Each day, the sun set before five P.M. and didn’t rise until ten A.M., giving them a grand total of six hours of daylight—and sixteen hours of darkness—a day. Inside the cabin, the Dixie cups showed no new green starts. Dad spent hours hunched over his ham radio, talking to Mad Earl and Clyde, but more and more of the world was cut away. Nothing came easily—not getting water or cutting wood or feeding the animals or going to school.
But worst of all was the rapidly emptying root cellar. They had no vegetables anymore, no potatoes or onions or carrots. They were almost to the end of their fish stores, and a single caribou haunch hung in the cache. Since they ate almost nothing but protein, they knew the meat wouldn’t last long.
Her parents fought constantly about the lack of money and supplies. Dad’s anger—kept barely in check since the funeral—was slowly escalating again. Leni could feel it uncoiling, taking up space. She and Mama moved cautiously, tried never to aggravate him.
Today, Leni woke in the dark, ate breakfast and dressed for school in the dark, and arrived at her classroom in the dark. The bleary-eyed sun didn’t appear until past ten o’clock, but when it did show up, sending streamers of brittle yellow light into the shadowy lantern- and woodstove-lit classroom, everyone perked up.
“It’s a sunny day! The weatherman was right!” Ms. Rhodes said from her place at the front of the classroom. Leni had been in Alaska long enough to know that a sunny, blue-skied January day was noteworthy. “I think we need to get out of this classroom, get a little air in our lungs and some sunshine on our faces. Blow out the winter cobwebs. I’ve planned a field trip!”
Axle groaned. He hated anything and everything that had to do with school. He peered through the rat’s-nest fringe of black hair he never washed. “Aw, come on … can’t we just go home early? I could go ice fishing.”
Ms. Rhodes ignored the scruffy-haired teenager. “The older of you—Matthew, Axle, and Leni—help the littles put on their coats and get their backpacks.”
“I’m not helping,” Axle said flatly. “Let the lovebirds do everything.”
Leni’s face flamed at the comment. She didn’t look at Matthew.
“Fine. Whatever,” Ms. Rhodes said. “You can go home.”
Axle didn’t need more encouragement. He grabbed his parka and left the school in a rush.
Leni got up from her seat and went to help Marthe and Agnes with their parkas. No one else had shown up for school today; the trip from Bear Cove must have proven too harsh.
She turned back, saw Matthew standing by his desk, shoulders slumped, dirty hair fallen across his eyes. She went to him, reached out, touched his flannel sleeve. “You want me to get you your coat?”
He tried to smile. “Yeah. Thanks.”
She got Matthew’s camo parka and handed it to him.
“Okay, everyone, let’s go,” Ms. Rhodes said. She led the students out of the classroom and into the bright, sunlit day. They marched through town and down to the harbor, where a Beaver float plane was docked.
The plane was dented up and in need of paint. It rolled and creaked and pulled at its lines with every slap of the incoming tide. At their approach, the plane’s door opened and a wiry man with a bushy white beard jumped down onto the dock. He wore a battered trucker’s cap and mismatched boots. The smile he gave them was so big it bunched up his cheeks and turned his eyes into slits.
“Kids, this is Dieter Manse, from Homer. He used to be a Pan Am pilot. Climb aboard,” Ms. Rhodes said. To Dieter, she said, “Thanks, man. I appreciate this.” She glanced worriedly back at Matthew. “We needed to clear our heads a bit.”
The old man nodded. “My pleasure, Tica.”
In her previous life, Leni wouldn’t have believed this man had been a captain at Pan Am. But up here, lots of people had been one thing on the Outside and became another in Alaska. Large Marge used to be a big-city prosecutor and now took showers at the Laundromat and sold gum, and Natalie had gone from teaching economics at a university to captaining her own fishing boat. Alaska was full of unexpected people—like the woman who lived in a broken-down school bus at Anchor Point and read palms. Rumor had it that she used to be a cop in New York City. Now she walked around with a parrot on her shoulder. Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you. No one cared if you had an old car on your deck, let alone a rusted fridge. Any life that could be imagined could be lived up here.
Leni stepped up into the plane, ducking her head, bending in half. Once inside, she took a seat in the middle row and snapped her seat belt in place. Ms. Rhodes sat down beside her. Matthew lumbered past them, head down, not making eye contact.
“Tom says he’s not talking much,” Ms. Rhodes said to Leni, leaning close.
“I don’t know what he needs,” Leni said, turning back, watching Matthew take a seat and strap his seat belt tight.
“A friend,” Ms. Rhodes said, but it was a stupid answer. The kind of thing adults said. Obvious. But what was that friend supposed to say?
The pilot climbed aboard and strapped himself in and put on a headset, then started the engine. Leni heard Marthe and Agnes giggling in their seats behind her.
The float plane engine hummed, the metal all around her rattled. Waves slapped the floats.
The pilot was saying something about seat cushions and what to do in case of an unscheduled water landing.
“Wait. That means a crash. He’s talking about what to do if we crash,” she said, feeling the start of panic.
“We’ll be fine,” Ms. Rhodes said. “You can’t be Alaskan and be afraid of small planes. This is how we get around.”
Leni knew it was true. With so little of the state accessible by roads, boats and planes were important up here. In the winter, the vastness of Alaska was connected by frozen rivers and lakes. In the summer all of that fast-moving water separated and isolated them. Bush planes helped them get around. Still, she hadn’t been in an airplane before and it felt remarkably unsteady and unreliable. She clutched the armrests and held on. She tried to sweep fear out of her mind as the plane rambled past the breakwater, clattered hard, and began lifting into the sky. The plane swayed sickeningly, leveled out. Leni didn’t open her eyes. If she did, she knew she’d see things that scared her: bolts that could pop out, windows that could crack, mountains they could crash into. She thought about that plane that had crashed in the Andes a few years ago. The survivors had become cannibals.
Her fingers ached. That was how tightly she was holding on.
“Open your eyes,” Ms. Rhodes said. “Trust me.”
She opened her eyes, pushed the vibrating curls out of her face.
Through a circle of Plexiglas, the world was something she’d never seen before. Blue, black, white, purple. From this vantage point, the geographical history of Alaska came alive for her; she saw the violence of its birth—volcanoes like Mounts Redoubt and Augustine erupting; mountain peaks thrust up from the sea and then worn down by rocky blue glaciers; fjords sculpted by rivers of moving ice. She saw Homer, huddled on a strip of land between high sandstone bluffs, fields covered in snow, and the Spit pointing out into the bay. Glaciers had formed all of this landscape, cut through and crunched forward, hollowing out deep bays, leaving mountains on either side.
The colors were spectacular, saturating. Across the blue bay, the Kenai Mountains rose like something out of a fairy tale, white sawlike blades that pushed high, high into the blue sky. In places, the glaciers on their steep sides were the pale blue of robins’ eggs.
The mountains expanded, swallowed the horizon. Jagged, white peaks striated by black crevasses and turquoise glaciers. “Wow,” she said, pressing closer to the window. They flew close to mountain peaks.
And then they were descending, gliding low over an inlet. Snow blanketed everything, lay in glittering patches on the beach, turned to ice and slush by the water. The float pl
ane swerved and banked, lifted up again, and flew over a thicket of white trees. She saw a huge bull moose walking toward the bay.
They were over an inlet and descending fast.
She clutched the armrests again, closed her eyes, prepared.
They landed with a hard thump, and waves pounded the pontoons. The pilot killed the engine, jumped out of the plane, splashing into the ice-cold water, dragging the float plane higher onto the shore, tying it to a fallen log. Slush floated around his ankles.
Leni got out of the plane carefully (nothing was more dangerous up here than getting wet in the winter), walked along the float, and jumped out onto the slushy beach. Matthew was right behind her.
Ms. Rhodes gathered the few students together on the icy shore. “Okay, kids. The littles and I are going to hike over to the ridge. Matthew, you and Leni just go exploring. Have some fun.”
Leni looked around. The beauty of this place, the majesty of it, was overwhelming. A deep and abiding peace existed here; there were no human voices, no thumping footsteps, no laughter or engines running. The natural world spoke loudest here, the breathing of the tide across the rocks, the slap of water on the float plane’s pontoons, the distant barking of sea lions lumped together on a rock, being circled by chattering gulls.
The water beyond the shore ice was a stunning aqua, the color Leni imagined the Caribbean Sea to be, with a snowy shoreline decorated with huge white-covered black rocks. Snowcapped peaks muscled in close. Up high, Leni saw ivory-colored dots scattered on the impossibly steep sides—mountain goats. She reached into her pocket for her last, precious roll of film.
She couldn’t wait to take some pictures, but she had to be judicious with the film.
Where would she start? The ice-glazed beach rocks that looked like seed pearls? The frozen fern fronds growing up from a snow-rounded black log? The turquoise water? She turned toward Matthew, started to say something, but he was gone.
She turned, felt icy water shushing over her boots, and saw Matthew standing far down the beach, alone, his arms crossed. He had dropped his parka; it lay inches away from the incoming waves. His hair whipped across his face.
She splashed through the water toward him, reached out. “Matthew, you need to put your coat on. It’s cold—”
He yanked away from her touch, stumbled away. “Get away from me,” he said harshly. “I don’t want you to see…”
“Matthew?” She grabbed his arm, forced him to look at her. His eyes were red-rimmed from crying.
He shoved her away. She stumbled back, tripped over a piece of driftwood, and fell hard.
It happened fast enough to take her breath away. She lay there, sprawled on the frozen rocks, the cold water washing toward her, and stared up at him, her elbow stinging with pain.
“Oh, my God,” he said. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to do that.”
Leni got to her feet, stared at him. I didn’t mean to do that. The same words she’d heard spoken by her dad.
“There’s something wrong with me,” Matthew said in a shaky voice. “My dad blames me and I can’t sleep for shit, and without my mom, the house is so quiet that I want to scream.”
Leni didn’t know how to respond.
“I have nightmares … about Mom. I see her face, under the ice … screaming … I don’t know what to do. I didn’t want you to know.”
“Why?”
“I want you to like me. Sometimes you’re the only thing … Oh, shit … forget it.” He shook his head, started crying again. “I’m a loser.”
“No. You just need some help,” she said. “Who wouldn’t? After what you’ve been through.”
“My aunt in Fairbanks wants me to come live with her. She thinks I should play hockey and learn to fly and see a shrink. I’d get to be with Aly. Unless…” He looked at Leni.
“So you’ll go to Fairbanks,” she said quietly.
He sighed heavily. She thought maybe it had already been decided and he’d been waiting to tell her all along. “I’ll miss you.”
He was going. Leaving.
At that, she felt an aching sense of sorrow expand in her chest. She would miss him so much, but he needed help. Because of her father, she knew what nightmares and sadness and a lack of sleep could do to a person, what a toxic combination that could be. What kind of friend would she be if she cared more about herself than him?
I’ll miss you, she wanted to say back to him, but what was the point? Words didn’t help.
* * *
AFTER MATTHEW LEFT, January got darker. Colder.
“Leni, would you set the table for dinner?” Mama asked on a particularly cold and stormy night, with wind clawing to get in, snow swirling. She was frying up some Spam in a cast-iron skillet, pressing down on it with her spatula. Two slices of Spam for three people was all they had.
Leni put down her social studies book and headed for the kitchen, keeping her eye on Dad. He paced along the back wall, his hands flexing and fisting, flexing and fisting, shoulders hunched, muttering to himself. His arms were stringy and thin, his stomach concave beneath his stained thermal underwear top.
He hit his forehead hard with the heel of his palm, muttering something unintelligible.
Leni sidled around the table and turned into the small kitchen.
She gave Mama a worried look.
“What did you say?” Dad said, materializing behind Leni, looming.
Mama pressed the spatula down on a slice of Spam. A blob of grease popped up, landed on the back of her wrist. “Ouch! Damn it!”
“Are you two talking about me?” Dad demanded.
Leni gently took her father by the arm, led him to the table.
“Your mother was talking about me, wasn’t she? What did she say? Did she mention Tom?”
Leni pulled out a chair, eased him into it. “She was talking about dinner, Dad. That’s all.” She started to leave. He grabbed her hand, pulled so hard she stumbled into him. “You love me, right?”
Leni didn’t like the emphasis. “Mama and I both love you.”
Mama showed up as if on cue, put the small plate of Spam alongside an enamel bowl of Thelma’s brown-sugar baked beans.
Mama leaned down, kissed Dad’s cheek, pressed her palm to his face.
It calmed him, that touch. He sighed, tried to smile. “Smells good.”
Leni took her seat and began serving. She poured herself a glass of watery, powdered milk.
Mama sat across from Leni, picked at her beans, pushed them around on her plate, watching Dad. He muttered something under his breath. “You need to eat something, Ernt.”
“I can’t eat this shit.” He swept his plate sideways, sending it crashing to the floor.
He shot up, strode away from the table, moving fast, grabbed his parka off of the wall hook, and wrenched the door open. “No g-damn peace,” he said, leaving the cabin, slamming the door behind him. Moments later, they heard the bus start up, spin out, drive away.
Leni looked across the table.
“Eat,” Mama said, and bent down for the fallen plate and glass.
After dinner, they stood side by side, washing and drying the dishes, putting them away on the shelves above the counter.
“You want to play Yahtzee?” Leni finally asked. Her question held as much enthusiasm as her mother’s sad nod.
They sat at the card table, playing the game for as long as either could stand the pretense.
Leni knew they were both waiting to hear the VW rumble back into the yard. Worrying. Wondering which was worse: him being here or him being gone.
“Where is he, you think?” Leni asked after what seemed like hours.
“Mad Earl’s, if he could get up there. Or the Kicking Moose, if the roads were too bad.”
“Drinking,” Leni said.
“Drinking.”
“Maybe we should—”
“Don’t,” Mama said. “Just go to bed, okay?” She sat back, lit up one of her precious last cigarettes.
Leni
gathered up the dice and scorecards and the little brown and yellow fake-leather shaker, and fit them all back into the red box.
She climbed up the loft ladder and crawled into her sleeping bag without even bothering to brush her teeth. Downstairs, she heard her mother pacing.
Leni rolled over for her paper and a pen. Since Matthew had been gone, she’d written him several letters, which Large Marge mailed for her. Matthew wrote back religiously, short notes about his new hockey team and how it felt to be in a school that actually had sports teams. His handwriting was so bad she could barely decipher it. She waited impatiently for each letter and ripped them open immediately. She read each one over and over, like a detective, looking for clues and hints of emotion. Neither she nor Matthew knew quite what to say, how to use something as impersonal as words to create a bridge between their disparate lives, but they kept writing. She didn’t yet know how he felt about himself or the move or the loss of his mother, but she knew that he was thinking about her. That was more than enough to begin with.
Dear Matthew,
Today we learned more about the Klondike Gold Rush in school. Ms. Rhodes actually mentioned your grandma as an example of the kind of woman who set out North with nothing and found—
She heard a scream.
Leni scrambled out of her sleeping bag and half slid down the ladder.
“There’s something out there,” Mama said, coming out of her bedroom, holding up a lantern. In its glow, she looked wild, pale.
A wolf howled. The wail undulated through the darkness.
Close.
Another wolf answered.
The goats screamed in response, a terrible keening cry that sounded human.
Leni grabbed the rifle from the rack and went to open the door.