Just once, came the answer from the Leni reformed by passion.

Just once.

But how?

* * *

IN EARLY AUGUST, during the eighteen-hour days, stocking up on food for the winter was paramount. They harvested the garden and canned vegetables; picked berries and made jam; fished in the ocean and the rivers and the bay. They smoked salmon and trout and halibut.

Today they’d woken early and spent all day on the river catching salmon. Fishing was serious business and no one bothered to talk much. Afterward, they hauled their catch home and got started on preserving the meat. Another in a string of long, exhausting days.

They finally took a break for dinner and went into the cabin. At the table, Mama set down a dinner of salmon pot pie and green beans cooked in bacon fat. She smiled at Leni, trying to pretend everything was okay. “Leni, I bet you’re excited for moose season to start.”

“Yeah,” she said. Her voice was shaky. All she could think about anymore was Matthew. Missing him made her physically ill.

Dad poked his fork through the flaky crust, looking for fish. “Cora, we’re going to Sterling on Saturday. There’s a snow machine for sale, and ours is going to shit. And I need some hinges for the gate. Leni, you’ll need to stay here and take care of the critters.”

Leni almost dropped her fork. Did he mean it?

Sterling was at least an hour and a half away by road, and if Dad wanted to bring home a snow machine, he’d need to drive his truck, which meant the ferry, which was a half an hour ride each way. From here to Sterling and back would take all day.

Dad went back to picking through his pot pie. When his fish was all gone, he went through looking for potatoes, then carrots, and finally peas.

Mama looked at Leni. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, Ernt. Let’s all go. I don’t like the idea of Leni home alone.”

Leni felt suspended on the silence while Dad dragged a piece of bread across his plate. “It’s uncomfortable for all three of us to be crammed into the truck for so long. She’s fine.”

* * *

SATURDAY FINALLY ARRIVED.

“Okay, Leni,” Dad said in his sternest voice. “It’s summer. You know what that means. Black bears. The guns are loaded. Keep the door locked if you’re inside. When you go for water, make lots of noise, take your bear whistle. We should be home by five, but if we’re late, I want you in the cabin with the door locked by eight. I don’t care how light it is outside. No fishing from the shore. Okay?”

“Dad, I’m almost eighteen. I know all that.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Eighteen only sounds old to you. Humor me.”

“I won’t leave the property and I’ll lock the door,” Leni promised.

“Good girl.” Dad grabbed a box full of pelts that he would sell to the furrier in Sterling and headed for the door.

When he was gone, Mama said, “Please, Leni. Don’t screw up. You’re so close to leaving for college. Just a few weeks.” She sighed. “You are not listening.”

“I am listening. I won’t do anything stupid,” Leni lied.

Outside, the truck horn honked.

Leni hugged her mother and literally shoved her toward the door.

Leni watched them drive away.

Then she waited, counted down the minutes until the ferry’s departure time.

Precisely forty-seven minutes after they left, she jumped onto her bicycle and pedaled down the bumpy driveway, through the opening in the plank wall and onto the main road. She turned onto the Walker’s road. She came to a thumping stop in front of the two-story log house and stepped off her bike, glancing around. No one would be inside on a day like this, not with so many chores to do. She saw Mr. Walker off to the left, near the trees, driving a bulldozer, moving piles of dirt around.

Leni dropped her bike in the grass and walked over the grassy berm and stared down the wide, weathered gray steps that led to the pebbled beach. Broken mussel shells lay scattered across the kelp and mud and rocks.

Matthew stood in the shallow water at a sloping metal table, filleting big silver and red salmon, pulling sacs of bright orange eggs out, carefully laying them out to dry. Seagulls cawed overhead, swooping and flapping, waiting for scraps. Guts floated in the water, brushed up against his boots.

Tags: Kristin Hannah Fiction
Source: readsnovelonline.net