It had been a bad time. Stacey was suffering, afflicted with grief, guilt, and anger, and there was nothing I could do but be present for her. I insisted that she stay with me until the services were over, since I lived so much closer to Augusta. Together, we attended the state-sponsored memorial for her dead colleagues, as well as two of the three private funerals. The body of the young intern who had been killed in the crash, Marti Menendez, had been flown back home to California for burial there.
Stacey didn’t leave the house much otherwise, except to split wood. We had more than we would need for the winter, but I left her to her labors. She would open the garage door to let in the cold air and then she would go to work with an ax and a wedge, breaking logs down into smaller and smaller pieces. If she doesn’t work through her anguish soon, I thought, I will have nothing to burn but toothpicks.
On the day before my birthday I left her alone to run an errand in Augusta. It took me most of the day, but when I arrived home, I found that she had cleaned the house from top to bottom. She had wrapped her thick brown hair in a kerchief, almost in imitation of a 1950s housewife.
“Consider it your birthday present,” she said. “I forgot to get you one. I’m sorry I’ve been so preoccupied.”
“I understand, and I have something to take your mind off things. We’re going skiing for the weekend.”
“Mike, I don’t know if I’m up to it.”
“You split two cords of wood yourself. I’d say you don’t have to worry about your physical fitness.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Do it for me.”
She agreed, but she couldn’t manage to show excitement at the idea of going away together. The thought of having fun seemed an offense to her dead friends. I had known the feeling, and I could tell what was going on behind those sad green eyes of hers.
We hadn’t made love since the accident. She hadn’t been ready. In bed, we lay on our sides, me behind her, hugging her tightly, as I had done every night since she had returned home, sometimes whispering reassurances when she cried, sometimes remaining totally silent until she had fallen asleep.
That night, however, she put my hand on her breast. I appreciated the gesture but felt she was doing it out of guilt, because it was my birthday the next day.
“We don’t have to,” I said.
“Just keep it there.” She leaned her head forward and pulled her hair up and away from her neck.
I understood the invitation and began kissing her behind her ears.
She let out a soft moan, and I felt her nipple grow hard in my hand. I began to massage her breast while I nuzzled her neck. She rolled over on her back, and I held myself propped on my arms above her. She traced with her finger the bright new scar on my forearm.
“We don’t have to,” I said again.
“I’m tired of feeling nothing.”
I moved her hand down my body. “Is this something?”
It was the first time she’d laughed in weeks. “It’s something, all right.”
*
The next day, we arrived at Widowmaker just before noon. Another front was moving in after the prolonged cold snap. Dark clouds were bunched up in the west, and the wind was blowing a mare’s tail of snow off the summit.
“I still don’t understand why you wanted to come here, of all places,” Stacey said. “Why not Sugarloaf?”
“I have my reasons.”
“You always do,” she said with a smile.
We took the shuttle from the day-use lot to the base lodge, since it was too early to get into our hotel room. I saw Russo’s midnight-blue SUV parked outside the resort’s security office. Not all the wicked are punished. If I was fortunate, I would enjoy my weekend without having another encounter with that soulless man. Stacey was waiting for me when I came out of the locker room. Her green eyes were bright and clear, and she looked sexy as hell in her tight outfit. Holding our skis over our shoulders, we tromped toward the nearest lift. There was a line to get on, and we found ourselves behind two teenage boys with snowboards.
“Did you hear they’re tearing down the Ghost Lift?” one of them asked the other.
“No way!”
“I know. I always wanted to go inside there. It was supposed to be haunted.”
“Yeah, right.”
“No, I’m serious, dude. My bro went in with his friends, and he said they saw something—like a ball of light.”
“Was your brother high?”
“Dude, my bro is always high.”
The line crept forward, and finally it was our turn to get on the lift. We shuffled up to the blue line and waited for the chair to hit the backs of our thighs. We sat down fast and felt the rushing sensation of being whisked up into the air. I pulled the safety bar down across our chests.
I couldn’t remember the names of the trails that Elderoy had pointed out. They all ran together in my head.
“When was the last time you went downhill skiing?” Stacey asked me as we passed over a bunny slope packed with children and newbie adults. “You sure you don’t want to try something easy first?”
“It’s a little late for that. Besides, you only live once.”
“You only die once, too.”