The Great Alone

Some things were dangerous; they all knew that.

Leni bent to her task. She was concentrating so keenly on making her cuts that it was a moment before she noticed the sound of an engine. Then she saw a flash of headlights come through the window, illuminating the cabin in a staccato burst.

Moments later, the cabin door opened.

Dad walked in. He wore a faded, frayed trucker’s hat, pulled low on his brow, his long beard and mustache untended. After months on the pipeline, he had the sinewy, hard look of a man who drank too much and ate too little. The harsh Alaska weather had given his skin a lined, leathery look.

Mama shot to her feet, looking instantly anxious. “Ernt! You’re home early! You should have told me you were coming.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking at Mr. Walker. “I can see why you’d want to know.”

“It’s just a hand of cards with neighbors,” Mr. Walker said, pushing to his feet. “But we’ll leave you to your reunion.” He walked past Dad (who didn’t take a step backward, forced Mr. Walker to change course), took his parka from the hook by the door, and put it on. “Thanks, gals.”

When he was gone, Mama stared at Dad, her face pale, her mouth parted slightly. She had a breathless, worried look about her.

Large Marge stood up. “I can’t get my stuff together quick enough, so I’ll just stay tonight, if you don’t mind. I’m sure you don’t.”

Dad didn’t spare Large Marge a glance. He had eyes only for Mama. “Far be it for me to tell a fat woman what to do.”

Large Marge laughed and walked away from the dining table. She plopped onto the sofa Dad had bought from a hotel going out of business in Anchorage, put her slippered feet up on the new coffee table.

Mama went to Dad, put her arms around him, pulled him close. “Hey, you,” she whispered, kissing his throat. “I missed you.”

“They fired me. Sons of bitches.”

“Oh, no,” Mama said. “What happened? Why?”

“A lying son of a bitch said I was drinking on the job. And my boss is a prick. It wasn’t my fault.”

“Poor Ernt,” Mama said. “You never get a break.”

He touched Mama’s face, tilted her chin up, kissed her hard. “God, I missed you,” he said against her lips. She moaned at his touch, molded her body to his.

They drifted toward the bedroom, pushed through the clacking beads, apparently unaware that anyone else was in the cabin. Leni heard them fall on the bed with a thump, heard their breathing accelerate.

Leni sat back on her heels. Good God. She would never understand her parents’ relationship. It shamed Leni; that unshakable love both she and Mama had for Dad gave her a bad, heartsick feeling. There was something wrong with them; she knew it. Saw it in the way Large Marge sometimes looked at Mama.

“It ain’t normal, kid,” Large Marge said.

“What is?”

“Who the hell knows? Crazy Pete is the happiest married person I know.”

“Well, Matilda’s no ordinary goose. You hungry?”

Large Marge patted her big belly. “You bet. Your mama’s stew is my favorite.”

“I’ll get us some. God knows they won’t be out of the bedroom for a while.” Leni wrapped up the meat she’d butchered, then washed her hands with water from the bucket by the sink. In the kitchen, she cranked up the radio as loud as it would go, but it wasn’t enough to drown out the reunion in the bedroom.

* * *

BREAKUP IN ALASKA. The season of melting, movement, noise, when the sunlight tenatively came back, shone down on dirty, patchy snow. The world shifted, shrugging off the cold, making sounds like great gears turning. Blocks of ice as big as houses broke free, floated downstream, hitting anything in their way. Trees groaned and fell over as the wet, unstable ground moved beneath them. Snow turned to slush and then to water that collected in every hollow and indentation in the land.

Things lost in the snow were found again: a hat taken by the wind, a coil of rope; beer cans that had been tossed into snowbanks floated to the muddy surface of the road. Black spruce needles lay in murky puddles, branches broken by storms floated in the water that ran downhill from every corner of their land. The goats stood knee-deep in a sucking muck. No amount of hay could soak it up.

Water filled tree wells and ran along roadsides and pooled everywhere, reminding everyone that this part of Alaska was technically a rain forest. You could stand anywhere and hear ice cracking up and water sluicing from tree limbs and eaves, along the sides of the road, running in rivulets along every indentation in the oversaturated ground.

The animals came out of hiding. Moose ambled through town. No one ever took a turn too quickly. Sea ducks returned in squawking flocks and settled on waves in the bay. Bears came out of their dens and lumbered down hillsides looking for food. Nature was spring-cleaning, scrubbing away the ice and cold and frost, clearing the windows to let in the light.