The Edge of Winter

by Luanne Rice

  “What kind of man abandons one family for another?” Chris asked. “He certainly lives in a nice house, drives a big car, takes enough trips. He has money—he’s just hiding it from Neve. And now, with a new baby coming…”

  Neve felt her lawyer and friend looking at her. Chris had seen Alyssa at the grocery store, reported that she was pregnant. Neve didn’t mind that he was getting on with his life; she was glad he’d stopped drinking almost the minute she’d kicked him out, that he was now thriving. But why was he acting like this now? It gave her no pleasure to think he was back in the bottle again. Her worst fear was that Mickey would be hurt even more than she already was. Mickey had felt discarded by Richard during his drinking years, and again during the divorce—it must have seemed that her father had traded his time with her to spend every minute with his new girlfriend. Now that he’d stopped paying child support, it was as if she no longer existed. Money was strange currency for a young girl’s self-esteem, but there it was.

  While Nicola and Chris kept talking, Neve pulled out her cell phone. She had told Mickey she’d call her when she got out of court. Today was teachers’ conferences, so Mickey had the day off from school. She and Jenna had planned to go to the beach, searching for the snowy owl. If they found it, Neve was going to drive down so they could show her.

  She had three messages. Three seconds into the first one, her stomach dropped. It was Jenna, crying hysterically.

  “Mrs. Halloran, Mickey fell! She wiped out on her bike, oh, she’s hurt! We’re on our way to the hospital; come now, please!”

  “Oh God,” Neve said, grabbing her bag, tugging Chris’s sleeve, running toward the elevator before the next message could even start. Her brain was on fire, and she pushed the elevator button, and it lit up and she thought she’d scream because the elevator wasn’t there yet.

  “What’s wrong?” Chris asked, eyes wide at the sight of Neve’s panic.

  “Mickey’s hurt,” Neve said, listening to a new voice, a man speaking calmly, telling her that Mickey had been taken to South Shore Medical Center. The elevator doors closed, and the phone connection was lost, and Neve felt her heart fly out of her body.

  No ride had ever taken longer: the drive from Lambton to the hospital. Neve drove. Chris had offered, but ever since the start of the divorce, Neve had found strength and solace with her hands on the wheel, taking control of the car even as life spun out around her. Driving her own car to court, she felt a certain power. But right now it was gone. She hardly felt the pavement beneath the wheels.

  “Whoa, watch it,” Chris said as a pickup truck passed them.

  “I see it,” Neve said.

  “Pull over and let me drive.”

  “I’m fine,” Neve said. “It’s just a few more miles.”

  The third message had been from the same man—he identified himself, but the connection was garbled, and he had a voice Neve didn’t recognize—still calm, quietly reassuring, telling Neve that Mickey had a broken wrist and a possible concussion, that she was at the ER and asking for her mother and father, but wasn’t in terrible danger.

  It was as if Neve were connected to Mickey by fine, invisible threads—in spite of their delicacy, they had always felt so strong and unbreakable. But right now, driving south, Neve called up the image of her daughter in the emergency room, a stranger using her cell phone to leave Neve a message, and she felt everything was fragile, precarious, falling apart.

  Her eyes blurred, and she slashed the tears away. Her thoughts went to Richard—where was he? The stranger had said Mickey was asking for her father; how would Neve tell her that no one knew where he was? The judge had issued a warrant for his arrest; Mickey would find out about that. She already knew he wasn’t paying child support; Neve tried never to talk badly about Richard in front of her, but she wasn’t a saint, and the last few months had been so hard financially. Little bits had slipped out, during conversations with Chris and with Nicola.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” Chris said now.

  “I know,” Neve said.

  “No, I mean it really will. The message said Mickey’s going to be fine. And the court is going after Richard. Do you know how much I’d like to be there when they cuff him?”

  “Chris…” Neve said, feeling tears well up again, “I have to call him, to tell him about Mickey. Here, dial for me, will you?” She handed Chris her cell phone.

  “Well, he couldn’t be bothered to get himself to court, so he should at least meet you at the hospital,” Chris said, scrolling through names, finding “R,” hitting Dial. Even from the driver’s seat, Neve heard it go straight to voice mail.

  “Where is he?” she asked. “God, he’s going to be so upset.”

  “You think he’s drinking again? He must be!”

  “I hope not; I really hope he still remembers how to find AA.”

  “I can’t believe you’re still so tenderhearted about him! After what he’s done!”

  “I’m not,” Neve said, driving through the intersection, taking the next right. “Believe me…it’s just Mickey I’m thinking of.” Neve’s love for Richard was long gone, but what remained was a ridiculous, unshakable pity for him, mingled with occasional wild rage. Like right now: where was he when Mickey obviously needed him?

  Flying down the exit ramp, she homed in on the sign: a big blue “H” for “hospital.” She turned left at the stop sign, drove along the marina road a quarter mile, past the wide harbor and all the empty docks, then into the South Shore Medical Center parking lot. She pulled up in front of the emergency room, parking in the first open spot she saw, and ran through the big glass doors.

  She gave her name to the nurse at the desk and was immediately led through the inner doors—thrusting her insurance card at Chris and leaving her to deal with the paperwork. The nurse led her along a row of exam cubicles, most with curtains open. Neve glanced in every one, looking for Mickey. Finally they stopped, and Neve burst through the curtains—but there was no sign of Mickey: just a tall man in a khaki uniform sitting in a chair, as if he were guarding the empty space.

  “Where is she?” the nurse asked.

  “Still in X-ray,” the man said, and Neve instantly recognized his voice: the stranger on the phone.

  “Tim, why don’t you head out now?” the nurse said. Then, turning to Neve, “And why don’t you come back out to the waiting room? You’ll be more comfortable, and we can take care of the paperwork.”

  “Let her stay here,” the man said. “Her daughter will be back any minute. She needs to see her.”

  Neve looked at him, unsure of whether he meant that she, Neve, needed to see Mickey or the other way around. Either way, he had it right. His gray-blue eyes were cool, his gaze detached, but his tone somehow insistent, as if the world’s balance hung on the nurse allowing Neve to stay.

  “That’s fine,” the nurse said, walking away.

  Neve glanced around the cubicle. A pile of Mickey’s things lay on the counter: her light blue sweater, knit hat, fleece mittens. The sweater was streaked with blood, its left sleeve sliced open.

  “She has a broken wrist,” the man said. “They cut her sleeve, to make it easier to get off.”

  “Are you the one who called me?” Neve asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m Tim O’Casey, from the ranger station at Refuge Beach.”

  “I’m Neve Halloran,” she said, shaking his hand. “Thank you. How did you find me?”

  “Mickey gave me her cell phone,” he said, reaching into his pocket, handing it back to Neve. “All she wanted was you and her father. She just kept saying so….”

  Neve nodded. And she wasn’t there. She was in court, fighting over money. The sad stupidity of it made her weak in the knees. Their daughter was in the emergency room, and for the first time in her entire life, Neve had let her go through something like this alone—or at least without her parents.

  “Thank you for being with her,” Neve said. “Did she come to the ranger station fo
r help?”

  “No,” Tim said. “She was with her friend Jenna—she was very upset, so her parents took her home. A…a young man actually came to get me, to let me know that someone was hurt.”

  “Young man?” Neve asked, thinking she’d like to thank him, too.

  “Yes,” Tim said. “A high school kid. He’s not here.”

  “Oh,” Neve said.

  She walked over to Mickey’s clothes, picked up her hat. It was made of midnight blue yarn, hand-knit by Neve’s mother. But as she held it in her hands, she realized it felt stiff but sticky, and when she looked down at her fingers, they were reddish brown.

  “Oh God!” she cried, realizing that it was Mickey’s blood, that she hadn’t noticed it before because the wool was so dark.

  “Yes, she cut her head,” Tim said. “She went over her handlebars. They did a CT scan first thing, but there’s no fracture, no concussion. She broke her fall with her wrist.”

  Neve shuddered, holding Mickey’s hat, hearing a strange man tell her what had happened. He was so tall, he seemed to tower over her. His hair was brown, nearly all gray at the temples. His narrow face was weathered, almost gaunt, with deeply scored lines around his mouth and slate-colored eyes. She looked into his eyes and felt shocked by the darkness and intensity she saw there. He had seemed so gentle and kind, but suddenly something shifted—she felt as if he were looking straight into her soul, judging what he saw there.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Mickey told me that you and her father were in court,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said, leaving it at that.

  “She wanted her father here, too.”

  “I can imagine that she wants that very much.”

  “Can you call him?” he asked, his tone sharp.

  Neve tensed. She felt this stranger stepping over a huge boundary, straight into her family’s problems. His eyes were practically blazing, and she felt criticism pouring from him. For what? Because she was divorced, or because she was fighting her husband in court?

  “I tried,” she said. “He didn’t answer.”

  “But you just saw him,” he said. “You were in court.” He accented the word “court”—Neve was right; he was judging her.

  “I was,” Neve said. “He didn’t show.”

  “Then I’m sure he’s in more trouble.”

  “More trouble?” she asked.

  Tim O’Casey narrowed his gaze. He ran his hand through his hair, staring at Neve as if trying to decide what to say. She felt her blood boiling—in the time she’d been divorced, she’d realized that not only did people take sides—usually it was men siding with men, feeling the women were out to get them, to soak them for all they could. She could barely look at him.

  “When we first got Mickey here, she was crying and in pain, and she told me that you and her father don’t speak, that the only times you do is when you go to court or drop her off at his house. She’s got a broken wrist, but that hurts her a whole lot worse.”

  “Do you have kids?” she asked, seething.

  “A son,” he said. “And I’m divorced. I know what that did to him.”

  Neve felt blood rush to her face. She stood there holding her daughter’s bloody cap, feeling the derision of a man she didn’t even know. She felt tricked by the fact he had at first seemed so sympathetic.

  “You don’t know me. You don’t know us,” she said. “So don’t try to tell me what I should do when it comes to Mickey and her father. She—”

  Just then a doctor came in. He was young and in a hurry, and he looked straight at Neve.

  “Mrs. Halloran?” he asked. “I’m Dr. Freeman. The nurse told me I could find you here.” He stared at her in a way that made Neve’s heart freeze, made Tim O’Casey disappear.

  “Where’s Mickey?” she asked.

  “Asking for you,” he said, smiling. “She has a broken wrist, a few cuts and bruises, but she’s going to be fine. Come with me; I’ll take you to her.”

  Neve followed him without a look back. O’Casey’s words, and the way he’d looked at her and spoken to her, still stung, but walking down the hall, she shook it off. He’d probably been burned in a divorce and wanted to strike out at ex-wives in general. The doctor opened a door, and there was Mickey, sitting on an exam table, her left arm in a cast.

  “Mom!” she said.

  “Oh, Mickey,” Neve said, throwing her arms around her. They held on to each other, and Neve felt herself trembling. When she pulled back, she saw the scrapes on Mickey’s forehead, the bruise on her temple, dry blood stuck to her hair. But her green eyes were bright, her smile as quick as ever.

  “I have a cast,” Mickey said, holding it up.

  “I noticed,” Neve said. “What happened?”

  “Where’s Dad?” Mickey asked, looking around.

  “Um, I left him a message…. Mickey, what happened?”

  “Well, I wiped out on the sandy road…there might have been some ice, too. Jenna and I rode down to look for the snowy owl, and we found it, Mom! It was so beautiful, you wouldn’t believe it…sitting right in the dunes, next to a driftwood log, just like in the Arctic!”

  “Wow, honey,” Neve said, excited for her daughter, seeing such an amazing creature. It seemed like the first bit of good news she’d heard all day, and Mickey’s enthusiasm made her want to go see the owl for herself. They’d always shared a love of nature, birds in particular.

  “I’ll take you to see,” Mickey said.

  “That’s a date,” Neve said. “Maybe we should get you home right now, though. Can she leave?” she asked, turning to the doctor.

  “Yes, she’s free to go. I’ll be at the desk, signing her out of the ER,” Dr. Freeman said, walking out of the room.

  “Yay!” Mickey said. She glanced down at her blue johnny. “Where are my clothes?”

  “They’re in the other room. I’ll go get them,” Neve said.

  “Mom, there was a boy from school, a surfer, who helped me. He ran to get the ranger, Mr. O’Casey, who’s been so nice! He came to the hospital with me, to make sure I wasn’t alone.”

  “I know, I met him,” Neve said, making sure her tone gave nothing away.

  “He looks after the beach, Mom, and all the birds and animals that land there. He said that same snowy owl comes back every year, and he makes sure the bird-list people never divulge the exact location—because he doesn’t want crowds coming to scare it away. Snowy owls are very timid, he said.”

  “Sounds as if Mr. O’Casey knows a lot,” Neve said steadily.

  “Mom, Jenna didn’t even care. Not really. It was weird; I mean, there was the snowy owl, and she didn’t even want to stay to watch it!”

  “Well, it’s so cold out,” Neve said. “Maybe Jenna wanted to get home and get warm.” She touched Mickey’s head. Lately she’d noticed the two best friends growing apart; Jenna was maturing faster. She had a boyfriend, and she’d started wanting to hang out with other kids, go to the movies and the mall, do more teenage things, while Mickey still wanted to be outside in nature.

  Mickey shrugged, frowning. “Shane, the boy who helped me, said they’re doing something to the beach. Jenna already knew, and she didn’t even tell me. I don’t get her. She never used to be like this. Oh, Mom—I told Mr. O’Casey to call both you and Dad. Did you see him in court? Is everything okay?”

  “There’s nothing for you to worry about,” Neve said.

  “That’s not the same thing as everything being okay,” Mickey said ominously. “I want Dad to be here. Is he in trouble or something? You have to tell me, Mom!”

  “One thing at a time, Mickey. Let’s get you out of here. I’ll go get your clothes, and we can get you home.”

  “If you see Mr. O’Casey, tell him I say thank you,” Mickey said, and in spite of whatever she was thinking about her father, she smiled again.

  “I will,” Neve said.

  And she would have, too. She swore to herself, as she walked down the hall to the
ER exam cubicle, that she would hold her personal feelings inside and thank the beach ranger profusely for what he’d done for Mickey. On the way, the desk nurse came to meet her and told her that her insurance card was invalid, that she’d have to pay for Mickey’s treatment out-of-pocket.

  Neve was beyond being shocked by anything today. By the time she reached the cubicle, it was empty. Ranger O’Casey was nowhere in sight. Mickey’s clothes were still on the counter. And there, resting on the top of the pile, was a business card. Neve picked it up. It bore the seal of Rhode Island, and said Timothy J. O’Casey, Park Ranger, Salt Marsh Nature Refuge, Secret Harbor, RI. On the back, he had written, “Take care of yourself, Mickey. I hope you’ll bring your mother back to see the snowy owl.”

  “Thanks anyway,” Neve muttered. But she picked up Mickey’s clothes and hurried back along the hall, wondering where she was going to find the money to pay for everything, knowing how happy Mickey would be to see what the ranger had written.

  3

  Getting dressed in the cold early morning, Mickey knew that today was the deadline to bring the check for her school trip. Everyone was going to Washington, staying in a hotel on Capitol Hill during spring vacation, going to the Smithsonian, Lincoln Memorial, Supreme Court, and to see the cherry blossoms, and Mickey was supposed to bring a check for two hundred and fifty dollars.

  At breakfast, she practiced doing everything with one hand. She was right-handed, and she’d never before noticed how much her left hand did to help. Pouring cereal, positioning the bowl, reaching for her spoon, grabbing her orange juice glass—it took intense concentration, and getting used to.

  Her mother hovered around, trying to help. Mickey knew that she was going to be late for work—she’d missed the last two days, the first going to court, and the second because Mickey had stayed home from school yesterday, sick to her stomach from the medication and the shock of the accident. Staying home had upset her almost as much as breaking her wrist; until yesterday, she’d had perfect attendance.

  Being quiet all day yesterday had given Mickey a lot of time to think and worry. No one knew where her father was. He hadn’t shown up for work, and he was in huge trouble. This wasn’t the first time.