Here, in his arms, with the magical possibility of time between them, she didn’t want to say anything at all. She didn’t want words to turn into walls that separated them.
“Do you want to talk about your dad?” he asked.
Leni instinctively wanted to say no, to do what she’d always done: keep the secret. But what kind of love was that? “The war screwed him up, I guess.”
“And now he hits you?”
“Not me. My mom.”
“You and your mom need to get out of here, Len. I’ve heard my dad and Large Marge talking about it. They want to help you guys but your mom won’t let them.”
“It’s not as easy as people think,” Leni said.
“If he loved you guys, he wouldn’t hurt you.”
He made it sound so simple, as if it were a mathematical equation. But the connection between pain and love wasn’t linear. It was a web. “What’s it like?” she asked. “To feel safe?”
He touched her hair. “Do you feel it now?”
She did. Maybe for the first time, but that was crazy. The last place Leni was safe was here, in the arms of a boy her dad hated. “He hates you, Matthew, and he doesn’t even know you.”
“I won’t let him hurt you.”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
“Like … how I think about you all of the time? It makes me feel crazy, how much I think about you.” He pulled her in for a kiss. They made out forever, time slowing down just for them; tasting each other, taking each other in. Sometimes they talked, whispered secrets or made jokes, or stopped talking altogether and just kissed. Leni learned the magic of knowing someone else through touch.
Her body wakened again in his arms, but lovemaking was different the second time. Words had changed it somehow, real life had pushed its way in.
She was scared that this was all they would ever have. Just this day. Scared that she’d never get to go to college or that Dad would kill Mama in her absence. Scared even that this love she felt for Matthew wasn’t real, or that it was real and flawed, that maybe she’d been so damaged by her parents that she couldn’t know what love really was.
“No,” she said to herself, to him, to the universe. “I love you, Matthew.”
It was the only thing she knew for sure.
TWENTY
A hand clamped over Leni’s mouth; a voice whispered harshly, “Len, wake up.”
She opened her eyes.
“We fell asleep. Someone’s here.”
Leni gasped into Matthew’s palm.
It had stopped raining. Sunlight poured through the skylight.
Outside, she heard a truck engine, heard the rattle of the metal bed on the axle as the truck rolled over the ground.
“Oh, my God,” Leni said. She scrambled over Matthew, snatched up some clothes and dressed quickly. She was almost to the railing when she heard the door open.
Dad walked in, stopped, looked down.
He was standing on the wet heap of her dress.
Shit.
She launched herself over the side of the railing and half climbed, half slid down the loft ladder.
Dad bent down for her soggy dress, lifted it up. Water dripped from the eyelet hem.
“I—I got caught in that squall,” Leni said. Her heartbeat was so hard, she was breathless. Dizzy. She glanced around for anything that might give them away and saw Matthew’s boots.
She let out a little cry.
The rack to Dad’s left was full of guns, the shelf beneath them layered with boxes of ammunition. He barely had to turn, reach out, and he’d be armed.
Leni rushed over and grabbed her soaking-wet dress.
Mama frowned. Her gaze followed Leni’s, landed on the boots. Her eyes widened. She looked at Leni and then at the loft. Her face went pale.
“Why did you wear your good dress?” Dad asked.
“G-girls are funny that way, Ernt,” Mama said, sidling sideways, blocking Dad’s view of the boots.
Dad looked around; his nostrils flared. Leni was reminded of a predator on the scent. “Something smells different in here.”
Leni hung her dress up on a hook by the door. “It’s the picnic I packed for us,” Leni said. “I—I wanted to surprise you.”
Dad walked over to the table, flipped open the picnic basket, looked inside. “There are only two plates.”
“I got hungry and ate mine. That’s for you guys. I—I thought you’d enjoy it after the haul to Sterling.”
A creak from upstairs.
Dad frowned, stared up at the loft, headed toward the ladder.
Sit still, Matthew.
Dad touched the loft ladder, looked up. Frowned. Leni saw him lift a foot, place it on the bottom rung.
Mama bent down, picked up Matthew’s boots, and dropped them in the big cardboard boot box by the door. She did it in a gliding, single motion, and then slipped in beside Dad. She said, “Let’s show Leni the snow machine,” loud enough for Matthew to hear. “It’s parked out over by the goat pen.”
Dad let go of the loft ladder and turned to them. There was a strange look in his eyes. Did he suspect? “Sure. Come on.”
Leni followed her dad to the door. When he opened it, she glanced back, looked up at the loft.
Go, Matthew, she thought. Run.
Mama held Leni’s hand tightly as they walked across the deck and down into the grass, as if she feared Leni might turn and run.
In the cove, Matthew’s aluminum boat captured the sunlight, glittered silver against the shore. The sudden squall had scrubbed the landscape, left everything shiny. Light glinted off a million drops of water, on blades of grass and wildflowers.
Leni said something quickly—she didn’t even know what, just something to make her dad turn to her and away from the beach.
“There she is,” he said when they came to the rusted trailer hitched to the truck. A dented snow machine sat there, its seat a torn-up mess, missing its headlight. “Duct tape will fix that seat so it’s practically new.”
Leni thought she heard the cabin door click open and the creak of a footfall on the deck.
“It’s great!” she yelled. “We can use it for ice fishing and caribou hunting. It’ll come in handy to have two snow machines.”
She heard the distinct whine of an outboard motor starting up and the scree of it winding up for speed.
Dad pushed Leni aside. “Is that a boat in our cove?”
Below, the aluminum skiff was planed high, pointed bow lifted proudly out of the water, speeding for the point.
Leni held her breath. There was no doubt it was Matthew, his blond hair, his brand-new boat. Would Dad recognize him?
“Damn tourists,” Dad said at last, turning away. “Those rich college kids think they own this state in the summer. I’m putting up NO TRESPASSING signs.”
They’d done it. Gotten away with it. We did it, Matthew.
“Leni.”
Her mama’s voice. Sharp. She sounded angry, or maybe scared.
Mama and Dad were both staring at her.
“What?” Leni said.
“Your dad was talking to you,” Mama said.
Leni smiled easily. “Oops. Sorry.”
Dad said, “I guess you were woolgathering, as my old man used to say.”
Leni shrugged. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
Leni heard the tone change in his voice, and it concerned her. She saw now how intently he was staring at her. Maybe they hadn’t gotten away with it after all. Maybe he knew … maybe he was toying with her.
“Oh, you know teenagers,” Mama said, her voice fluttery.
“I am asking Leni, not you, Cora.”
“I was thinking it would be fun to go out, spend the day together. Maybe try our luck at Pedersen’s Resort on the Kenai. We’ve always had good luck there.”
“Good thought.” Dad stepped back from the new snow machine, glanced down the driveway. “Well. It’s summer. I have work to do.”
He left them standing there alone, went to the toolshed, and retrieved his chain saw. Hefting it over his shoulder, he headed toward the driveway and disappeared into the trees.
Mama and Leni stood there, barely breathing, until they heard the chain saw whir to life.
Mama turned to Leni, whispered harshly, “Stupid, stupid, stupid. You could have gotten caught.”
“We fell asleep.”