whether you like it or not.
And regardless of how you feel about me,
I’ll do everything I can to get you home.”
Through the whole
heated exchange,
Ivy had stayed glued
to her chest,
clutched hard,
like a pillow
after a terrible
nightmare.
When it got quiet,
I watched
as Victoria
gently
and lovingly
loosened her grip,
raised the baby up,
and tenderly kissed
her teeny-tiny
face.
I leaned over,
closed my eyes,
and put my warm cheek
against
the glass.
Freezing.
Frosty.
Cold.
into the night
Black
replaced
white.
Silence
replaced
shouting.
Fear
replaced
anger.
We kept the car on
for a while,
then turned it off
to save the gas we had
so we could get out
when we were able.
Victoria and I
took turns
holding Ivy,
making quiet
exchanges,
the tension
in the car
thicker
than the snowdrifts
outside.
She spoke first,
in barely a whisper.
“I’m sorry, Alice.
We’ll be okay.
I promise you.
We will.”
I started to argue,
but before I did,
I thought of Claire
and how an apology
from one of us
would have kept the crack
from turning into a
canyon.
It wasn’t the time
to grow further apart.
I pulled out
a bag of chips
and tore it open.
“Dinner?” I asked.
the good and the bad
There was
one small container of formula
and two baby bottles
Victoria brought along
in case we needed to feed Ivy
and couldn’t stop somewhere.
Good.
There were three
bottles of water
and one can of Diet Dr Pepper
I bought at the store
before we left.
Pretty good.
There was one sleeping bag
for two and a half people.
Pretty bad.
There were two small bags of chips
and one candy bar
for two hungry people.
Bad.
We each had a couple of chips
and a bite of candy bar
for dinner,
followed by
some sips of water.
“Somebody will find us,” she told me
as I slid into the sleeping bag
to take the first shift of sleep.
My stomach
grumbled a reply of
“I sure as hell hope so.”
this isn’t Hollywood
I don’t think
there has ever been
a night
longer than
that first night
in all
of
eternity.
We took turns
curling up
on the backseat
in the sleeping bag,
although it might as well have been called
the tossing-and-turning bag
because I don’t think
either one of us
actually slept.
Ivy slept
in fits and starts
underneath the layers of clothes
and three blankets
she was swaddled in.
We turned the car on
throughout the night
and ran the heat.
As I lay there,
dreaming of home,
I thought of the movie
The Snowman,
where the snowman
takes the little boy
and flies through the air.
Too bad
real life
is never anything
like the movies.
from scared to petrified
When the darkness faded
and a grayish light
filled the sky,
we saw
that the monster
had grown
to gigantic proportions
overnight.
Not only
had it not
let us go,
but it had
completely
and totally
devoured us.
We were
savagely trapped
in the snowy belly
of the beast.
day two
We managed
to make it out
to the tree
that had become
Mother Nature’s bathroom,
but the snow
was now up to our knees.
When the snow started to dump
on us again,
my hungry stomach
tightened up in response,
knowing
the snow
would only get
deeper
and deeper.
“We have to do something,” I cried
after a breakfast of Diet Dr Pepper
and a lunch of a few chips.
“We can’t just sit here and wait.
Can’t we build a fire or something?
So planes will see us?”
“Do you have a match?” she asked me.
“No, but—”
“But what?
We just have to wait.
They’ll go looking for us
when we don’t show up today.
They will.
And they’ll find us.”
“Isn’t the cigarette lighter
from the car in here somewhere?
Check the glove box.”
While she looked,
I jumped in the back of the car,
tossing items,
searching,
desperate to find something
we could use.
And that’s when I saw
the brightly wrapped
Christmas presents.
merry Christmas early
She didn’t find
the lighter.
I opened Ivy’s big gift,
with lots of colorful paper,
which would be
the most helpful.
I ripped carefully,
trying to keep it
as whole as possible,
to wave in the air
like a big flag.
It was an antique stool,
a few nicks
here and there,
obviously
lovingly used.
Victoria reached over
and ran her hand over it,
like it was a beloved pet.
“The stool my grandma gave me,” she said.
“They kept it all this time.”
An image
of a little girl
named Ivy
toddling up to the stool
to wash her hands
flashed through my brain.
Before that moment,
I hadn’t pictured her
as anything
but a little,
annoying blob.
But in an ins
tant,
I saw what I couldn’t see,
and it was
wonderful
and sad
all at the same time.
Next I opened
the gift for Dad.
A bottle of his favorite
brandy.
Victoria opened the bottle
and took a swig.
She handed it to me.
I took a whiff
and the smell
sent shivers
through my body.
I put the cap on
and decided I’d save it
for a more desperate
moment.
When I got to my present,
I paused before I opened it,
hoping it would be something
really useful
in the coming hours.
I gasped
when I saw the antique book,
the cover worn and
corners frayed,
a musty smell to it.
Carefully
I opened
the front cover.
1897.
Incredible.
My own antique edition
of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Truly amazing,
although not very helpful
unless we could slip into
the rabbit hole
and find our way home.
I realized
Victoria must have told
her mother that
my parents named me
after Alice.
I was snapped out of my
wonderland trance
when Victoria asked,
“May I open mine?”
I handed her the tiny box,
which wouldn’t do us much good
as far as wrapping paper
was concerned.
Inside
lay a gold locket
with a tiny picture
of Ivy inside.
She slipped it on,
then gave the locket
a little
kiss.
“For luck,” she whispered.
If only it were
that easy.
hocus-pocus
Like three-year-olds being silly,
we put socks on our hands
and underwear on our heads,
because we hadn’t thought
we’d need
gloves and hats
in California.
Then we stepped outside
and waved
our red and green paper
through the white frosty air,
with the hope
that someone would fly by
and see us.
The trees stood above us,
their branches a canopy
that kept us
from seeing
much of the sky
at all.
As I waved the paper
through the whiteness,
I thought of Mom
swirling her brush of paint
across the white canvas,
turning nothing
into something
magical.
And I wished
for some of that
colorful magic
to come
to us.
failed miserably
It wasn’t long
before our
crisp, vibrant paper flags
became a soggy mess,
like tulips in a flower bed
pummeled
by an unexpected
hailstorm.
We threw the paper
on the ground
in defeat.
I took the white underwear
off my head
as we trudged back
to the car.
I twirled it around
on my finger,
as if waving
a different
kind of flag.
The kind that says
we
surrender.
a first
While we sat there,
trying to warm up again,
Vic asked me
how my phone
broke.
And so
I told her
the whole
ugly story
of me
and Claire.
She listened,
asking the right questions
in the right places,
like a good lawyer
in a courtroom.
And yet
I didn’t feel her
judging me.
Instead
what I felt
was her
trying
to understand me.
getting to know you
Over the course
of a couple of hours,
I learned
Vic’s favorite meal
is meatloaf with mashed potatoes.
But she never makes it
because Dad told her
I hate meatloaf.
I learned
her favorite movie
is Sleepless in Seattle with Tom Hanks,
which I’ve never seen.
She told me we’d watch it together
when we got home.
I learned
she was starting to miss
her accounting job
and hoped to go back to work
part time when Ivy
turned four months old.
I learned
some other stuff,
but mostly
I learned
she’s pretty easy
to talk to.
kumbaya
Vic reached over
and grabbed my guitar.
“Did your dad get you this?”
I shook my head.
“It was my mom’s.”
She handed it to me.
“Why don’t you play something?”
I strummed
a couple of chords,
then tweaked a jingle
Dad and I had made up
about a cheap wine he likes.
“When your car is stuck
and you’re out of luck
and there’s no tow truck
in sight,
and you’re horror struck
and a sitting duck,
drink Three Buck Chuck
all night!”
She laughed.
“I could go for a bottle of that about now.”
It was quiet for a minute.
“I wonder what Dad’s doing,” I said softly.
She reached over
and touched my arm.
“Everything he can to find us.”
I nodded.
She was right.
She had to be.
“Okay, now, let’s sing some campfire songs,” she said.
And so,
with no fire,
except the one
we kept dreaming about,
I played
and we sang.
answers
After two days
of little food
and lots of stress,
Victoria’s milk
started to wane.
Ivy didn’t like
the cold formula
very well.
It made
Vic
more worried
than she had been.
When darkness came,
I held the baby
as Victoria tried
to sleep,
and I noticed
Ivy’s
teeny
tiny
fingers.
Tiny
little
icicles
I tried to warm
in my
hands.
I remembered the
day Claire asked me
all the questio
ns
about her.
I thought,
If I could answer her now,
I would tell her:
Yes, she’s cute.
She looks like my dad,
with his flat nose
and dimple in his chin.
She has lots of dark hair.
And Claire,
although you didn’t ask me,
I’ve come to learn
that I love
holding her
in my arms,
even if I pray as I do,
Please keep her safe
Please keep her safe
Please keep her safe…
dreaming
I drifted
in and out of sleep,
dreaming of
doughnuts with coconut
and warm, smooth coffee.
I dreamt of music
in church,
of a voice
that filled me with
joy,
love,
and hope.
I dreamt of
warm kisses
from a hot boy
with a burning flame
for me in his heart.
When I woke up,
the warmth vanished
faster than a bubble
that’s been
popped.
melting hearts
The clock on the dashboard
said 5:07 when it was time