by Dana Becker
“I’m still mad at you,” she said. “Even though you’re a wizard and made a horse appear out of nowhere.”
After a moment, April took Joseph’s hand.
When they reached the clearing in the woods, she could see that it was more than just a horse.
“Omigod, is that a real buggy?”
“It’s a sleigh.”
“No, it’s not!”
Joseph laughed. When he realized she was serious, he pointed to the runners.
“See, no wheels. This boy here glides on snow and ice.”
“I guess I didn’t realize sleighs were . . . a real thing?” April said. “I thought it was just like a fake Christmas thing.”
“Only when they fly.”
April walked around the sleigh and touched it, as though to confirm that it wasn’t, in fact, made of gingerbread.
“So this is what ‘a one-horse open sleigh’ looks like,” she said aloud, as though to herself.
“Exactly,” said Joseph. “Except it’s not open. I closed this one up. Warmer that way.”
April was now on the other side of the sleigh. Joseph popped his head over it and gave her a knowing look.
April smirked but immediately turned and walked away. She wasn’t going to give in to Joseph’s charms so quickly anymore. She had to be more careful.
“So you’re telling me you built this?”
“Yes. With help.”
“What’s the horse’s name?”
“Elijah,” he said. “Because he always thinks he knows what’s best. And because of the chariots of fire.”
“Um, explain.”
“Elijah was a prophet in the Bible. He always insisted on being right about everything, even with God. Finally God grew tired of Elijah always insisting on being right and he took Elijah into Heaven on a chariot of fire.”
“Got it.”
Joseph was now standing behind April. She could feel his large presence looming and suddenly the heat was back. He wrapped his arms around her.
“Let’s get in,” he whispered into her ear.
* * *
The sleigh was so cute and cozy inside that April couldn’t stop laughing. The bench was tiny, the doors were tiny, the door handles were tiny. It really looked like something built by elves.
“What’s so funny?”
“You really don’t see why this is funny?”
“No,” he said.
This only made April laugh more.
But as soon as Joseph yelled Yah! and slapped the reins, sending the sleigh shooting forward, April immediately went silent. Her eyes got wide and her jaw dropped. She quickly turned to look out the window, and stared hard at the sleigh’s runners, at the ground.
“Joe, are we still on the ground? Are we . . . are we . . . flying?”
Now Joseph laughed.
“Nope,” he said. “Still on the ground. I hope.”
He turned to April and gave her a long, tender look. With his right hand holding the reins, he used his left to brush her bangs to the side of her forehead.
They glided faster and faster through endless snowed-over cornfields. With his free hand, Joseph unrolled a quilt and spread it over April’s legs. But she hardly needed it. In the sleigh’s little cocoon of a cab, April felt perfectly warm and content. The night sky was clear, and the moon was setting, giving just enough light to create shimmering tails of glitter to the snow and ice. Faster and faster they went, frictionless, and it was impossible for April not to feel as though they were soaring at full speed into the deep. It felt thrillingly fast but perfectly safe. She suddenly found herself growing drowsy. The only sound was of the regular hoofbeats crunch-crunch-crunching on the fresh snow, a loud sound that somehow sounded small in the vastness of the wide sky. Within a minute, she was fast asleep.
When April woke—either ten minutes or ten hours or ten years later, she couldn’t tell—she couldn’t see anything: Joseph’s hand was covering her eyes.
“Are you awake?” he whispered.
“I dunno,” she murmured.
He removed his hand from her eyes. She gasped at what she saw through the sleigh’s window: it was the universe. The moon had set and now they could see the whole of it, in its full, startling glory. They seemed to be floating in space, down the cascading Milky Way. The sky was teeming with life.
“Are we moving?”
“No,” said Joseph. “We’ve stopped.”
“I feel like we’re moving, but it’s moving, not us. It’s even more beautiful than I imagined,” she said, suddenly wide-awake. “It’s so alive, almost breathing. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it’s real.”
“It’s real.”
“I can’t believe I’ve never seen the sky look like this. Ever.”
Joseph turned from looking at the universe to looking into April’s eyes.
“Well, you’re seeing it now,” he said, bringing his face close to hers.
“I know. But . . .”
Joseph could feel the sorrow creeping over April’s body and wrapped his arm around her and held her snugly against him. But he felt something in her harden. She suddenly tensed up, wiggled out of his grasp, and said, “I can’t do this.”
April reached for the sleigh’s door handle, and said, “I’m sorry, I just can’t.” Then she cracked open the door and jumped out of the parked sleigh.
The untouched snow was light and fluffy and surprisingly high. April began trudging back in the direction from which they’d come.
Joseph popped out after her. For a moment, he just leaned out of the sleigh, watching her. April didn’t turn around. Finally, when he saw that she wasn’t turning back, he jumped out, into the snow, and began to jog toward her.
“This isn’t real,” she said, when Joseph came up next to her.
When he didn’t reply, April continued. “See?” she said. “It isn’t, Joseph. Just admit it.”
“I think it’s real,” he said.
But this only set April off more. She stopped suddenly and crossed her arms and frowned deeply.
“Don’t mess with me, Joseph.”
“I’m not,” he said, “I really like you.”
“Uhh,” April said, throwing her head back. “You don’t even know me. You really don’t.”
“Well, I’m trying.”
“Stop saying the right thing.”
Joseph didn’t know how to reply to that.
“Look,” April said, “you don’t know things about me. Ugly things, okay? Stuff you probably can’t understand. I’ve been into bad things. I’ve had bad boyfriends. Like, really bad. These are bad people.”
“I’m not as simple as you think I am,” he replied.
“Let me finish.”
Joseph nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“I have to go to court every two weeks. I have a case manager, provided by the state. I could land in prison if I make one more mistake. Do you understand?”
Joseph looked at her but said nothing. She went on.
“I have to attend NA meetings, okay? That stands for Narcotics Anonymous. Drugs, Joseph. Got it? I first started using when I was twelve years old. I have a problem. I’m sick, Joseph. I’m disgusting, I’m ugly . . .”
April was crying now.
“No, you’re not,” Joseph said. “You’re beautiful.”
“I’m just trying to survive, okay? I live in a gross apartment, surrounded by gross, sick people, and I’m just trying to survive. I’m like a sick animal.”
“April, stop it. No, you’re not.”
“I lied to you, Joseph. I’m not this cute, carefree girl, okay? I’m a liar. I’m sorry. But I’m not the person you think I am.”
She broke down now and Joseph held her close. He said not a word but offered up his strong body to give her strength to stand. He let her cry for a moment and then whispered in her ear, “April, you are a precious soul. You are my friend. I accept you exactly how you are. And I admire you for being brave and going to those meetings.
”
April cried more deeply now. And, after a moment, she looked up, as though weeping under the open sky had given her cries more room to escape and had let her sorrow sail somewhere far away.
Joseph loosened his hold on April. They were face-to-face. He wiped away her tears with his hands.
They stood, face-to-face, hand in hand, for a long minute. Their breaths were completely in sync. Neither broke the silence, because there was no need to say anything more. Without another word, they walked back to the sleigh, hand in hand.
* * *
A new easygoingness had grown around them. They smiled and giggled at each other, instead of saying words.
“I feel weird,” April said, “like light and giddy almost.”
Joseph decided that this was the right moment to show her one of his surprises. He reached up to the ceiling of the enclosed sleigh and, in one quick motion, unlatched and slid open the wooden panel, revealing a glass window.
“First Amish sunroof,” he said, brightly. “Designed it myself.”
“I love it!” April said, shifting to her knees and pressing her face right up to the universe.
“I made it for you,” Joseph said.
Joseph reached into his bag and pulled out a book. It was the sci-fi novel that April had lent him.
“And before I forget . . . I want to return this,” Joseph said, handing it back to her. “I loved it. Thank you.”
“Joey, please,” April said, pushing it back at him. “Keep it. It’s yours.”
“This book is what gave me the idea for . . . this. For making this sleigh. Making it for you.”
April gave him a quizzical look.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“The time machine . . .” he began.
But April needed no further explanation. She understood everything.
The sleigh, the magical ride into the universe. The sleigh was their time machine. And it was the most beautiful gift anyone had ever given her. The most beautiful gift that anyone could give her.
April lit the tiny candle lantern that Joseph had built into the passenger side of the sleigh’s cab. Then she lifted the quilt over Joseph’s head, enclosing them, together, in a tent.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Thank you,” he whispered back.
They found each other’s hands and squeezed tight. Without a word of warning, Joseph leaned his weight against her body, and with his other hand, cupped the nape of her neck, drawing her head toward his for a deep, strong, and intensely surprising kiss.
Joseph’s strong arm held her firm, as firm as the bench at April’s back. Everything about him was strong. His neck, which April had now wrapped her arm around. His jaw. His lips. Even his tongue felt sturdy, decisive. And hungry for her.
He pulled away for a second and gazed into her eyes. She wanted to return the look, to sink deep into him but she couldn’t—her eyes wouldn’t focus. They both realized, at the same exact moment, that they were breathless and panting. And, at the next moment, they both laughed together with that realization.
April’s eyes shut. She was unable to speak. Instead she whispered, “More.”
She pulled herself toward his head, and blindly brushed her lips over his, gently letting her tongue slide over his lips. And there it was again: the spike of heat.
After a few minutes, April, feeling intoxicated, suddenly realized how tired she felt. She inserted her head at the top groove of his chest, where his collarbone met his neck, and she smiled, thinking how perfectly her head fit right into this warm and very dear little nook in his body. In a haze of drowsiness, she felt Joseph readjust her next to him, and tuck the quilt around her. And as she heard the sound of the horse galloping again through the snow, she fell asleep.
* * *
They arrived at the house well after midnight. “Where are we?” April said, groggily, as the hoofbeats came to a stop.
April was confused, not just about where they were, but when. How long had she been asleep? What year was it? She felt as though she’d been asleep against Joseph’s shoulder her entire life, and everything else in her life, all the comings and goings, all the problems, had all been a dream. She imagined, for a moment, that Rose was fine and waiting inside for her. She felt, possibly for the first time ever, that she was really waking up, that this moment was the True Present Moment, more vivid than anything else in what she’d thought was her true life.
And yet, when she sleepily peeked out the window of the sleigh, and dimly saw an unlit little house—a house surrounded by empty white fields and nothing else—it seemed like a dream image, full of meaning and importance, but lacking in clear detail.
“Joey,” she said, rubbing her eyes, “what is this place?”
“This is where we’re sleeping tonight,” Joseph said matter-of-factly, as he stepped out of the sleigh and began unpacking their belongings.
“Yeah, I got that,” April said, stretching. With the sleigh door open, the winter air was streaming in, bringing April into consciousness. She realized that she felt incredibly awake and clear.
“But like, whose house is this?”
It was, Joseph explained, his sister’s house. Or, rather, it was going to be her house. Joseph and his brothers had just finished building it. In a month or two, Joseph’s sister, and her new husband, were going to move in. Eventually, they would build this homestead into a small dairy. In the meantime, it sat empty. Joseph, as part of his family duties, was supposed to make a caretaking trip here every week or two, to check on it and make any necessary repairs. For tonight, it would serve as Joseph and April’s refuge.
Joseph had a fire going even before April had unzipped her bag. The home was almost impossibly cozy. Everything—cabinets, tables and chairs, walls, floor, ceiling, and rafters—was simple, sharply cut, lightly polished heavy hardwood. There were iron utensils, pots, and pans hanging on the wall. The downstairs was a single-room space anchored by a wide fireplace that you could almost fit into without having to crouch. A potbellied oven crouched in a corner. The house smelled of fresh pine and fir.
“So you really built all this?” April said.
“Yup, me and my brothers,” he said. “Still need to paint the walls. I wanted to do linoleum floors, but my sister wanted it all wood. So here it is.”
“I’m with your sister,” April said. “It looks like a house from a fairy tale.”
Joseph stopped fussing with the fire and looked around curiously. Then he looked at April and smiled.
“I like trying to see things the way you see them,” he said.
April curled up on a thick rug, next to the fire and watched as Joseph walked around the space, setting up house.
“You look really Amish right now,” she announced, as he picked up a heavy pail, poured water from it into a kettle, then set the kettle on a hook over the fire. “And really manly.”
Joseph suddenly seemed to remember something. He reached into his bag and pulled out a bottle of milk and a couple of chocolate bars.
“Want some hot cocoa?” he said.
But April was up on her feet, feeling energetic, and not ready to get cozy. She was holding her phone, on which she’d found the song that had brought them together—that first time, on the bus—that fun country song, “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man.” She played it at full volume and put her phone down on the table.
“Dance with me, country boy!” she shouted as she grabbed Joseph and began her best country two-step. Joseph was lighter on his feet than April had expected, and the two of them danced and laughed until they were out of breath.
After some hot cocoa, it was time for bed. Joseph produced a cotton nightgown for April. In his big strong hands, the nightgown looked so tiny and delicate, like a gentle sleeping ghost.
Joseph slept on the floor that night. Even though she was exhausted, April couldn’t sleep at first. She was too agitated thinking about Joseph, about how he looked when he gazed at her, how he’d looked,
glimmering in the snow, when she was pouring her soul out earlier that night, under the winter sky. It was true that he still didn’t know the whole story—didn’t know all the gritty details of April’s life—but even so, Joseph hadn’t flinched when she told him about prison, about the drug problem. No, he didn’t flinch at all. In fact, what he had said—right there, on the spot—was more beautiful than anything anyone had ever said to her.
As she lay in the dark, thinking about Joseph’s words, hearing them again in her ears—hearing how they sounded floating in the thin winter air—tears came into her eyes again. She rolled over and looked at Joseph, lying on the floor, his head propped up against a rolled-up rug, asleep. What was he dreaming about? April gazed at him and thought so many softly loving thoughts about her Joseph.
April, he had said, you are a precious soul. You are my friend. I accept you exactly how you are.
Those weren’t just words. They were a bond that she recognized because she felt it deeply in her heart. As she lay in bed, drowsy, April gazed at the bedstand and saw the time-travel novel that she’d given Joseph as a gift, the book that had inspired him to bring her to this remote house on a sleigh he’d built with her in mind. That sleigh really was a kind of time machine that had transported them into some realm completely separate from the world, which belonged to them alone.
April felt loved, in this little home, in this little bed. That was all there was and all there needed to be.
Good night, sweetness, she whispered in the air.
Joseph murmured from his spot on the floor.
With only the occasional crackle of the fire and the rustling of the wind cutting through the deep silence, April felt totally safe next to Joseph—many miles, and somehow also many years, away from any worries. And in feeling so deeply safe, she finally realized just how lost she’d been. Lost for how long? Her whole life, probably. And yet there was so much more life left, in front of her. Tears filled her eyes and she fell asleep. April cried gently all night, cried even in her dreams, gentle tears of joy. Joy also because she began to believe that she would be reunited with Rose. This happiness was not like before, when she was in denial about her sister’s absence. Now she found the courage to believe that Rose could be found and returned by the power of love.