“It’s too dangerous.”
“You guys have an outhouse, right? So it’s no big deal to go out. And do they ever look up in the loft for you in the middle of the night?”
She could dress warmly and go out and just not come back for a while. They could steal an hour together, maybe more. Alone.
If she said no right now, it would prove that Leni could live a sensible life, with the kind of love that no one would ever compare to heroin and she would never cry herself to sleep.
“Please? I need to see you.”
“Leni!”
She heard her father’s voice yelling at her. She pushed Matthew away, but too late. Her father had seen them together and now he was striding toward them, while Mama ran along behind him.
“What the hell are you doing over here?” Dad said.
“I—I—” She couldn’t answer. Stupidstupidstupid. She shouldn’t have come here.
“I thought I told you to stay away from my Lenora,” Dad said. He grabbed Leni by the bicep, yanked her to his side.
Leni bit down hard, so she wouldn’t make a sound. She didn’t want Matthew to know her dad had hurt her.
“Leni,” Matthew said, frowning.
“Stay back,” she said. “Please.”
“Come on, Leni,” Dad said, pulling her away.
Leni stumbled along beside her father, crashing into him and pulling away on the uneven ground. If she got too far, he wrenched her back to his side. Mama hurried along beside, walking with Leni’s bicycle.
Back in their yard, Leni yanked free and almost fell, scrambled across the muddy grass, faced him. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she cried.
“Ernt,” Mama said, trying to sound reasonable. “They’re just friends—”
Dad turned to Mama. “So you knew about them?”
“You’re overreacting,” Mama said evenly. “He’s in Leni’s class. That’s all.”
“You knew,” Dad said to her again.
“No,” Leni said, suddenly afraid.
“I saw her leave,” Dad said. “But you saw her go, too, didn’t you, Cora? And you knew where she was going.”
Mama shook her head. “N-no. I thought she was going to work, maybe. Or to pick some balm-of-Gilead.”
“You’re lying to me,” he said.
“Dad, please, it’s my fault,” Leni said.
He wasn’t listening. His eyes had that wild, desperate look. “You know better than to hide things from me.” He grabbed Mama and dragged her toward the cabin.
Leni followed them, tried to pull Mama away.
Dad shoved Mama inside and Leni out of the way.
The door slammed shut. The bolt came down hard, with a clank, and locked them inside.
Then, from behind the door, a loud crash, a bitten-off scream.
Leni hurled herself at the door, banged on it, screaming to be let in.
SEVENTEEN
The next morning, the left side of Mama’s face was swollen and purple; one eye was blackening. She sat alone at the table, a cup of coffee in front of her. “What were you thinking? He saw you leave and followed your tire tracks in the mud.”
Leni sat down at the table, ashamed of herself. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Hormones. I told you they were wicked dangerous.” Mama leaned forward. “Here’s the thing, baby girl. You are on thin ice. You know it. I know it. You need to stay away from this boy or something bad is going to happen.”
“He kissed me.” He wants me to sneak out to meet him tonight.
Mama sat there a long time. Quiet. “Well. One kiss can change a girl’s world. Don’t I know that? But you’re not an ordinary girl in the suburbs with a Mr. Cleaver dad. Choices have consequences, Leni. Not just for you, either. For your boy. For me.” She touched her bruised cheekbone, wincing. “You need to stay away from him.”
*
MEET ME. Midnight.
All day, Leni thought about it. At school, every time she looked at Matthew, she knew what he was thinking.
“Please” was the last thing he said to her.
She’d said no and meant it, but when she got home and started on her long list of chores, she found herself waiting impatiently for the sun to set.
Time was not something she usually paid much attention to. On the homestead, the bigger picture mattered—the darkening of the sky, the ebbing of the tide, the snow hares changing color, the birds returning or flying south. That was how they marked the passage of time, in growing seasons and salmon runs, and the first snowfall. On school days, she took notice of the clock, but in a lackadaisical way. No one much cared if you got to school on time, not in the winter when some days it was so cold the trucks wouldn’t start, and not in the spring and fall when there were so many chores to do.
But now time commanded her attention. Down in the living room, Mama and Dad were cuddled together on the couch, talking quietly. Dad kept touching Mama’s bruised face and murmuring apologies, telling her how much he loved her.
At just past ten P.M., she heard Dad say, “Well, Cora, I am about to drop,” and Mama answered, “Me, too.”
Her parents turned off the generator and fed the fire one last time. Then Leni heard the rattle of the beaded curtain being pushed aside as they went into their room.
Then, quiet.
She lay there, counting whatever she could: her breaths, her heartbeats. She willed time to pass even as its passage frightened her.
She imagined different scenarios—going to meet Matthew, staying in bed, not getting caught, getting caught.
She told herself repeatedly that she was not waiting for midnight, that she wasn’t stupid and reckless enough to sneak out.
Midnight came. She heard the last little click of the hand on her clock.
She heard a birdcall through her window, a little trill of sound that wasn’t quite real.
Matthew.
She climbed out of bed and dressed warmly.
Every creak of the ladder terrified her, made her freeze in place. Every footstep on the floor did the same thing, so that it took her forever to reach the door. She stepped into her rubber boots and slipped into a down vest.
Holding her breath, she unclicked the lock, slid the bar latch, and opened the door.
Night air rushed in to greet her.
She could see Matthew standing on the crest of the hill above the beach, his outline against a pink and amethyst sky.
Leni closed the door and ran to him. He took her hand and together they ran through the grassy, wet yard, slipped over the rise, and down the stairs to the beach, where Matthew had laid out a blanket and set big rocks on each of the four corners.
She lay down. He did the same. Leni felt the warmth of his body along hers and it made her feel safe even with all the risk they were taking. Normal kids would probably be talking nonstop, or laughing. Something. Maybe drinking beer or smoking pot or making out, but Leni and Matthew both knew they weren’t ordinary kids for whom sneaking out was expected. The crazy wildness of her father’s anger hung in the air between them.
She could hear the sea washing toward them and the spruce trees creaking in the murmur of a spring breeze. A pale ambient light shone on everything, illuminated the lavender night sky. Matthew pointed out constellations, told her their stories.
The world around them felt different, magical, a place of infinite possibility instead of hidden dangers.
He turned onto his side. They were nose to nose now; she could feel his breathing on her face, feel a strand of his hair across her cheek.
“I talked to Ms. Rhodes,” he said. “She said you could still get into U of A. Think of it, Len. We could be together, away from all of this.”
“It’s expensive.”
“They have scholarships and low-interest loans. We could do it. Totally.”
Leni dared—just for a second—to imagine it. A life. Her life. “I could apply,” she said, but even as she heard her dream given voice, she thought of the price. Mama would be the one to pay it. How could Leni live with that?
But was she supposed to be trapped forever by her mother’s choice and her father’s rage?
He slipped a necklace around her throat, fumbled to clasp it in the dark. “I carved it,” he said.
She felt it, a heart made of bone, hanging on a metal chain as thin as cobweb.