew he would head straight to the compound from here, to find people to join in his bitching. Or maybe, talk wouldn’t be enough anymore.
He stopped at the school. “I’m taking the ferry into Homer today. I’ll pick you up from work at five.”
“Okay.”
Leni gathered her books and lunch box and climbed out of the truck. On her way to the schoolhouse she didn’t look back, and Dad didn’t honk in goodbye. He drove away so fast gravel sputtered out from his tires.
She came into the classroom, saw everyone was already seated. Ms. Rhodes was at the blackboard writing, iambic pentameter in Shakespeare.
Matthew turned in his chair to face her. His smile was like the gravitational pull from one of her science fiction novels; she moved toward him, sat down.
He stared at her. Was it the way Dad stared at Mama? She thought so. Sometimes. It made her feel unsettled, kind of anxious.
He ripped off a piece of notebook paper and scrawled a note, which he passed to her. It read: Want to skip work after school? We could do something.
Say no, she thought. What she said was, “My dad is picking me up at five.”
“So that’s yes?”
She couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah.”
“Cool.”
For the rest of the day, Leni felt both nervous and energized. She could hardly sit still, found it difficult to answer questions about Hamlet. Still, she read her passages aloud and made notes and tried not to reveal to Matthew or anyone else how weird she felt.
When school ended, she was the first one out of her chair. She bolted out of the school and ran for the General Store, pushed through the narrow door, and yelled, “Large Marge!”
Large Marge was unpacking a case of toilet paper. Like all of her supplies, she purchased it in Soldotna, marked it up, and shelved it for sale. “What’s up, kiddo?”
“I can’t work today.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Don’t you want to know why?”
Large Marge smiled, straightened, placed a hand at the small of her back, as if it hurt her to bend over. “Nope.”
The bell clanged again. Matthew walked into the store.
“Like I said,” Large Marge said. “I don’t want to know.” She turned her back on Leni and Matthew and walked down the crowded aisle, disappearing behind a stack of crab pots.
“Let’s go,” Matthew said. “Follow me.”
They slipped out of the store and hurried past the workers at the Kicking Moose Saloon and up the hill by the Russian Orthodox church. There they were hidden from view.
They hiked out to the point and found a clearing, where the blue waters of Kachemak Bay spread out in front of them. At least a dozen small boats were out on the water.
Matthew took the big serrated knife from the sheath at his belt and hacked down a bunch of evergreen branches. He laid them on the ground, creating a bower of fragrant green. “Here. Sit.”
Leni sat down; the greenery was buoyant beneath her, springy.
He sat down beside Leni, wishboned his arms to cradle his head in his hands, and lay back. “Look up.”
She looked up.