I open its drawer. Pick up the little scoop and start shoveling ice into the limp plastic bag. The ice cubes scrape and knock together. I give the bag a shake, knocking them around even more.
Then I leave the alcove, hobbling down the dimly lit walkway. The sky is a deep blue, and it’s dark enough to see the stars. They look bigger here than they do in Seattle. And the mountains loom so much closer, their shadows broad and angular against the night sky. The snow on them glows white in the darkness.
My fingers feel numb as I unlock the door. I fumble slightly, inching my way back inside with less stealth than before. The door latches behind me with a clunk; my sheepskin slippers flop over as I step free of them.
Jack sits upright in the dark. I can barely make out his features as he blinks several times, willing his eyes to adjust. “Maisie?” he whispers. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m going back to bed.”
He blinks again. Leans back on his elbows. “You’re sure?”
“Yeah. Totally.”
I cross the room to prove my point. If Jack notices the clinking bag of ice in my hand, he doesn’t say anything about it. I set the ice down on the comforter. Yank the sweatshirt over my head and drop it on the floor. And then I burrow into the blankets, situating the ice against my throbbing knee, a tight breath hissing between my teeth.
A moment of quiet. We’re both sitting upright in our beds. Blinking into the darkness. Not talking at all.
And then Jack whispers: “That popcorn smells so good.”
I smile a little. “Tell me about it,” I whisper. “I’ve been smelling it for, like, twenty minutes.”
“That sounds like torture.”
“Yep. Pretty much.”
It’s either a quiet moment in their movie, or our neighbors have finally turned the volume down. It’s only a low murmur through the wall now.
Jack sits all the way up again, seeking my gaze in the dark. “What do you think are the chances of your mom and Connor waking up anytime soon?”
“Slim to none.” I side-eye him. “Why?”
“So. If—theoretically, okay—I were to go down to the lobby, grab a bag of popcorn, pop said bag in the cafeteria microwave, and then bring it back up here . . . would you and I be able to finish it? Without waking those two up?”
“Yes. Definitely.”
Jack squints at me. Skeptical. “Are you sure? You really think we can kill an entire bag of popcorn, in secret, just the two of us?”
“One hundred percent.”
“All right, then. I’ll be right back.”
He returns about five minutes later. My knee is cold and still throbbing. But it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it did before. Which is a good sign.
Jack walks in with a puffed-up bag of popcorn. It smells rich and golden with butter. He grins at me in the dark. Retrieves two coffee filters from the cupboard above the coffeepot. He eases the bag open, its paper corners crinkling, steam bursting through the ripped opening. He crosses the room and sits in the plush armchair on my side of the bed. He fills the coffee filters with warm, fluffy popcorn and extends one to me.
Jack grabs the remote and turns the TV on, keeping the volume below three bars. It’s barely a whisper. I can’t hear anything that’s happening in this sitcom rerun over my own crunching. But I guess it doesn’t matter.
“Cheers,” he whispers, holding his coffee filter aloft. And I can tell from the look in his eyes that what he’s really saying is: I know that you’re hurting. But you’ll get through this. Don’t worry.
“Cheers,” I answer, raising my own. And I hope he knows that what I actually mean is: I’m sorry for talking back to you the other night. You’ve always been like a father to me.
22
Oblivious II
February 18
In the morning, Connor blinks and rolls over and stretches his arms, his small knuckles grazing the headboard behind his mountain of pillows. He blinks again. Yawns. And as he looks around the motel room, his eyes watering from yawning so big, he says, “Are we having popcorn for breakfast?” His voice is raspy. Tired-sounding and confused.
Mom says, “Good morning, sleepyhead. And, uh, no. We’re not. Popcorn isn’t a breakfast food.”
“Then why does it smell like popcorn in here?”
My gaze cuts to Jack. His eyes widen; his brows pop up. There is an empty, deflated bag of microwave popcorn crumpled in the wastebasket. Our coffee filters and a few hard golden kernels left as evidence of our sneakiness.
There is also the damp bag that held my ice last night. Tucked back inside the bucket on the dresser, as if I’d never used it. I’d dumped the melted ice out shortly after Jack and I finished the popcorn. I shut myself inside the bathroom, emptied the bag into the sink, and then ran the hot water until there was nothing left.
Mom shrugs. “I don’t know, Con. But if you get dressed fast, we can all head down to the breakfast buffet and have some more of those waffles.”
Connor shoots upright. “Waffles! Waffles! Let’s go get some waffles!”
I step into my sheepskin slippers, tug my pink beanie with the pom-pom onto my head, and follow my family downstairs to the cafeteria. It’s a blank, beige kind of conference room, filled with banquet tables, coffee thermoses, fruit baskets, plastic towers of cereal, tiered plate stands, and stainless steel food warmers. I fill my paper plate with unappetizing pastries—miniature muffins, a Danish filled with some dark, unidentifiable jam—a banana with too much green along its curved rind, and a firm, cool-skinned orange.
I take a seat. Mom and Connor are in the corner, waiting as steam rises from the waffle iron. There is a man at one of the other round tables, broad-shouldered, dressed in a camo jacket and a trucker hat. He has a cup of coffee clutched in both hands, and is staring at the wall before him, apparently lost in thought. No one else is here for breakfast. This conference room feels too big, too empty.
Jack takes the seat across from me and frowns at my food selection. “Here,” he says, rolling a few sausage links from his plate onto mine. “You need some protein.”
The sausages are burnt and greasy. They smell peppery. They crowd my plate, butting up against the muffins, staining the starched paper with little brown flecks and clear spots of grease. I stare at them in disbelief. I’m kind of disgusted by how shiny they are.
Jack digs into his breakfast, oblivious to my discomfort. Oblivious to the fact that I didn’t get any sausages because I don’t want any sausages.
Mom and Connor come join us at our table, where I am now nibbling along the edge of my Danish, while Jack shovels scrambled eggs into his mouth like his life depends on it. Connor scoots in beside me. His waffle is golden-brown perfection, its squares filled to the brim with syrup.
“So,” Mom says as she sprinkles brown sugar over her bowl of oatmeal. “Connor’s shoes were bothering him yesterday; I think his feet have already grown out of that size. I’m going to take him to the store. Hopefully we’ll find some better shoes before we do the Cape Alava Trail tomorrow. Maisie, can you think of anything you might want? Any shopping you’d like to do? Or would you prefer to relax here at the motel with Jack?”
I catch the look in her eyes as she glances at me. The thinly disguised hopefulness in her voice when she suggests that I stay behind. Which means that she probably knows that I iced my knee last night. And she wants me to be rested before our hikes tomorrow.
“Sure,” I mumble. “I can hang out here. I’ll keep reviewing my math stuff.”
She brightens and says, “Great! I think that’s great, sweetie. You’ll master that algebra in no time, I’m certain of it. My smart girl.”
I look away from her. Take another bite of my Danish.
Mom finishes dressing her oatmeal, whisks her phone out of her pocket, and leans back in her seat to take a picture of our breakfast table. I sigh and block my face with my hand.
23
Changi
ng Weather
February 18
Later, after we finish eating breakfast, after Mom and Connor have left for the store, Eva sends me a text that says: Omg have you heard?!
I type back, Have I heard what?
Eva: Hattie didn’t text you?!!
Eva: She got in. She got her letter! She was accepted into SAB for the summer!!
Eva: Hattie is GOING TO NYC!
I stare at my phone, watching in helpless awe as Eva bombards me with GIFs and images of New York City: the flashing billboards of Times Square, the bustling streets and yellow taxicabs, the mint-green Statue of Liberty. Plus all kinds of celebratory emojis. An entire paragraph of exclamation points. A screen effect that rains confetti down over our thread of messages.
Hattie did it. She’s going to attend the School of American Ballet. The school associated with the New York City Ballet. Her dream school. Her dream company.
Her dream life.
I’m sitting cross-legged on the motel bed, on top of the stiff white covers. My tablet is propped up on a pillow in front of me, the math tutorial videos continuing to play for no reason. Jack is stretched out on the other bed, his eyelids hooded, his breathing so slow and so deep, you’d almost think he’s sleeping. But he’s not. The TV is tuned to the local news, and he’s watching as they go through stories about a fatal collision in Pierce County, a recent controversy involving some senator, and a nationwide recall on E. coli–contaminated lettuce.
This moment doesn’t feel real. The weight of my phone in my hand. The confusing blur of sounds and sensations around me.
Hattie got in.
Frantic, I hit the back arrow at the top of the touch screen and scroll down to our thread of messages. I stare at the words Happy Valentine’s Day! Miss you so much.
The queasy guilt makes my stomach churn.
Our friendship is over. She’s received the best news of her life. And she didn’t even bother to tell me.
And it’s all my fault.
“Wow,” Jack says. “The weather’s changing fast.”
I blink up at the TV screen. The meteorologist is on now, standing in front of a map of western Washington State. He motions with his arms as digitized clouds swirl in from the edges. Some of these clouds are colored green throughout the south end: Aberdeen, Hoquiam, Olympia. Then they turn to shades of pink and magenta, in the central Puget Sound: Bremerton, Seattle, Lynnwood. And the northern areas are all speckled in white: Bellingham, Mount Vernon, Oak Harbor, Sequim, Port Angeles.
“Looks like we might see some snow after all,” he tells me. “They didn’t expect this convergence. They thought we would have at least a few clear days.”
“Wow,” I murmur. Unsure of what else to say. How else to contribute.
“That’s the thing about February,” Jack says. “It’s an unpredictable time of the year.” He glances at me. “If there’s too much snow, we can skip the hikes tomorrow.” Which is really just code for: Let me know if your knee is hurting.
“I think hiking through the snow sounds fun.” Which means: My knee is fine. Because it is fine. It needs to be fine.
I need to be ready for the auditions later this spring. I can’t lose any more time.
Jack nods. Turns his attention back to the TV. “I hope the roads will be okay,” he says. “I really don’t want to miss out on this chance to visit the Elwha River. That place was so important to See-yah.” Jack pauses and swallows. “I wish he’d lived long enough to see them remove those dams. He would’ve been so happy. He believed that the health of the river reflected the health of the community. That’s what he always told me.”
The longing in Jack’s voice pulls me out of my own thoughts.
I blink at him. “What do you mean? About the dams being removed?”
“In 1910, the white settlers started to construct the Elwha Dam. In the same year, they wrote new fishing laws that made it illegal for the Strong People to feed themselves. I’ve told you about that part before, right?”
I nod, remembering. “You said that only American citizens could fish in the rivers. And Natives weren’t considered citizens yet.”
“That’s right. So the people couldn’t fish, and the Elwha Dam was built, then the Glines Canyon Dam came soon after. These structures choked the river. Salmon couldn’t migrate; they couldn’t return to their spawning beds. And the landscape changed. The ecosystems changed. By the time See-yah was born, his family believed the river would never be the same.
“But in 2011, an entire century after the construction began, and about five years—” Jack stops. Breathes. “About five years after See-yah passed, they began the deconstruction process. It was the largest dam removal in world history. No one else had attempted anything like this. But in 2014, both the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams were gone. And the river roared back to life.”
“2014,” I say. “That’s the year Connor was born.”
“Indeed, it was. All the more reason why I wish See-yah could have been there.”
We fall into a thoughtful silence.
My phone pulses in my lap. Another notification has dropped down from Eva: Maisie? Hello? You still there?
I click the screen to black.
24
What Am I Doing?
February 18
It starts to snow that night. But I’m the only one awake long enough to see it.
Earlier, after Connor and Mom came back from the store, he pushed the sheer curtains open. White-gray clouds had swept across the sky, blocking out the winter-bright sun and the pale blue horizon.
“Can you believe it’s going to snow, Maisie?” he asked me. “Maisie, if it snows, can we have a snowball fight? Can we go sledding and make snow angels?”
“It probably won’t be that deep, bud,” Jack said. “But we’ll see.”
And now, the rest of my family is asleep. The motel is still and silent. There are no noisy neighbors tonight. No TVs on, no footsteps down the corridor outside, no car doors slamming in the parking lot. The only sounds are the heater clicking on, sighing warm air into the room. And the nasally breaths and occasional flinches as Connor stirs in his dreams.
Fat white snowflakes drift past the window, barely visible in the dark. The whorls are illuminated in the orangish glow of the streetlamps below. It doesn’t look like any of them are sticking to the ground yet. The pavement is wet and gleaming. Puddles have formed along the edge of the road, little mirrored wells in the asphalt.
My phone is plugged in to its charger and resting on the pillow beside me. I touch its screen; there are no new notifications. No response to the message I finally sent to Hattie. I unlock the phone and open our conversation, just to be certain. But sure enough, all I find is this, from 3:22 p.m.:
Me: Hi Hattie. Sorry I haven’t been the best at texting back lately. I just wanted to let you know, Eva told me you made it into SAB. Congratulations. I always knew you would and I’m so proud of you. Also, I miss you too. And I hope you had a good Valentine’s Day.
I turn the phone over and curl onto my side, pulling my knees up to my chest. Which isn’t as comfortable as I thought it would be. I shift onto my stomach, but the pillow is too stiff beneath my turned cheek. I flop onto my back. I try to control my thoughts. I try to count my breaths.
I stare up at the ceiling, waiting for my eyes to adjust in the dark.
Once the shadows have shapes and I can see my surroundings, I slide out from the covers and off the mattress. I stand beside the bed, watching as the snowflakes continue to fall.
And then my arms float up at my sides. Not quite to second position port de bras. But to something close. Something like it. My arms extend straight out from my shoulders. My elbows are rounded; my palms gently cup the air. I feel my arms stretch, my fingertips lengthen, my lungs expand. My chin tilts up, my shoulders roll back, a vertebra pops in my spine as my posture straightens.
What am I doing?
The question breezes through me; I ignore it.
&nb
sp; I let everything drop. My chin nearly touches the dip in my collarbone. My arms sweep past my hips and upward, inward, crossing at the wrists before my chest. I hold this position. In my classes, my teachers always say to let your breath travel through your body, down the length of your limbs. I picture it, and I feel it, a warm buzz in my fingertips. Energy in my toes.
I take two steps toward the window. Each one kicks up as a pointed foot, a développé to tendu. The loose pant legs of my pajamas flap as I move, and I almost feel like I’m growing taller with each step. Like my body is suddenly bigger than I believed it to be.
And now, I’m standing so close to the glass, I can almost see myself in its reflection: the faint curve of my cheek, the straight line of my nose, the dark gleam of my eyes.
My arms overlap and drift above my head, forming a long oval. Fifth position. My abdomen tightens as I reach. My shoulder blades draw together. My wrists feel weightless. I’m staring out, past the streetlamps and the snowflakes, past the hot-cocoa-colored clouds that span the night sky.
Someone shifts. My heart stalls at the sound of movement. I duck and glance over my shoulder, but none of them are awake; Mom has turned in her sleep, the air leaving her lungs in a heavy gust. She settles into the mattress. Burrows into the blanket. Her breathing turns deep and easy again, like the tide dragging across coarse sand.
I consider sneaking back into bed, trying to fall asleep, as I should.
But I turn to the window instead. To my audience of no one.
25
An Empty Stomach
February 19
The morning light seeps in, and I am somehow awake. I’m sitting in the armchair by the open window, watching the slow turn from indigo to periwinkle dawn to light gray morning. The clouds have thinned. The road is clear and slick; the sidewalks are crusted in snow.
My body feels jittery. Twitchy. The corners of my eyes feel scratchy and dry. And my mind is buzzing. My hands are restless. I grab my phone and check the screen. I lean forward to adjust the pillow at my back. I reach for the remote and turn the TV on. The local news shows that other areas were hit harder by the storm. A reporter stands in a park somewhere, speaking directly to the camera as she gestures to the snowy hillside, the shaggy white trees. A list of school district closures scrolls across the bottom of the screen. Aerial footage shows cars abandoned at the edges of freeways and side streets. Huddled and buried in the whitened landscapes.
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