The Darkest Winter

by Lindsey Pogue

  “I have an infuser—”

  I glared at her. “No more lavender.” It was the only place left in the house that didn’t tickle my nose every time I walked into it.

  Hannah grinned. “Suit yourself.” She walked around the front of the truck to the passenger side. “Do you think Kyle and Kelsey will have kids?” she asked as I opened the door for her.

  “Um . . . I have no idea.” I took her hand and helped her into the cab. “Why? You willing to ignore the fact you don’t like Kelsey if she’ll give you nieces and nephews?”

  “Maybe,” she said and settled in with a sigh. Her cheeks were already red with exertion and the cold, and her golden eyes gleamed. She was small, even with a belly double the size of her beer guzzling uncle, Sal. “Kyle would be a good dad,” she mused. “He’s so much like our father.”

  Yes, her brother would be a good dad, but not just because he was like his father. Kyle Ross didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve like I did, and he didn’t hold grudges either, he thought life was too short for that. But he had a perspective many others didn’t, his six years in the infantry had seen to that. He’d seen more of the world than he’d bargained for, and if he had kids, it would be difficult for him. He above any of us knew how precious life was; he’d watched it slip through his fingers more than once, something he only talked about when he’d had too many beers and his heart felt too full. For now, he had a revived relationship with an old flame to navigate, and them moving in together was enough of a hurdle for the time being.

  Thinking about Ross as a dad and knowing my own faults, I wondered if I would be a good father. Would I be too tough? Too rough around the edges, like Hannah often teased me? Would I baby her to the point of suffocation since she isn’t supposed to exist as it is? I wanted to think I’d be a good father, even if it scared me shitless.

  “Where’d you go?” Hannah asked, watching me.

  I smiled and shook my head. “I was just thinking about the impending chaos,” I said. “This time next year we’ll have a little girl to pack around with us.”

  Hannah’s thoughtful smile curved into a grin. I knew that look. She had a secret, something I would either love or hate.

  I crossed my arms over my chest and waited. “What is it, Han? Spill.”

  With a trill of a laugh, she dug into her purse and pulled out an ultrasound image. “I got it at the doctor yesterday—”

  I took the image of our daughter with greedy fingers. “How could I have forgotten—and you’re only just showing me?”

  “You were exhausted when you got home. I didn’t want to wake you—”

  “You should have,” I admonished, admiring little shadowed ears and her little nose. “Holy shit,” I breathed. It was happening. I would be a father. It wasn’t a hope or a wish anymore and felt more real than ever.

  “And . . . I’ve decided on a name,” she whispered.

  I met her smiling eyes. We’d considered plenty of names in the past, but after each miscarriage it became harder to discuss, to hope. This time, I wanted it to be up to her.

  “Molly, after your mom.”

  My heart squeezed so tight my eyes burned. “But—” I cleared my throat. Adaline Ross had made her wishes known the day she found out she was getting a granddaughter. “What about your mom—”

  “I like Molly,” she said simply. “My mom will get over it.” She brushed the back of her mitten-covered fingers over my cheek. “I want our daughter to know about your mother and learn about your culture. I want her to be a part of that world too.”

  I leaned in and pressed a kissed to Hannah’s lips, inhaling her—burnt amber, and of course, a hint of lavender. My wife was the light I’d found in self-pitying darkness, the one who saved me from myself and the bottles of bourbon I’d used to drown myself in every night. She was the woman I most admired, and even in the seven years I’d known her, she never ceased to amaze me.

  Resting my forehead against hers, I stared down at Molly’s image in my hand.

  Unfortunately, it will never happen.

  The chances are low. I wouldn’t count on it . . .

  We’d heard it all, and had our hearts torn to shreds twice in the process, but eventually we’d proven them wrong. Six weeks turned into the first trimester, which turned into a month from Hannah’s January due date, and we were finally allowing ourselves to not only hope, but to expect—a baby . . . A family.

  “Molly Adaline Mitchell,” I breathed. There was no reason Molly couldn’t have both of her grandmothers in spirit. “It’s perfect.”

  “Yes,” she said. “It is.” Hannah tucked a loose hair behind my ear. “And you’re looking a bit unkempt, Officer Mitchell. I’m surprised your superior hasn’t written you up yet.”

  “He wouldn’t dare,” I chuckled and handed her the sonogram for safe keeping. “But we will be late, and he might give me lip for that.”

  Hannah clasped the seatbelt with a sigh. “Oh, all right. If we have to go.”

  “Don’t sound too excited,” I muttered, and closed her into the truck. I hurried around to the driver side, my boots clomping against the cement, and then climbed inside and shut the door, locking us into the draftless cab. “You got me all distracted and now the truck isn’t warm.”

  “I’ll survive,” she said, pulling the visor down. She ran her fingers through her long, blonde hair as she eyed herself in the mirror. “I feel fat but not gross fat,” she mused. “Healthy fat.”

  Chuckling, I backed down the driveway, pulling carefully onto the road. “Healthy fat is a good thing, right?”

  Flipping the visor up, Hannah sat back in her seat, settling in for our fifteen-minute drive toward Ross’s new condo on the other side of town.

  “Yep. Though, I have to admit the sleeping part of pregnancy is getting more difficult.”

  “Only a few more weeks, then you’ll really feel sleep deprived.”

  “No,” she said. “You will.” She grinned, but she was right. Between work and a newborn, our lives were about to get crazy.

  I turned out of our neighborhood and headed toward the highway. A car passed me, going the speed limit, but on unplowed roads it made me nervous.

  “You should call him,” Hannah whispered.

  It was a tone I knew well, and I glanced in the rearview mirror to scour the road behind me.

  “Jackson—”

  “I will,” I told her.

  “I’m serious. I want your dad to know his granddaughter and be a part of her life if he wants to.”

  “I know, I’ll call him. I promise. I’ve been preoccupied with the extra shifts and all the bureaucratic bullshit going on right now. They’ve been giving us the runaround about all the extra caution—crime throughout the country is on the rise, you know?”

  “Yes, so you told me the last time I brought this up,” she reminded me.

  My dad and I had three obligatory calls a year: Christmas, his birthday, and mine. Other than that, I didn’t think about him all that much. I never forgave him for forcing me to leave my Yup’ik family and heritage behind after my mom died because he couldn’t cope.

  “I’ll call him tomorrow on my lunch,” I promised, and squeezed her hand reassuringly.

  She squeezed back. “Good.”

  In three weeks, I would be the odd man out—me against two girls. I needed to get used to picking my battles, and losing them.

  DECEMBER 8

  Chapter 3

  Elle

  December 8

  Driving to Eagle River was the longest two and half hours of my life. Olive, my clunky, green CRV made the trip without too much protest, though the ride was anything but smooth. The rattling in the dash bothered me more than usual, but I suspected that had something to do with my anxiety going home more than poor Olive herself. Traffic in Anchorage proper didn’t help either, and if I was honest, Jenny blowing off my call hurt, even if I should’ve been used to it.

  I turned onto the frontage road. Not A Through Street w
asn’t the only landmark anymore. The other was a giant Husky head with the big black font around it: Frontier Dog Tours. It was a weather-ravaged sign, but I’d never seen it before, so it couldn’t have been more than seven or so years old at most.

  Inwardly, I chuckled. Dr. John must’ve been elated to learn he was getting neighbors, a bunch of loud, four-legged ones that would no doubt disturb his morning coffee on the back deck of his secluded, modern ranch house on the hill in the summertime.

  I didn’t think much more about it as I neared the estate. It wasn’t a mansion, but it was large and sprawling, just like the land he and my mother built it on.

  The driveway opened on the left side of the road, and I slammed on the brakes. There was an old Ford pickup in the driveway, the same spot Dr. John’s Mercedes used to sit after the last snowfall.

  It took a split-second to remember he was dead, and another second to recall he would never own a truck so old and rusty anyway. Either the sweet sounding executor, Sandy, was more badass than I thought and had arrived early for our meeting, or I had a different visitor. I wasn’t ready for either one.

  Pulling in beside the truck, I shifted Olive to PARK and peered through the windshield at a sight I never thought I’d never see again. The house was just as I’d remembered it, with tall, floor to ceiling windows, an arched roof, and despite the snow, I could even imagine the yard in the summer, perfectly manicured by Bruce, our gardener.

  I hadn’t thought about him in years. He was a nice, retired Navy man who loved to talk about the good old days when life was equal parts work and play, and people tended to their garden for the satisfaction of creating something with their hands and hard work, instead of paying someone else to do it. He let me take pictures of him so I could practice using the analogue camera Dr. John had given me on my sixteenth birthday. That was a bitter sweet day, and I shook my sudden chills away.

  I opened the car door, bracing myself for the blistering cold. The sky was graying as the clouds rolled in, so I hurried to collect my things from the back and get up to the front door.

  Weeks of snow covered the yard, but I knew there were lily beds underneath, one of Bruce’s most prized accomplishments. He’d shown me how to garden in a place hardened by permafrost most of the year, and how wood ash mixed with soil added more nutrients, encouraging life in unexpected places. Life is beauty, he’d told me. I scoffed at it then, but it was him who told me you could see beauty in everything through a camera lens—you could focus on exactly what you wanted and capture it for an eternity. He told me to use photos as proof of what life could really be like.

  As I stepped onto the porch, I eyed a set of fresh, large footprints in the snow that followed covered path around the house. “Hello?” I called.

  A gust of wind raked over me, coldness seeping into my spine.

  “Hello there,” a man called back and stepped around the side of the house. He was over six feet tall, with broad shoulders, a gray goatee, and short hair that stuck out beneath his ski hat. “Can I help you, Ma’am?” He looked me over, eyes shifting from my face to my luggage and back.

  “Actually,” I said as he took a few steps closer. “I was wondering if can I help you. I’m Elle St. James. This is my house.” The words were clunky and forced even if they were true.

  He stopped a couple yards away, close enough for me to notice he had mud on his clothes, and what looked like dog hair too. There was nothing overtly sinister about him, but something was off—something that made the hair on the back of my neck and arms stand on end.

  His dark, close-set eyes narrowed on me. I was about to ask him to leave when he smiled. “You’re Dr. John’s daughter, aren’t you?”

  “One of his stepdaughters,” I corrected, as politely as possible.

  The man offered me his hand. “Thomas Mitchell. I run a dog kennel down the road. There have been several break-ins in the area lately, those end-of-the-worlders with any excuse to steal what isn’t theirs.” He glanced at the house. “I’ve been checking in on the place from time to time since John went to the hospital.”

  I was glad to hear he hadn’t died in the house even if I knew it was a morbid thought. I wasn’t sure I could handle being in the house at all let alone knowing he’d died there.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I was sorry to hear what happened to him.”

  “Yes, well, thank you, Thomas, for looking in on the place.”

  “You can call me Tom, miss.”

  I nodded. “I’ll be here for a few days, so you’re off duty.”

  He nodded in understanding. “Very well.”

  I turned for the front door.

  “Will you sell?”

  I looked back at him. “The house? Yes,” I said, the answer rolling easily off my tongue. “I hope to have it on the market within the next couple days.”

  “You don’t waste time,” he said with a grin. “I admire that.”

  I smiled as politely as I could, but I didn’t want to prolong this visit any more than I had to. I switched my luggage from one hand to the other. “I have a cruise ship leaving this weekend in Port of Seward, and I need to be on it.”

  “A cruise ship in Seward, huh? I used to live in that area, a fishing village to the east.” His expression was thoughtful as his mind began to drift.

  “I better get inside and get the place warmed up,” I told him, glancing up at the dark clouds. “Looks like a storm’s coming in.”

  “It’s supposed to be nasty, Miss. Like I said, I’m right down the road if you need anything.”

  I waved a thank you and he finally turned to head for his truck. As soon as he was inside and backing down the drive, I reached into the pot of frost-bitten plants and grabbed the hide-a-key rock Sandy had left for me.

  With steadier hands than I’d expected, I put the key in the lock. I hadn’t been home since I’d bolted on my seventeenth birthday, eight years ago. Glancing through the windows in the dark house, I expected to see Dr. John standing in the hallway, watching, but the vast surrounding forest was all that reflected back at me.

  After a few jiggles of the knob, the latch turned, and I pushed the door open. A waft of cold, stale air hit me and I lumbered inside with my things. I shut the door, closing myself in the musty house, and let out a deep, even breath as I turned around. It’s just a house. The unwanted memories were like photographs I could lock in a box and shove under my bed to forget about. I could do that.

  Unwrapping my scarf, I switched the entry light on and abandoned my things by the door. First thing first—the thermostat. After three steps and a shimmy in the frigid room, I clicked the heat on and the unit kicked to a roar in the attic. It was noisier than I remembered, but it worked.

  Dr. John always had the best of everything, which meant it was state-of-the-art in its day. Money afforded a lot of luxuries, and elaborate charades, like trips to Sea World, cruises to the Caribbean—perfect family outings that were all for show. But it also meant everything was weather-proofed, so I could bank on working water pipes too, even if the house had been uninhabited and left to the elements for a few weeks.

  Heat hissed from the vents in the ceiling, and I rubbed my jacket-clad arms in anticipation of warmth. Peering around the living room, I was uncertain how to proceed.

  The interior was just as I’d remembered it, stark and masculine, but precariously clean. The remote was in the black tray in the center of the coffee table, the metal coasters stacked in their holder beside it. The same gray suede couch sat in front of the fireplace with the large flat screen mounted above it. The only difference was a pair of bifocals resting on a Holy Bible on the side table. I hadn’t been expecting that. A pair of discarded worn, wool-lined slippers sat next to the recliner.

  To anyone else they would be normal items—an old man’s glasses left behind. Dr. John hadn’t worn glasses when I’d known him, though, and he definitely wasn’t reading the Bible back then either. Even the slippers seemed strange, like they were too comfo
rtable, too casual for him. Dr. John Tomlin was a man of control and precision. He didn’t have time to relax or read a book. He was severe and calculated and always knew your weaknesses. You want a new camera? Here’s what I want in return . . .

  Dr. John was an older man to begin with, wealthy and suave all his life, which is probably how he caught my mother in his net, not that I knew much about her other than her taste in men was amiss. But I imagined his back stooping more and more as he turned into a lonely, regretful old man[LP1].

  Taking a deep breath, I unclenched my teeth and stared at the Bible on the side table. At which point had he decided to leave me everything, knowing how much I hated him? Knowing I’d been willing to blackmail him to never have to see him again? Pictures never lie. Bruce had told me that.

  Then it dawned on me. Bruce had known. He’d warned me not to eat certain berries that grew in the woods surrounding the property, quizzing me about the Doll’s Eyes and Waxberries in the August heat. Bad things happened when they were consumed, he’d told me; debilitating illnesses that would make even the strongest man weak.[LP2]

  A cold, heavy mass pressed against my chest as I took in a shallow breath. Bruce knew. I let the unexpected truth settle in. For the first time, I realized why he asked me so many questions about Dr. John, and why they’d been fighting in the driveway the day Bruce left and never came back. Part of me was heartbroken, but elated when Dr. John kept his distance for nearly a year. It was all part of a plan—a deal brokered between them I knew nothing about.

  My mind swirled with understanding, and I shivered as the house creaked in the howling wind. No more shadows, I thought and switched on the table lamp to brighten the gray afternoon. The watermark on the coffee table caught the light, and I thought of Jenny. She’d left a sweaty glass of ice tea on it one summer purposely.

  Defiance had been her armor. I hadn’t realized it for the longest time. She was a smart-mouth, unruly girl that Dr. John learned quickly wasn’t worth the risk. She spoke her mind, was loud when he wanted quiet, talked back when he wanted submission.