Winter at the White Oaks Lodge

by Abbie Williams

  “In exchange for total lack of privacy,” I said in return. “But yeah, I know what you mean.”

  “I’ll see you around 6:00,” he said.

  “I can’t wait,” I dared to say, and sensed his grin even over the phone.

  “Me either,” he said.

  Grandma said, bringing me out of my daydream, “So, you like him then?”

  “You sound worried,” I observed, taking her advice and sitting at the table. In the living room Millie Jo was watching Sesame Street and giggling, munching a bowl of Kix without milk.

  Grandma sat opposite me and said honestly, “Your eyes are shining like stars, sweetie. It’s not that I’m not glad, but I just worry. This is the first time you’ve looked like this in years, if ever. I hate to say that.”

  I reined in my enthusiasm and said carefully, “I won’t rush into anything, Grandma. You know what I mean, right?”

  “I’m not talking about sex, exactly,” Grandma said. “I’m more worried about your heart getting all twisted up in this. Aw, Camille, it’s not easy to watch from the outside and not offer advice. Remember how I warned you about Noah?”

  My heart froze and I asked faintly, “Are you warning me about Mathias?”

  “He’s not the same man as Noah, that’s obvious. But he’s even more dangerous and by that I mean that you’re falling hard for him, I can see that plain as daybreak.”

  I said, “I can’t explain it, Gram, I saw him and I felt like I’d known him for a long time.”

  “Sometimes that’s the way of it,” she said, and covered my hand with her own. She said softly, “I just love you so much. Take it slow with him at least, promise?”

  And I nodded.

  The big plow pickup came rumbling up through the darkness of a winter evening, at about ten to six. I raced to the door and then opened it calmly, Millie peering around my knees. Mathias bounded out and waved to us, then reached back inside for something, which he carried towards the house.

  “Hi, you two,” he said, grinning as he approached. He had come straight from plowing, still in his outer gear, gray hat in place. At this sight of his flushed cheeks and stubbled jaws, his beautiful lips and true-blue eyes, I felt aglow with…something very good.

  “Hi,” I said, stepping aside and holding open the door.

  “Wow, it smells good in here,” he added, his eyes all over me, just as mine were upon him. I wanted to hug him, recalling very clearly the way he’d felt behind me yesterday, squirreling around on the ice. Instead I reached for the paper bag he was carrying. He explained, “Smoked salmon, from Dad, and fudge, from Ma. I grabbed it on my lunch break. They say to tell you guys hi.”

  “Fudge!” Millie piped up.

  “Here, you want to take it to the kitchen?” I asked my daughter, who nodded vigorously. I pulled out an orange Tupperware and passed it to her hands as Mathias got out of his coat and then his boots and snow bibs, shivering a little in the process.

  “Dang, it’s cold out there,” he said, free from his gear. His hair was flattened from his cap, his clothes all static-clingy; I had never had to restrain the urge to touch someone so fiercely in my life. At the last second I couldn’t help it, and I was just close enough to brush hair from his forehead with my free hand. I didn’t even question this action, it seemed so natural. He studied my eyes as I stroked his hair. He shivered again, this time not from the cold, and caught my left elbow lightly in his right hand when I intended to withdraw my fingers, embarrassed to be so bold. I mean, he wasn’t my boyfriend…

  He’s not. He’s so much more than that. I don’t know how I know this to be true, but I do.

  “I can’t tell if your eyes are more green or more golden,” he said softly, his fingers gentle on my elbow, moving slowly, stroking me right back. I felt this touch all along my arm, straight as an arrow to my heart.

  “Hi, Matty!” Grandma called, and Mathias squeezed my arm softly and then let his hand drop back to his side.

  “Hi, Joan!” he said, and then told me, “I can take that,” nodding at the paper bag still containing the salmon. I passed it to him and led the way to the kitchen, my elbow still tingling.

  Millie was putting forks on the table, which was set with Grandma’s Christmas dishes, an old white Corelle set edged in holly berries. The kitchen was cozy and warm, so very familiar to me. Sometimes I could barely picture the spacious modern kitchen in our townhouse back in Chicago, where Dad still lived. This place seemed more like home than the townhouse ever could have. The wood stove in the corner burned cheerily, the orange flames flickering through the holes punched into its old cast iron belly. The table was covered in its holiday cloth, a forest-green one shot through with gold thread. Aunt Ellen was at the stove stirring the chowder and the biscuits were on the counter in the biscuit tin, just about as golden and perfect as could be; I smiled at the scene before my eyes, feeling immeasurably fortunate, and said, “Bull sent some smoked salmon.”

  “Oh it smells good in here,” Mathias said. “My belly thinks my mouth’s been sewn shut.”

  I had a strange moment of déjà vu at his words and blinked; Mathias sent a grin my way and then moved at once to help Millie at the table. He teased her, “You didn’t put a fork by my plate.”

  “Did too!” she said right back. My sassy girl.

  “Hon, put the hotpad on the table, will you?” Aunt Ellen asked me, and I did. She set the kettle on it, Grandma brought over the biscuits and the butter dish and I poured milk.

  “You can sit there, next to Camille,” Grandma said to Mathias, indicating the chair she meant.

  We ate; it was a bizarre kind of first date, if that’s what this was; it depended on whether I considered yesterday a date, out on the ice. Rather than being alone and facing one another, Mathias was on my left at a table crowded with my family, his elbow occasionally bumping mine as we ate bowls of Aunt Ellen’s delectable chowder, dipping buttery biscuits and making a drippy mess. Millie was just across from me, her eyes bright with excitement as she ate, telling us all about how she and Rae played in a blanket fort that Grandma had built for them yesterday. Then Mathias told us about his route and using a truck called a ‘ditch witch’ to clear out the ditches.

  “We get right out on County 71 in the mornings, and that will be our main route for now,” he explained, wiping his lips with a napkin. “And then through town. I told Skid we can’t neglect those side roads.”

  “You’re careful, aren’t you?” I asked him, then clarified, “Of yourself, I mean.”

  Mathias looked over at me with his dimple showing. He reassured me, “We take it easy on those bad roads. No donuts in the plow truck. But in my own, we can do a few out on the ice.”

  “Donuts!” Millie sang excitedly.

  “You kids want dessert now or later?” Aunt Ellen asked, after we’d eaten our fill.

  “Later, for sure, I’m stuffed,” I told her, moving to help her clear the table.

  “No, hon, you guys go hang out. I’ll get this,” she told me.

  I led Mathias to the living room but Millie Jo had other plans, tugging his sweatshirt and inviting, “Come see my fort!”

  Mathias gave me a look with his brows raised and a smile on his lips; his eyes clearly asked me, How can anyone refuse this child?

  “Hang on, Millie Jo-Jo,” I told her. “Let Mama make sure our room is clean.”

  I raced up the stairs and stuffed bras and dirty laundry into the closet and then leaned my hip into the bi-fold door to force it shut, before dragging the quilt up over the pillows in attempt to make the bed. I could hear Millie leading Mathias up the steps, and for a moment almost laughed at the absurdity of him seeing my bedroom, which was an undoubtedly intimate experience, under these circumstances.

  He paused in the doorway and studied me somberly, certainly thinking something similar. I’d clicked on the lamp atop my dresser rather than the overhead light, lending the room a warm apricot glow. Millie ran to her blanket fort, stretched between the
rocker and the dresser, ducking inside and telling Mathias to follow, but for that moment he remained motionless as our eyes held fast. I felt a leaping in my body, an awareness of him that overrode all sense. Goosebumps rippled up my spine and over my limbs as I stood near the bed, studying his beautiful, serious face in lighting that echoed that of a candle’s flame. I felt a rush of heat then, sharp and insistent, and in my mind he crossed the room with determined strides and took me to the bed, kissing me as though the world would end before morning light. I swallowed hard and he gripped the door frame on either side.

  Millie popped back out and I refocused on her, my face hot and my blood flowing erratically, but I found my voice and tried for a teasing tone, “Well, this is our room. Probably didn’t expect to see it tonight.”

  “You two share a room?” he asked softly. He still hadn’t entered the space and his voice was a little hoarse as he asked the question.

  I nodded, keeping my eyes on Millie, who was on all fours and watching us. I said, “It’s easier to get her to sleep if we share a bed.”

  Mathias crouched down and asked Millie, “So does your mama snore, or what?” and then I giggled, the tension effectively broken.

  “Hey now, that’s cheap,” I informed him, poking his knee with my toes.

  He grinned up at me and said, “It’s a fair question.”

  Millie, ever loyal, said, “Mama doesn’t snore. But I do!”

  “You do not,” I told her. “Silly girl.”

  Mathias gamely peered into the blanket fort, then rested his hand on the edge of my mattress as he rose back to his feet. He turned in a circle and said, “It’s cozy in here.”

  “Are you gonna watch a movie with us?” Millie wanted to know then, and Mathias nodded.

  “If you don’t mind, kiddo,” he said. “Do you have one picked out?”

  Back downstairs we settled on the couch, Millie curling up possessively right onto my lap. I snuggled the afghan around us; there was about a foot of distance between my left hip and Mathias’s right. We watched the first part of a Dora episode, truly only aware of one another, and it wasn’t five minutes later that Millie fell asleep against me, sucking her thumb. I collected her closer and rose, whispering, “I’ll be right back. Feel free to change the channel.”

  He whispered, “I’ll be right here.”

  Now it would be up to me to judge the distance between us; I reflected on this as I came back downstairs. I wanted to curl up on his lap, again almost overwhelmingly, but couldn’t allow myself this, not yet. Instead I sat back down just a hair closer than I had been. I curled my knees sideways, towards him, and reclaimed the afghan, snuggling under it; the house was always a little cold at night.

  He said, echoing my thoughts, “Is it chilly in here? Maybe it’s just me.”

  I braved his eyes and heard myself ask, “You maybe want to share the blanket?”

  His lips twitched with a smile he couldn’t contain, and he said, “If you don’t mind…”

  Grandma and Aunt Ellen were still in the kitchen, but we would hear them if they came down the hall. Besides, I was almost twenty years old and sharing a blanket with a man was nothing to be concerned about. But I felt as though I was engaging in misbehavior as I resettled the blanket. Mathias moved just a little closer, enough that I could feel the heat of him. He drew the afghan over his lap and angled so that his knee was bent towards mine, almost touching me. I shivered and let the afghan sink around my hips.

  “What are you watching?” I asked, mostly to banish the desire to move fluidly and straddle him.

  “I don’t know, I can’t concentrate on anything besides the fact that you’re so close to me,” he said, low, and my eyes flashed at once to his. He went on, speaking in a rush, “I know it’s crazy, Camille, I do, but I want to…I feel like…”

  “It’s not crazy,” I told him again. “I sense it too. I can’t explain it.”

  “I know I never met you before last Thursday,” he said, as though trying to reason with himself. “But there must have been sometime…someplace. I know that I know you.”

  I felt an unexpected swelling of tears and his eyebrows rose in concern. I rushed to explain, “I’m all right, it’s not that…I just…I really know what you mean.”

  “Say my name,” he said then, quiet and intent. “Please, I want to hear you say it.”

  “Mathias,” I whispered, trembling.

  “Camille,” he whispered back, his eyes driving into mine.

  “Kids, I’m dishing up butterscotch pie, if you want!” Aunt Ellen called from the kitchen.

  I blinked and Mathias breathed out in a rush.

  “We’re coming!” I called back, controlling the tremor in my voice. I felt as though I had been punched hard, right in the gut. As though something within me was shouting to wake up, to get it, to understand. Mathias rose and helped me to my feet, catching my hands. It was the first time my hands had been encased in his; he was warm and strong, his hands firm around mine, if only for seconds.

  We joined Grandma and Aunt Ellen for pie, Mathias joking with them about how they stayed so trim with all of this good food, pretending as though nothing out of the ordinary was humming like live wires between us. By the time my grandma and great aunt had ventured up to bed, leaving us alone in the living room that was lit by nothing more than the Christmas tree, I felt as though I might shatter with the faintest touch.

  “Come here,” I told him. “Sit with me.”

  We sat facing each other on the couch, not yet touching, and he said softly, “When I think about you sleeping alone with your little girl it just about breaks my heart.” I didn’t respond immediately and his eyes were tender upon me. He clarified, “It just seems so lonely. And I was so close all this time, just down in the Cities, while you were up here alone.”

  “You had things to finish,” I reminded him. “You don’t think I would have been in college if I could have these past years? It’s important.”

  “Not as important as raising a child,” he said. “Millie is wonderful. I hope she understands how lucky she is to have you and your grandma to take care of her. Nothing is more important than that.”

  “I know,” I said softly. “I know. It’s just hard being left behind. Or at least feeling that way. It seems selfish.”

  “It’s not selfish. You’re young to be a mom. It would be hard on anyone. I remember after Tina had Beth and then Beth’s dad ditched out on them. Tina and Beth moved back home for about a year, and I saw firsthand how tough it was on my sister.”

  “I felt so stupid that I got pregnant,” I said, aching to tell him everything that was in my soul. “I mean, I’ve gotten over that feeling now, and I wouldn’t change it. Millie means more to me than I could have ever imagined. But I felt so embarrassed at the time. It was like I had the plague. All of my friends just disappeared, and I begged Mom not to make me go to school in Landon. But she insisted.”

  “And then girls like Mandy Pearson were mean to you,” he acknowledged.

  “It’s not like I’m that fragile, but it hurt. I mean, they called me a slut, a whore, like I had taken advantage of him. I’m the least slutty girl I know,” I said passionately, and then shook my head, embarrassed that I had said that, but Mathias smiled a little at my words.

  “I mean…” I faltered, before saying, “But now I don’t even have a high school diploma. And I was always at the head of my class back home in Chicago. So many things have changed since then. I don’t even know who I used to be.”

  “Would you have gone back to Chicago that summer if not for being pregnant?” he asked softly.

  I nodded, explaining, “We only came up here for a few weeks every summer.”

  He said, “Then I am eternally grateful that you took advantage of poor, innocent Noah Utley and got pregnant as a result.” He tipped his chin and looked steadily at me, concluding, “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now. Otherwise I’d still be searching for you.”

  My heartbea
t seemed loud enough to hear throughout the room. I fumbled my hands free of the afghan, pulled haphazardly over my lap, and he reached for mine at the same time. He curled my hands into his and then did something that caught me completely off guard. But it seemed so right, as though instinct drove the action more than anything. He brought my hands to his lips and kissed the back of each, closing his eyes. His lips were so warm and I made a small sound in my throat. He opened his eyes and kept both of my hands in his left, reaching with his right to tuck hair behind my ear. His fingertips lingered on my cheek and he said, his voice husky, “Come here.”

  I couldn’t speak as he encased me against his powerful chest. He smelled so good that it was almost dizzying; I pressed my cheek to his thermal shirt and felt his arms come around me, holding me securely. The Christmas tree glowed in the corner, again creating a sense of candlelight, and I snuggled closer to him, letting my eyes sink shut, and he put his chin on the top of my head. Wordless, we clung to one another. But no words were necessary.

  The front windows were silvery with approaching dawn when I opened my eyes next; I blinked a couple of times and drew in a breath as I realized that Mathias and I were still snuggled on the couch. He was snoring like a ripsaw and my left arm was completely numb from being under his body all night; we were stretched full-length, though I had no memory of that, Mathias curved protectively over me, the afghan tucked around my shoulders. Happiness melted over my soul like warm butter before reality kicked in; no matter how innocent, Grandma would not be pleased at this situation.

  “Mathias,” I whispered, leaning up on one elbow to study his sleeping face, tenderness flowing through me. He was positioned with his chin tipped up, mouth slightly open as he snored, his arms yet locked about me. He felt so good against me that I was loathe to wake him and be forced to move, but Grandma or Aunt Ellen would be up any moment. I gave in and touched his jaw, thick with stubble, letting my fingertips learn the feeling of his face. I couldn’t resist and traced lightly over his lips and my entire body vibrated with desire.

  He twitched, stopped snoring and rolled towards me, almost crushing me in the process, muttering without opening his eyes, “It’s morning, isn’t it?”