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A brief silence. “I let my husband hit me again and again and again.”
Bill sighed. She covered the pot and set it on the stove. She turned and leaned back against the counter and folded her arms. “What are you going to do about it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You told Moses you weren’t going back to your husband. Did you mean it?”
“I meant it.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay, then. You’ve taken action. You’ve made a decision. Stick to it.”
Amelia looked at her. “You don’t think I will.”
Bill shook her head, let out a breath. “Amelia, I don’t know you well enough to say what you will or you won’t do. I will say that I’ve seen a lot of women in your position, and that I’ve seen a lot of women take it and take it and take it. I’ve even seen a few men in that kind of situation. It’s never pretty. But it wouldn’t happen if the person letting it happen didn’t get something out of it.”
“I didn’t get anything out of it except hurt.”
Bill raised her eyebrows.
“I didn’t want to get hurt! I didn’t like it!”
Bill shrugged. “Then don’t go back.” She unfolded her arms and stood straight. “Understand one thing, Amelia. Whatever happened to you in your marriage, whatever happened to you before that”-Amelia went white beneath her newly acquired tan-“none of that matters a good goddamn. It’s what you do now that counts. It’s what you do tomorrow. It’s your life. Moses has given you a breather. What happens when we leave here is up to you.”
“I know that.”
“Good.” Bill peered through the window. The woodshed was around back and she couldn’t see the menfolk, but she heard Moses curse and Tim’s laughing oath and was satisfied.
“Why do you want to go to New Orleans?”
“What?”
Bill turned to see Amelia pointing at the Frommer’s guide to New Orleans lying open on the bunk. “Oh. Why? Why not? Best music, best food in this hemisphere. Who wouldn’t want to go?”
“What’s it like there?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been.”
“When are you going?”
“I don’t know. Sometime. Have to get free of the bar.”
“Dottie’s taking care of the bar right now,” Amelia pointed out.
Bill turned, half laughing, half exasperated. “What’s going on? You want to come?”
Amelia’s eyes lit up. “Sure!”
Bill shrugged. “Okay. Start saving your money for a ticket.”
“Oh.” The light in the girl’s eyes faded. “I don’t have a job.”
“Get one.”
A silence. “Yeah,” Amelia said slowly. “I could do that.”
A rustle of clothing told Bill that the girl was getting dressed. “One more thing.”
“What?”
Bill turned to meet her eyes. “Don’t hurt that boy out there. Not any more than you have to, anyway.”
The girl flushed. “I won’t.”
“Good.”
“Bill-?”
“What?”
“We saw you,” the girl said in a low voice. “You and uncle. On the porch. When we were coming back from the pond.” She sneaked a look through her hair and saw that Bill looked more amused than appalled.
“You did, did you? That must have been an eyeful.”
“I-we-”
“Never mind,” Bill said. “I can guess.” She turned. “It was okay?”
Amelia blushed a deep vivid red this time. “Yes.” She hesitated.
“Go ahead. Tell. Ask. Whatever you need to know.”
“We-well, we did it twice.”
“Ah, to be a teenager again,” Bill murmured.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“It was okay,” Amelia said, the wondering tone back in her voice. “It didn’t even hurt. And the second time… it even feltgood. ”
“It’s supposed to.”
“It is?”
“Yes,” Bill said firmly.
“Oh.”
“Amelia.”
The girl raised her head from contemplation of her clasped hands.
“You’re seventeen, you’ve been to school, you know all the dangers. Hell, you have to know about the STD problems in the Bush, especially AIDS.”
The girl nodded.
“Be careful, okay? Just be careful.”
Amelia stood up, very solemn. “I promise, Bill,” she said, as if she were taking an oath. “I promise I will be careful.”
“I checked your day pack,” Bill said.
Amelia ducked her head, her face flushing. “I thought maybe you did.”
“I notice your prescription runs out this month.”
“I have more at home.” Amelia paused. “My husband doesn’t want kids.”
Bill nodded. “Do you?”
“Yes. Someday. Not now.” The response was automatic, and Bill watched the girl listen to herself say the words. “Maybe,” she said slowly. “I don’t really know that I do want to have kids.”
Bill nodded, as if Amelia had confirmed some i
“I will,” Amelia said, still with that look of surprise. “I will,” she said again, more firmly.
There was a noise at the door and Amelia looked alarmed. “Don’t worry,” Bill said, gri
Amelia looked relieved.
The door opened and a third woman fell into the room.
At first they couldn’t tell she was a woman, she was so covered in snow and frost and mud. Leaves and twigs were caught in hair so lank and matted they couldn’t tell what color it was. Her blue jeans were soaked through. She was wearing te
They were caught motionless in shock. The woman looked up at them and opened her mouth. Her voice was the merest croak of sound. “Help.”
She tried to say more, but couldn’t. “Help,” she said again, and lay her head down on the floor and closed her eyes.
TWENTY
Portage Creek, September 6
The strain of holding the plane more or less level was begi
She risked a look at Liam. He was staring straight ahead with a grim expression. His blue eyes were narrowed, as if in concentration, as if by concentrating on the control panel he could by sheer effort of will make the plane fly straight and true. His knuckles were white where his hands were knotted on the edge of his seat.
She’d taken the Cessna. Heavier plane, more power. Faster, too, although that didn’t seem to matter much. The wind was gusting thirty to thirty-five knots out of the southeast, and the Cessna was being continually buffeted from the right, which meant she continually had to correct for drift.
She glanced down at the GPS, and thanked whatever the gods might be for it. The digital readout recorded their progress. She’d logged in the latitude and longitude of their destination, and it would tell her exactly and precisely when they had arrived, a good thing since they sure as hell weren’t going to see it very far ahead.
So it wasn’t like they were forced into dead reckoning, although the weather on the outside of the cabin made it feel like it. Torn wisps of fog kept the ceiling at a hundred feet. She was maintaining an altitude of fifty feet and even then she wasn’t always sure which way was up. The snow on the ground merged with the clouds and the fog to form a sphere of white all around them. She didn’t look up from the instrument panel. She was afraid to, afraid she would lose all sense of where the earth was, and fly straight into it.
She couldn’t do that. Tim was at fish camp. So was Moses. So were Bill and Amelia, for that matter.