“It’s about more than fear.” Leni was about to say more when her stomach seized. She thought she might throw up. “Sorry,” she said when the nausea passed. “I feel terrible lately. Worry is making me physically sick, I guess.
Large Marge sat there a long time, then pushed to her feet. “Wait here.” She left Leni sitting on the settee, breathing carefully. She walked back toward the store’s shelving, bumping into one of the steel animal traps hanging on the wall.
Leni kept reliving the scene with Matthew, hearing his screams, seeing his eye roll around in the socket. He needs a diaper change.
Her fault. All of it.
Large Marge returned, her rubber boots squeaking on the sawdust floor. “You might need this, I’m afraid. I always keep one in stock.”
Leni looked down, saw the slim box in Large Marge’s palm.
And just like that, Leni’s life got even worse.
*
IN THE DARK of an early-fallen night, Leni made her way from the outhouse to the cabin beneath a starlit velvet blue sky. It was one of those vibrant, clear-skied Alaskan nights that were otherworldly. Moonlight reflected on snow and set the world aglow.
Once inside the cabin, she latched the door behind her and stood by the row of parkas and Cowichan sweaters and rain jackets, the box of mittens and gloves and hats at her feet. Unable to move, to think, to feel.
Until now, this second, she would have said blue was her favorite color. (A stupid thought, but there it was.) Blue. The color of morning, of twilight, of glaciers and rivers, of Kachemak Bay, of her mother’s eyes.
Now blue was the color of a ruined life.
She didn’t know what to do. There was no good answer. She was smart enough to know that.
And dumb enough to be in this situation.
“Leni?”
She heard her mother’s voice, recognized the concerned tone, but it didn’t matter. Leni felt distance spreading between them. That was how change came, she supposed: in the quiet of things unspoken and truths unacknowledged.
“How was Matthew?” Mama asked. She walked over to Leni, peeled off her parka, hung it up, and led her to the sofa, but neither of them sat down.
“He’s not even him,” Leni said. “He can’t think or talk or walk. He didn’t look at me, just screamed.”
“He’s not paralyzed, though. That’s good, right?”
That was what Leni had thought, too. Before. But what good was being able to move if you couldn’t think or see or talk? It might have been better if he’d died down there. Kinder.
But the world was never kind, especially not to kids.
“I know you think it’s the end of the world, but you’re young. You’ll fall in love again and … What’s that in your hand?”
Leni held out her fist, uncurled her fingers to reveal the thin vial in her hand.
Mama took it, studied it. “What is this?”
“It’s a pregnancy test,” Leni said. “Blue means positive.”
She thought about the chain of choices that had led her here. A ten-degree shift anywhere along the way and everything would be different. “It must have happened the night we ran away. Or before? How do you know a thing like that?”
“Oh, Leni,” Mama said.
What Leni needed now was Matthew. She needed him to be him, whole. Then they would be in this together. If Matthew were Matthew, they’d get married and have a baby. It was 1978, for God’s sake; maybe they didn’t even have to get married. The point was, they could make it. They’d be too young and college would have to wait, but it wouldn’t be the tragedy it was now.
How was she supposed to do this without him?
Mama said, “It’s not like in my day when they sent you away in shame and nuns took your baby. You have choices now. It’s legal to—”
“I’m having Matthew’s baby,” Leni said. She didn’t even know until then that all of this had already gone through her brain and she’d decided.
“You can’t raise a baby alone. Here.”
“You mean with Dad,” Leni said, and there it was: the thing that made this even worse. Leni was carrying a Walker baby. Her father would blow a gasket when he found out.
“I don’t want him anywhere near this baby,” Leni said.
Mama pulled Leni into her arms, held her tightly.
“We will figure this out,” Mama said, stroking her hair. Leni could tell that her mother was crying, and that made her feel even worse.
“What’s this?” Dad said, his voice booming loud.
Mama sprang back, looking guilty. Her cheeks shone with tears, her smile was unsteady. “Ernt!” Mama said. “You’re back.”
Leni shoved the vial into her pocket.
Dad stood by the door, unzipped his insulated coveralls. “How is the kid? Still a vegetable?”
Leni had never felt such hatred. She pushed Mama aside and went to him, saw his surprise as she neared him and said, “I’m pregnant.”
She never saw the hit coming. One minute she was standing there, staring at her father, and the next minute his fist hit her chin so hard she tasted blood. Her head snapped back, she stumbled, lost her balance, crashed into an end table, and fell to the floor. As she landed, she thought, oddly, He’s so fast.
“Ernt, no!” Mama screamed.
Dad unbuckled his belt, pulled it loose, came at Leni.
She tried to get up, but her head was ringing and she was dizzy. Her vision was off.
The first crack of his belt buckle hit her across the cheek, breaking the skin. Leni cried out, tried to scuttle away.
He hit her again.
Mama threw herself at Dad, clawing at his face. He shoved her away and went after Leni again.
He yanked her to her feet, backhanded her across the face. She heard the cartilage crack, pop. Blood gushed from her nose. She staggered back, instinctively protecting her stomach as she fell to her knees.
A gun fired.
Leni heard the loud craaaack and smelled the shot. Glass shattered.
Dad stood there, his legs braced wide, his right hand still curled into a fist. For a second nothing happened; no one moved. Then Dad stumbled forward, toward Leni. Blood pulsed from a wound in his chest, stained his shirt. He looked confused, surprised. “Cora?”
Mama stood behind him, the gun still pointed at him. “Not Leni,” she said, her voice steady. “Not my Leni.”
She shot him again.
TWENTY-FOUR
“He’s dead,” Leni said. Not that there was much doubt. The gun Mama had chosen could kill a bull moose.
Leni realized she was kneeling in a pool of gore. Bits of bone and cartilage looked like maggots in the blood. Ice-cold air swept into the room through the broken window.
Mama dropped the weapon. She moved toward Dad, her eyes wide, her mouth trembling. She scratched nervously at her throat, turned the pale skin red in streaks.
Leni climbed woodenly to her feet and walked into the kitchen. She ought to be thinking, We’re fine, he’s gone, but she felt nothing, not even relief.
Her face hurt so much it made her sick to her stomach. The taste of blood was making her gag, and with every breath her nose made a whistling sound. She got a rag wet and pressed it to her face, wiped blood away.
How had Mama endured this pain over and over?
She rinsed the rag, twisted out the pink water of her blood, and dampened it again, then returned to the living room, which smelled of gun smoke and gore and blood.
Mama knelt on the floor. She’d pulled Dad into her lap and was rocking him back and forth, crying. There was blood everywhere: on her hands, her knees. She’d smeared it across her eyes.
“Mama?” Leni leaned down, touched her mother’s shoulder.
Her mother looked up, blinking groggily. “I didn’t know how else to stop him.”
“What do we do?” Leni said.
“Get on the ham radio. Call the police,” Mama said in a lifeless voice.
The police. Finally. After all these years, they would get some help. “We will be okay, Mama. You’ll see.”
“No, we won’t, Leni.”
Leni wiped blood from her mother’s face, just as she’d done so often before. Mama didn’t even flinch. “What do you mean?”
“They’ll call it murder.”