Before Leni could answer, she saw a spear of light flash across the window, tarnishing it, casting Mama in brightness. Leni saw her mother’s sorrow and regret in sharp relief.
Large Marge pushed open the cabin door, walked inside. Dressed in Carhartt insulated coveralls and her wolverine hat and knee-high mukluks, she took a quick look around, saw the blood and gore and bits of bone.
She went to Mama, touched her gently on the shoulder.
“He went after Leni,” Mama said. “I had to shoot him. But … I shot him in the back, Marge. Twice. He was unarmed. You know what that means.”
Large Marge sighed. “Yeah. They don’t give a shit what a man does or how scared you are.”
“We weighed him down and dropped him in the lake, but … you know how things get found in Alaska. All kinds of things bubble up from the ground during breakup.”
Large Marge nodded.
“They’ll never find him,” Leni said. “We’ll say he ran away.”
Large Marge said, “Leni, go upstairs and pack a small bag. Just enough for overnight.”
“I can help with cleaning,” Leni said.
“Go,” Large Marge said sternly.
Leni climbed up into the loft. Behind her, she heard Mama and Large Marge talking quietly.
Leni chose the book of Robert Service poetry to take with her for tonight. She also took the photograph album Matthew had given her, full now of her favorite pictures.
She pushed them deep into her pack, alongside her beloved camera, and covered it all with a few clothes and then went downstairs.
Mama was wearing Dad’s snow boots, as she walked through the pool of blood, making tracks to the door. At the windowsill, she pressed a bloody hand to the glass.
“What are you doing?” Leni asked.
“Making sure the authorities know your mom and dad were here,” Large Marge answered.
Mama took off Dad’s boots and changed into her own and made more tracks in the blood. Then Mama took one of her shirts and ripped it and dropped it onto the floor.
“Oh,” Leni said.
“This way they’ll know it’s a crime scene,” Large Marge said.
“But we’re going to clean it all up,” Leni said.
“No, baby girl. We have to disappear,” Mama said. “Now. Tonight.”
“Wait,” Leni said. “What? We’re going to say he left us. People will believe it.”
Large Marge and Mama exchanged a sad look.
“People go missing in Alaska all the time,” Leni said, her voice spiking up.
“I thought you understood,” Mama said. “We can’t stay in Alaska after this.”
“What?”
“We can’t stay,” Mama said. Gently but firmly. “Large Marge agrees. Even if we could have argued self-defense, we can’t now. We covered up the crime.”
“Evidence of intent,” Large Marge said. “There is no defense for battered women who kill their husbands. There sure as hell should be. You could assert defense of others, and it might fly. You might be acquitted—if the jury thinks deadly force was reasonable—but do you really want to take that chance? The law isn’t good to victims of domestic abuse.”
Mama nodded. “Marge will leave the truck parked somewhere, with blood smeared across the cab. In a few days, she will report us missing and lead the police to the cabin. They’ll conclude—hopefully—that he killed us both and went into hiding. Marge and Tom will tell the police that he was abusive.”
“Your mom and dad share the same blood type,” Large Marge said. “There’s no conclusive test that can identify whose blood this is. At least, I hope there isn’t.”
“I want to say he ran off,” Leni said stubbornly. “I mean it, Mama. Please. Matthew is here.”
“Even in the bush, they’ll investigate a local man who disappears, Leni,” Large Marge said. “Remember how everyone came together to look for Geneva Walker? The first place they’ll look is the cabin. And what will you say about the shot-out window? I know Curt Ward. He’s a by-the-book cop. He might even bring in a dog or call an investigator from Anchorage. No matter how well we clean, there could be evidence here. A human bone fragment. Something to identify your father. If they find it, they’ll arrest you both for murder.”
Mama went to Leni. “I’m sorry, baby girl, but you wanted this. I was willing to take the blame alone, but you wouldn’t let me. We’re in it together now.”
Leni felt as if she were free-falling. In her na?veté, she’d thought they could do this terrible thing and pay no price beyond the shadowing of their souls, the memories and nightmares.
But it would cost Leni everything she loved. Matthew. Kaneq. Alaska.
“Leni, we don’t have a choice now.”
“When have we ever had a choice?” Leni said.
Leni wanted to scream and cry and be the child it felt she’d never been, but if her youth and her family had taught her anything, it was how to survive.
Mama was right. There was no way they could clean up this blood. And dogs and police would sniff out the crime. What if Dad had an appointment tomorrow they didn’t know about and someone called the police to report him missing before they were ready? What if his body slipped free of the shackles and floated to the shore when the water thawed and a hunter found him?
As always, Leni had to think about the people she loved.
Mama had taken every hit to protect Leni, and she’d shot Dad to save Leni. She couldn’t leave Mama alone now, on the run; and Leni couldn’t raise her baby alone, either. She felt an overwhelming sadness, a suffocating sense of having run a marathon only to end up in the same place.
At least they would be together, the two of them, like always. And the baby would have a chance at something better.
“Okay.” She turned to Large Marge. “What do we do?”
The next hour was spent on final details: they parked the truck on the side of the road, with blood smeared across the door handle. They knocked over furniture and left out an empty whiskey bottle and Large Marge shot twice into the log walls. They left the cabin door open for animals to enter and further ruin any evidence.
“Are you ready?” Mama asked at last.
Leni wanted to say, No. I’m not ready. I belong here. But it was too late to salvage Before. She nodded grimly.
Large Marge hugged them both tightly, kissed their wet cheeks, told them to have a good life. “I’ll report you missing,” she whispered in Leni’s ear. “I’ll never tell a living soul about this. You can trust me.”
By the time Leni and Mama walked down their zigzagged beach steps for the last time, in a blinding snowfall, Leni felt like she was a thousand years old.
She followed her mother down onto the snowy, slushy beach. Wind whipped hair across Mama’s eyes, tore the volume from her voice, rattled the pack on her back. Leni could tell Mama was talking to her, but she couldn’t hear the words and didn’t care. She sloshed through icy waves toward the skiff. Tossing her pack into the boat, she climbed aboard and sat down on the wooden bench seat. On the shore, falling snow would soon erase all evidence of their path; it would be as if they’d never been here at all.
Mama jumped aboard. Without lights to guide them, she motored slowly along the shore, gripping the wheel in gloved hands, her hair flying every which way.
They rounded the bend as a new dawn glimmered and showed them the way.
*
THEY PULLED UP TO the transient dock in Homer.
“I need to say goodbye to Matthew,” Leni said.
Mama tossed Leni a line. “No way. We need to go. And we can’t be seen today. You know that.”
Leni tied the boat down. “It wasn’t a question.”
Mama reached down for her pack, hefted it up, slipped it onto her back. Taking care, Leni stepped out of the skiff and onto the icy dock. The lines made a creaking sound.
Mama turned off the engine and stepped off the boat. The two of them stood in the softly falling snow.
Leni pulled a scarf out of her pack and coiled it around her neck, covering the lower half of her face. “No one will see me, Mama, but I’m going.”
“Be at the Glass Lake counter in forty minutes,” Mama answered. “Not one minute late. Okay?”
“We’re going to fly? How?”