Winter Longing

by Tricia Mills

  I looked up when I heard someone approach my table. “Oh, hey, Spencer.”

  “I need something sweet.”

  I reached for a box to hand to him.

  “I’ll take all ten boxes,” he said.

  CHAPTER 3

  The hours crept by with an agonizing slowness. They were hours in which we heard nothing from my dad. The phone rang several times, but it was never the one call I craved.

  Lindsay sat beside me, holding my hand. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she said. “I bet your dad is with him now.”

  I nodded—I wanted desperately to believe in the determined truth of her words, though they were laced with doubt. “I wish they’d call.”

  “You know there’s no reception in huge parts of the park. The bears don’t have much use for cell phones.” She tried to smile.

  I knew she wanted to lighten the mood, like always. Like when her mom and dad fought. Like the time in seventh grade when I’d become convinced that Spencer liked Tia Vanderhugh.

  As night began to fall, Mom tried to send Lindsay home, but she wouldn’t budge. Spencer was one of her best friends, too. I ignored the fact that she grew quieter with each passing minute.

  The phone continued to ring, but still nothing. I felt so exhausted that it became difficult to move, and I laid my head in Lindsay’s lap. She ran her fingers absently through my long hair. I closed my eyes and focused on my mental image of Spencer bunking down in the woods for the night, keeping warm until help arrived. He was strong, resourceful. I had nothing to worry about. I mouthed the words a few times. “I have nothing to worry about.”

  Mom cooked dinner, but despite my determined confidence in Spencer’s safety, I had no appetite. I’d eat when I saw Spencer again, I told myself. I was only vaguely aware of Mom and Lindsay sitting at the kitchen table with their plates of spaghetti. The normalcy of this small gesture was comforting.

  We watched TV throughout the evening, but nothing much penetrated my thoughts. It was just something to stare at, a series of flickering lights and movement. The only thing that made it through the thick barrier around me was the sound of the clock ticking on the wall. It drove me crazy, so much so that if Mom hadn’t been in the room, I would have shattered it with my shoe.

  Lindsay sat in the recliner, and I nearly gave in to tears when I saw the worry darkening her lovely features.

  Lindsay couldn’t doubt, she just couldn’t.

  My brain began to reengage when the ten o’clock news came on.

  I lifted myself to a sitting position. “Turn it up.”

  Mom hesitated before complying.

  “Investigators are still determining the cause of a plane crash in Katmai National Park earlier today, but witnesses on the ground tell KTUU that the Piper Super Cub seemed to stall before slamming into the side of Dumpling Mountain.”

  The video cut to shots from a helicopter above the crash site. Thick fog covered the area. I scooted forward, straining to see any glimpse of Spencer.

  When the image on the screen finally changed, cutting through the fog and revealing what looked like a red wing bent at an impossible angle, Lindsay uttered a strangled sob. I ignored her, focusing on the screen, desperate for an image of hope.

  The anchor’s sudden reappearance on the TV startled me.

  “The names of the two individuals on board are being withheld until family members can be contacted, but we can confirm that the plane took off from the airstrip in Tundra, near Bristol Bay.”

  Mom clicked off the TV as the anchors moved to another story.

  “Oh my God,” Lindsay said.

  “Don’t!” My voice was harsh. Lindsay looked wounded when our eyes met, but I didn’t apologize. I couldn’t let anyone near me doubt. How would Spencer feel if he thought we had so little faith in him?

  I shifted closer to Mom, unwilling to let negative thoughts bury themselves in my mind. I was holding on by the thinnest of threads and I feared talking would snap it.

  More minutes ticked by. I noticed Lindsay had curled up and fallen asleep, her face worried even at rest.

  I let my eyes wander around the living room, taking in images so familiar I didn’t even think about them anymore. Photos of me at different ages, a bookshelf full of books about every aspect of Alaska, the shelf of carved moose belonging to my dad, another of native-carved ivory—miniature animals carved by Lester Konekuk. Mom added a new piece each fall when we descended on the fall craft fair.

  Despite my best efforts to stay awake, to keep the vigil, I felt myself getting drowsy. Sleep held more than its normal appeal. Perhaps there I could cease to worry and stop having horrible images pop into my head, even though I was determined to stay positive.

  Finally, Mom pulled the afghan off the back of the couch and spread it over me. “Get some rest, sweetie.”

  I wanted to argue but couldn’t find the energy.

  I awoke sometime later when I heard the door close. I fought the post-sleep grogginess and sat up as I noticed my dad coming in the side door. I opened my mouth to ask about Spencer, but I froze when Dad turned toward us and I saw the expression on his face: tired, drawn, devastated.

  A cry clawed its way out of my throat as the truth hit me. Spencer was gone.

  I don’t know how long I cried, or when I drifted off again, but when I woke sometime later, my head was pounding, my eyes puffy and aching. I felt as if I’d been dropped from the top of a tree.

  Lindsay lay under a blanket in the recliner, asleep and curled into a tight ball. I knew the look by then. It was how she slept when she was upset.

  I could hear voices from somewhere in the house. When I had pulled myself upright and waited for my head to stop spinning, I realized they were coming from the dining room on the other side of the kitchen, two rooms away. My parents were using hushed tones, clearly meant to keep me from hearing. I heard other voices join theirs. I moved carefully, eager to avoid detection.

  Some part of my brain screamed at me to turn around and go back to the couch—that I didn’t want to hear whatever they were saying. But some other masochistic part of me trudged forward.

  I stopped right outside the room, resting in the shadows of the darkened kitchen. Mom and Dad sat at the end of the dining room table, Mom’s hands wrapped around Dad’s. He slumped like someone totally defeated, as if he’d aged twenty years since this morning. Mom lifted one of her hands to wipe tears from her face. I choked up at the sight.

  The Kerrs sat across from them—their faces sad, too. Movement in the corner of the room caught my attention, and my eyes met Jesse’s. He started to open his mouth, but I shook my head. I could tell he didn’t think my presence was a good idea, but that wasn’t for him to decide.

  “As soon as I saw the wreck, all I could think was, ‘How am I going to tell Winter?’” Dad’s voice broke.

  I almost revealed myself then. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Dad cry; maybe not since his father had died seven years ago. As a doctor, he dealt with death all the time. Eventually, he’d acquired the professional detachment all doctors had to have in order to survive their jobs. But not tonight.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Mom said. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up, and this will have all been a horrible dream.”

  “I wish it were. God, how I wish that.” He swallowed hard.

  “Can you tell what happened?” Mr. Kerr asked. “They said on the news the plane might have stalled.”

  Dad shook his head. “We don’t know. It’s possible the fog caused them to get too close to the mountain, then they tried to climb too quickly and lost their lift. The NTSB is up there now, but I don’t know how they could possibly figure it out.” He ran his hand back over his hair in a gesture I didn’t see from him often. He glanced at Jesse, pausing before deciding to continue. “We didn’t even find the bodies. We couldn’t tell if the fire consumed them or if the bears had beaten us there.”

  My hands slid away from where I’d been gripping the edge of t
he doorway. I stumbled as I turned, drawing everyone’s attention. I saw them move toward me in slow motion, Jesse the quickest. I barely heard Mom say my name before the world went black.

  “I wish I could draw like that,” Spencer said as he looked at my drawing of our art teacher, Mrs. Spiro.

  I liked how his compliment made me feel warm inside. I liked how he smiled at me.

  CHAPTER 4

  Sunlight slanting into my room woke me. I wanted to scream. This brightness wasn’t right when I felt so lost, so dark.

  Somehow I’d gotten to my room. I realized I must have fainted, and that my dad had probably carried me to bed. I burrowed back under the covers and wished away the bright, shiny world outside. I cursed the sun, the expanse of blue sky, the clear air around the distant mountains. Why hadn’t they appeared for Spencer’s flight? Why only when it was too late to do any good?

  A fresh sob tumbled out of me, and I pressed my thick comforter against my eyes. I thought I was cried out, until I felt the bed dip behind me and realized it was Lindsay. She wrapped herself around me, and the two of us sobbed together.

  “I can’t believe he’s gone,” she whispered into my hair.

  I couldn’t find any words to respond. Nothing of me remained but tears and slashing pain. My only escape was the occasional descent into sleep.

  About mid-afternoon, I woke to find Lindsay no longer beside me. Still, I didn’t get out of bed. Instead, I reached out and nearly fumbled my cell phone off my nightstand onto the floor. I pulled it to me and flipped it open. I scrolled through the photos of Spencer behind the counter at Tundra Books, fishing pole in hand at the river, goofing off by flexing his biceps after making a home run in PE class.

  I ran my thumb across the screen and wished I could touch him for real, feel his arms around me again. Taste his kiss.

  I only stirred from the bed to go to the bathroom. Each time I returned, exhaustion claimed me. I kept thinking that maybe one of the times I’d just not wake up. Part of me hoped it would happen.

  Eventually, I couldn’t sleep or cry anymore. I stared at the waning daylight with dry, puffy eyes and a hollow soul. How was it possible that Spencer had been gone for only a day? It felt like so much longer.

  The door to my bedroom creaked open, and I recognized the sound of Mom’s steps as she approached my bed. She sat behind me and rubbed her hand gently over my messy, unwashed hair.

  “Winter, I’ve got dinner ready.”

  “I’m not hungry.” My voice sounded raw, like fate had sandpapered my vocal cords.

  “I know, honey. But you need to eat. You’ll make yourself sick.”

  “I don’t care.” How could I eat when all I wanted was to die?

  I heard her intake of breath. “Oh, don’t say that,” she said in a gentle, soothing tone.

  As fat, hot, salty drops spilled over yet again, anger bloomed violently within me. “It’s not fair!” I screamed. “I love him.”

  Mom turned me into her arms and rocked back and forth with me the way she had when I was little. She didn’t try to hide her own heartache.

  “Why, Mom? Why?”

  “I don’t know.” She kissed the top of my head. I heard in her pain that she couldn’t make this hurt go away for me.

  After that, Mom didn’t push me to come downstairs or eat. She did, however, bring up a bowl of potato soup (my favorite) and fresh-baked bread. She left the tray on my desk, where it remained untouched.

  The moon shone bright and huge in the sky. I’d slept so much during the day that my body now refused me that escape. I let my eyes roam my room, covered with movie posters. Pride and Prejudice, 300, Titanic, X-Men, Lord of the Rings. Basically any movie in which the story and the costumes made a winning combination.

  But while they’d often given me inspiration for my own costume designs, now they hung there: lifeless, reminders of a me that that no longer existed.

  I slid my aching body out of bed and onto the floor in front of my bookshelves. I ran my fingertips over the spines of the many titles I’d bought at Tundra Books, the bookstore owned by Spencer’s parents. I’d memorized long ago what Spencer had written inside each book.

  I caressed the title along the edge of Prince Caspian. I closed my eyes, could see Spencer’s handwriting inside.

  “Wish you, Lindsay, and I could travel to Narnia.”

  My fingers traveled to the next several books, the complete Anne of Green Gables collection Spencer had gotten me for my twelfth birthday. I opened the first, to one of the blank pages at the beginning. My heart ached as I looked at the quote from the book I’d read over and over again until it was burned into my memory.

  “I think you may be a kindred spirit after all. Happy birthday. Love, Spencer.”

  It was the first time the word love had traveled between us.

  Next, I pulled a photo album from the end of the shelf. I didn’t think my heart could ache any more, but seeing all the happy photos of Spencer made me feel as if the world had ended.

  For Spencer, it had. No more smiles. No more happy photos. No more telling me—or anyone else—that he loved me.

  God, how could a life like Spencer’s just . . . end?

  When I woke late in the morning, I was still on the floor, one arm cradling the album. Someone had draped a blanket over me: Lindsay, at least according to the note she’d left next to two strawberry pastries.

  “I stopped by this morning, but I didn’t want to wake you. See you after school. Luv you.”

  School? She was going to school? I read the words again, but they still made no sense.

  Lindsay’s familiar handwriting stared up at me, and I hated myself for wishing she’d stay away. I’d thought she was hurting, too, but if she were, how could she go back? Going back was inconceivable to me. I didn’t want to see or talk to anyone. All I wanted was to cocoon myself in this room and never emerge.

  My stomach growled at the sight of the pastries. Even though they were no longer piping hot, I found myself reaching for one. Apparently, my body’s instinct to survive wouldn’t be denied.

  My cell phone rang, and I grabbed it, desperately hoping to see Spencer’s name.

  But it was the school’s number. It had to be Lindsay, who didn’t have a cell of her own. I turned the phone off when the beep told me she’d left a message, then I pitched it at the thick red carpet.

  I spent the day curled in my overstuffed red chair in the corner next to the window, my feet propped on the matching ottoman. I looked through my photo albums at least a dozen times.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in my room this long without popping in a DVD, but those fictional stories no longer held any allure, not even any chance at escape.

  Mom came in with a chicken-salad sandwich and chips around lunchtime. She must have thought I was asleep, because she slid the plate onto my desk and walked quietly back toward the door.

  “You didn’t go to work,” I accused.

  “No. I wanted to be here for you.”

  I should have told her I was fine, but I couldn’t. It was too big of a lie.

  Neither of us seemed to know what to say next, so she offered me a weak smile and walked back out.

  But what was there to say? Sorry the boy you’ve loved since you were eight finally kissed you, then died the next day?

  She couldn’t even say that, because she didn’t know about our kisses. The only person who did was Lindsay, and for some reason, now I wished she didn’t.

  I curled farther down into the chair and refocused my meandering thoughts, visualizing Spencer alive and working his way down the mountain toward me. I daydreamed of all the things we’d do together. Our first date. The Snow Ball. Admitting we loved each other. Eventually expressing our love for each other, maybe beneath a thick blanket while the northern lights performed their magical dance overhead.

  I liked these fantasies.

  Reality intruded in the form of Lindsay. How had I not heard the front door?

>   “Hey.” She sat on the ottoman at my feet and eyed me with her worried expression. “Have you eaten today?”

  I pointed toward the half-eaten sandwich.

  “Lots of people at school asked about you.”

  Several ticks of the clock went by. “I just . . . couldn’t.”

  She stood and walked to the window, staring out at the waning day. “I couldn’t sit at home.”

  I still didn’t know how she could face going to school so soon after our best friend had died, but I didn’t have the energy to figure it out. Or to examine the anger that was welling up inside me.

  I lowered my gaze to the open photo album on my lap, at a picture of Spencer and me at last year’s Labor Day cookout. I closed my eyes and remembered the details of the day.

  “Here you go,” Spencer had said as he extended a plate piled with food to me.

  “Dude, that’s enough food for three people,” I’d replied as I looked at the huge barbecue sandwich, mountain of chips, and two brownies.

  “You need to eat. Helps you heal.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “I twisted my ankle, genius. I don’t have the flu.”

  He shrugged, sat on the ground beside my lawn chair, and dug into his own food. “I feel guilty, so I’m groveling, okay?”

  “Oh, yes, this is your fault, isn’t it?” I pointed at my wrapped ankle propped on another lawn chair. I’d tripped while chasing him up the stairs after he’d come into the living room, wearing the flapper-style costume I’d been working on for Halloween.

  “Yep. Guess you’ll have to think of an appropriate way to scold me,” he said suggestively, prompting me to give him a smack to the back of his head.

  I wanted to laugh at the memory, but I couldn’t. I ran my fingertips over his glossy, smiling image. I’d been an idiot not to tell him how I felt sooner.

  Only the impending start of our senior year, the last year we might spend together, had prompted me to risk our friendship by telling him I liked him much more than just as a friend. I could still feel the soft, warm, tentative first kiss we’d shared on the banks of the Naknek River and how it had ignited the boom, color, and sizzle of the Fourth of July inside me. The taste of the cherry Twizzlers he constantly munched on at the store still lingered.