We walk: Garrett first, then Ingrid, then me, Ahab leashed at my side. No vehicles pass. The wind blows so cold that the skin of my face tightens. We approach a clapboard farmhouse. Shingled cottages form a crescent around the house, and plastic sheets cover all the windows. By the walkway a spotlighted sign reads, TUNKAMOG LAKE SUMMER CABINS.
“Garrett,” I call ahead.
“This is the place,” he says. His steps quicken. “This is the place we passed.”
“I think it’s seasonal.”
“Seasonal?”
“Only open in the summertime.”
Garrett stops. He observes the cabins, the house, the sign. I join him on the walkway.
“Seasonal,” he whispers.
Ingrid tugs his sleeve. “Daddy, will you carry me?”
He scoops her up in his arms. “Eff it,” he whispers over her head. “We’re knocking.”
Just then the house’s front door opens. A rotund, half-toothless woman in a kitten-patterned bathrobe steps outside. “Thought you were a ruh-coon,” she says.
Garrett smiles.
She squints at us. “Cold enough for ya?”
“Do you have any vacancy?” he asks.
“We’re a hundred percent vacant. But we’re closed.”
“We really need a place just for the night.”
“There’s a motor lodge ten miles back, in Walpole.”
“My truck’s stuck.”
She squints at Ingrid, whose face is smooshed against Garrett’s chest.
“Hi,” Ingrid says.
This woman must think we’re a family. I’m the mom; Garrett’s the dad; Ingrid’s our baby. Garrett smirks at me; the same thought’s going through his mind, probably.
Finally the woman shakes her head. Her silver bangs swing across her forehead. “I’ll call you a tow. But they usually take their sweet time getting here. In a storm like this, you’re looking at a two-, three-hour wait.”
“We really need to sleep,” Garrett says.
“Me, too. I’ll call the police. They can take you into protective custody for the night. They do it all the time for stranded motorists. ’Specially in the winter.”
“And spend the night in a jail cell?” Ingrid says. She shivers and snuggles against Garrett.
“It’s not like you’re in jail,” says the woman.
Ahab whines. I hear his teeth chatter.
“Zell, my wallet’s in my back pocket,” Garrett says. “Could you?”
I lift the hem of his ski coat and pull his wallet out. I try not to touch his butt, which I must admit is nicely shaped. I open the wallet—scuffed fake leather—and sift through a few twenty-dollar bills.
He eyes the woman. “Surely you have something for us.”
She rubs her hands together and winks. “I suppose there is one cabin I could fix up for you. But there could be mice in it.”
“Aww,” Ingrid says. “Mice are so cute.”
“Perfect,” I say. “We’ll take it.”
“You sure?” Garrett whispers.
I nod because I can’t think of any other realistic option.
With a wobbly hitch in her step, the woman leads us through the freezing three-season porch—plasticked over, like the cabin windows—into what serves as a reception area. It feels so good to be out of the freezing wind, and I feel my muscles relax.
Garrett drapes Ingrid in a brown plaid armchair with wooden armrests. But she doesn’t sit still: She gets up and inspects her surroundings, standing on her tippy-toes to peer over the wood-paneled counter, which bears an enormous microwave and a television with a droopy rabbit-ear antenna.
The woman limps behind the counter and runs a finger under a row of keys. “I’ll give you lucky number seven,” she says. “It has the best atmosphere. The farthest from the house, and the closest to the lake.” She turns and smiles at Garrett. Her gums look swollen.
“That’s lovely, thanks.” He takes the key from her hammy fist. “And your name is?”
She fishes around behind the counter and slaps a name tag on her left breast, which jiggles with aftershock. BOBBIE.
Bobbie produces a stack of woolen blankets. Dust poofs up around them as she pounds them into the counter. “Better take these,” she says. “There’s no heat. Pleasure doing business with you folks.”
Garrett folds some bills in his palm and shakes her hand. “Pleasure’s all mine, Bobbie,” he says. “Pleasure’s all mine.”
I try my cell again: one bar. I call Gail, who coos in worry and disappointment. She offers to come get us, but I decline, because all we need is for her to get stuck, too.
Outside I hold the musty blankets as far from my nose as possible. Ingrid leads Ahab, who lifts his paws laboriously through the half foot of snow. He tries to step in Garrett’s footprints. I watch his broad back as he leads the way.
When we reach Cabin 7, he wiggles the key into the lock. “Brace yourself,” he says, tapping open the light-as-paper door.
Ahab steps inside and sniffs the cold air.
On a plastic table sits a little lamp. I flick it on; the lightbulb has somehow burned a hole into the duck-patterned lampshade. Two military-issue cots, with thin, stained mattresses, line the far wall. A deer head with small antlers tilts above a little fireplace. The flue must be open, or broken, because snow forms a pointy pile on the grate. A dresser in the corner seems fairly well crafted, and its varnish shines. I check the drawers: all empty except the bottom one, where mouse turds roll around like three-dimensional commas.
“Pretty much what I expected,” Garrett says.
Ingrid leaps onto one of the cots. “Ahab, here, Cap’n. This is wicked cool. It’s like we’re totally camping out.”
“You’ve got to calm yourself, boo-boo,” says Garrett, scratching Ahab’s neck. “It’s late.”
I set the blankets on the other cot and announce that I’m going to find the ladies’ room.
“Good luck with that one,” Garrett says. “Hey, want to take Ingrid while you’re at it?”
She jumps up and grabs my hand. “I’ve seriously got to pee.”
Outside, we duck into the spinning snow and investigate a few nearby outbuildings until we discover the bathhouse. At the sink, I inspect myself in the cracked mirror: choppy, fluffy hair all over the place. Eyebrows threatening to arch into a unibrow. Awesome.
I turn the faucet, but no water comes out. Ingrid shoots past me and darts into a stall.
“Um, Zell?” she calls. “The toilet water is frozen. Like, it’s a block of ice.”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about that,” I say. “Just go.”
“Okeydokey,” she says. “Letting ’er rip. Hey. At least there’s toilet paper.”
Back in Cabin 7, the Captain heaves his old body onto Ingrid’s cot and curls up at one end. It’s so cold, I decide to leave his booties and coat on him.
Ingrid snuggles with Ahab, and Garrett tucks a blanket around her and tugs it to her chin. He tells her a bedtime story in hushed tones.
I try not to listen. It seems an intimate moment that I shouldn’t be privy to, even though Ingrid and I have shared similar moments. I unfold a blanket and spread it on the floor.
“Zell, okay if I turn the light out?” Garrett asks.
“Go ahead.”
We’re plunged in darkness. In my head I say a quick prayer that the mice turds in the drawer are old, perhaps left over from last season, and that we’ll remain unvisited by little critters.
Slowly my eyes adjust. I glance at Ingrid; the blanket rises and falls with her breath. Her face is old and young at the same time: about to become a woman’s, but still very much a child’s.
“Love ya ’n’ like ya, Dad,” she whispers.
“Love ya ’n’ like ya,” he whispers back.
“Can we toast marshmallows?” she asks.
“What?”
“Just kidding. G’night.”
I kneel on the floor, about to lie down, when Garrett stands ove
r me. It’s so dark, I can’t see him very well, but I can feel his body warmth, his breath.
“Hey,” he whispers. “Don’t even think about sleeping on the floor.”
“I don’t mind,” I whisper. “You’ve been driving all this while. You take the cot.”
He shakes his head. “Absolutely not. You take the cot.”
I stifle a yawn. I imagine falling asleep in a mouse-infested shithole. Then I imagine falling asleep in a mouse-infested shithole while a warm strong human falls asleep against me.
“We could share the cot,” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer right away, and I can’t read his face in the darkness. All I can see is his sharp-jawed silhouette. “To keep warm?” he says.
“Yeah. And I can protect you from the mice.”
He laughs quietly. “It is pretty cold in here.” He glances at Ingrid, then sighs. “I’ll take the floor.” He kneels next to me and elbows me. “Get outta my bed.”
“Fine,” I say, playfully nudging him back. I feel my way to the cot, crawl onto it, and curl up.
Just before sleep, I sense something like a tiny cold pinprick in the center of my chest, and I imagine Trudy’s fairies twirling in the window, catching the light.
“ZELL? WHERE’S MY DAD?”
I wake with a start.
Ingrid stands over me. In the darkness I make out the zigzag cornrows on her scalp. A half-asleep thought flitters through my mind: Who braids her hair?
I turn on the light. Behind her the floor is empty; the blanket Garrett was using is gone.
Outside—close by—an owl hoo-hoo-hoos. A barred owl, I know, because Nick taught me the call they make: Who cooks for you, who cooks for all.
I sit up and rub my face. It occurs to me, in that dumbly sleepy way, that I’m still in my coat and boots. I march to the door. “Go back to sleep,” I say.
Her mouth drops open. “Where are you going?”
“It’s okay. Get back into bed. I’ll go find your dad. I’m sure he just went to the bathroom or something.”
She frowns but curls into a ball under the covers as Ahab repositions himself on her cot. “You can’t leave me here by myself,” she says. “I’m just a helpless little girl.”
“Stay here. Stay with the Captain. Don’t go anywhere, and don’t open the door for anyone.”
“Are you expecting someone?” She yawns and gazes sleepily at me.
“Just stay put.” I don’t want to leave her here, and I don’t want to take her with me, and I’m freaked out that Garrett’s not here. “Try to fall back asleep,” I whisper. But she doesn’t answer; she’s asleep already. So I grab the key and quietly lock the door behind me.
OUTSIDE, THE AIR IS STILL, the sky clear except for black clouds that drift past the moon and remind me of twisted and waxed mustaches. It must be three in the morning.
I follow Garrett’s big boot prints in the snow, down what seems to be an unshoveled path. The prints lead me into the trees, toward the lake. He hunkers on a fallen log a few feet from the edge of the ice. He doesn’t move or say anything as I settle beside him. We sit shoulder to shoulder, outsides of thighs touching. We stare at the moon over frozen Tunkamog Lake. He smells good—warm, homey, like spicy drugstore cologne that he sprayed hours ago, that spent all day settling into his clothing, his hair, his pores. Just briefly, I allow myself to admire his attractive profile, his smooth skin.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Garrett finally offers. He pulls his blanket tighter around him. “Ingrid all right?”
“She’s fine.”
“Don’t ever have kids, Zell,” he says. “As soon as they come out, you love them so much, you’re doomed. There’s nothing you can do about it. You’re just—doomed.”
“Nick wanted a big family,” I say. “He used to joke about having nine kids so our family would be an official soccer team. That was our little code word for our someday-family: the soccer team.”
Garrett smiles. He strips a piece of bark off the log and skitters it across the ice. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, as a father.”
“You fake it pretty good.”
“Ya think?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe this law school thing wasn’t such a good idea after all. It’s a lot to ask of Ingrid. Me not being there. Me studying all the time. It’s hard enough on her, being the only black girl in her class. Pretty much the only black girl in the whitest county in the whole state, for that matter.”
“I’m pretty sure Berkshire County is whiter,” I say.
“You’re probably right.” He laughs through his nose.
“You could transfer your credits and take night classes somewhere else,” I say. “Somewhere closer.”
“I’ve thought of that.”
“I’m sure Trudy would watch Ingrid if you asked. She’s good people.”
“I know.” Garrett sighs. “I’m reluctant, though. Ingrid sure is a big fan of Trudy. But she’s so busy all the time. I hate to burden her. Am I . . . am I burdening you?”
“Ingrid’s not a burden,” I say. Then, because I’m not sure what else to say, I add, “Well, kids are resilient.”
“Are they, though? Are they resilient? Everyone says that, but . . .”
From far away—the other side of the lake, maybe—a coyote yips.
Garrett smiles. “Hear that?”
“Yeah.”
“It really does make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Zell? I’m glad you’re doing that baking contest with Ingrid.”
“Really?”
“She needs that. Maybe she’ll get her obsession with Polly Pinch out of her system. It’s good for her to be with a woman, and the time she spends with you is constructive. She likes to cook, and I hate to cook, so.”
“I know it’s a long shot—hell, it’s crazy, but could you imagine if we actually win?” I say. “Imagine if Ingrid goes with me to meet Polly Pinch?”
He eyes me. “Goes to meet Polly Pinch?”
“That’s the grand prize.”
“I thought the grand prize was twenty thousand dollars.”
“Right. And you get to be on the show.”
His lips part slightly. “Oh. Wow. Really?”
“You get to bring a guest and cook alongside Polly Pinch. Ingrid’s going to be my guest if I win. Didn’t she tell you that?”
“She probably did. I’m just so preoccupied lately. And I hate to admit it, but I tend to tune her out when she goes on about Polly Pinch. But you really think you have a chance of winning?”
I shrug. “No. But I’m going to try anyway.”
“Just because, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Good for you,” he says. “I like it.”
He slides from the log and faces me, his back to the lake. “We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. In the meantime, I’m freezing my stones off.”
“Likewise. Well, not actually.”
“You’re funny sometimes.” Garrett laughs again, and for the first time it occurs to me that he laughs a lot.
“I’m sorry you won’t get to finish your sister’s mural this weekend,” he says.
“I’ll get up there soon enough. Gail’s waited a long time already. She can wait a little bit more.”
He sighs and resettles the blanket around him; in the breeze it flaps about his shoulders like wings. “Well, we tried,” he says. “Let’s go back to the cabin and get some sleep.”
We face each other, and our breath hangs between us in short, white puffs. The moon glows high over the lake. He lowers his face, and I close my eyes as Garrett’s fingers slide along my cheek and thread through the hair behind my ear. Electricity seems to flutter up my spine as he pulls me close and wraps me inside the blanket.
I slip my arms around his neck, and his mouth opens and closes against mine, surely, sweetly. I melt into his warmth. But then my head starts to swirl, and my heart gallops, and I break away, sidestepping until there’s a few feet between us.
Balls.
“I’m sorry, Garrett; right now, I can’t—”
“It’s okay,” he says, turning to gaze across the lake. “I understand. I just—”
“I know. Me, too. But, I think we need to just forget about this. For now.”
He shivers and nods. “I got caught up in the moment. Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I pause, waiting for my heart to stop bucking. “Good night,” I say, and turn and walk up the slope.
IN THE MORNING we’re all pretty quiet, even Ingrid. Garrett smiles at me a little sheepishly as we fold the blankets between us. We trudge through the snow to the main house, where a cheery Bobbie invites us into her hot kitchen. She brews a pot of coffee, pours cranberry juice for Ingrid, and thaws waffles in the microwave. Then she calls a tow truck, and Garrett’s able to drive us all home, back to Wippamunk, under a brilliant blue sky.
I try not to think about last night. I focus instead on the crisp new snow, so bright it hurts my eyes.
Near the Massachusetts border Garrett glances over at me. “Zell?” he says quietly, so as not to wake Ingrid, who’s sleeping in the backseat, while Ahab rests his head in her lap. “I don’t want things to be weird between us,” says Garrett.
“Me, neither,” I say. “No weirdness here.”
“Good. You sure?”
“Definitely.” I smile and nod.
“Good,” he repeats. He hums along to John Legend, and I doze the rest of the way home.
I GET MY CAR FIXED. Something about the carburetor and the timing belt, and it costs me almost a thousand dollars.
Now, a week later, I drive to my sister’s. I suppose I should feel cathartic. I got the car fixed, after all, even the broken turn signal. It’s a huge step, right? But I feel nothing. No glee, no sense of accomplishment. No sadness or sentimentality. I feel the same: a continuous ache, a dull, steady, numb buzz.
I drive through New Hampshire and cross the Connecticut River into Vermont. My heart does its weird thing—it thumps fast and hard, then doesn’t pump for five whole seconds. Should I call Dr. Fung’s office, after all, and make an appointment?
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