The Snow Child (42 page)
Authors: Eowyn Ivey
You look well, Mabel said.
I am, she said. I am.
J
ack led Garrett down the wagon trail and out into a meadow within sight of the river.
“It’s yours,” Jack said. “Consider it a wedding gift. We’ll build the cabin right in here, facing toward the mountains.”
“It’s a fine place.”
The very next evening, after they stopped planting for the day and ate dinner, he supposed Garrett had gone to sleep in the barn. He told Mabel he was going out for some fresh air, and he walked to the meadow. There he found Garrett with a shovel and an ax, rough sketching the outline of a cabin into the dirt.
The work had a rhythm and purpose, and Jack and Garrett fell into it with ease, even relief: the back-and-forth pull of the two-man saw and the thunderous crash of trees falling; the slide of the draw knife along the spruce logs, the bark peeling off in long strips; the chop and slice of the sharpened ax, each notch hand-carved. Love and devotion, the devastating hope and fear contained in a woman’s swelling womb—these were left unspoken. At midnight, as they hefted another log into place, they could hear the red-breasted robins and dark-eyed juncos chirping in the trees, and that was enough.
By the time planting was done, they had the log walls up waist high, and it went faster now that they had all of each day. Jack let Garrett do the heaviest of the work, and at times he would sit on a log to rest his tired back and watch the younger man work. Mabel often came with lunch in a basket, and sometimes she would stay long enough to discuss where a window should go or what kind of front porch they should build.
Faina was nowhere to be seen. Jack assumed she and Garrett met alone sometimes, but the girl did not come to Jack and Mabel’s for dinner. For once, it was Jack who worried.
“Shouldn’t she be resting, eating regular meals?”
“She’s fine,” Mabel said.
“Why isn’t she here, staying with us until the wedding?”
“She’s where she needs to be. She doesn’t have much longer.”
“Much longer?”
“Her life is going to change soon. Whatever else happens, she won’t be able to run through the woods like a sprite. Everything will be different.”
“I suppose. I just want to make sure she’s safe and healthy.”
“I know,” and Mabel’s voice had a bittersweet acceptance in it that he had never heard before.
Faina came on a warm June day, she and the dog loping out of the trees as if they were halfway through a close race. Garrett was straddling the unfinished wall as Jack used a pulley to raise another log into place. Faina ran to them in bare feet and a short-sleeved dress, her arms and legs bronzed and muscled, her long hair bleached white by the sun.
She and Garrett gave each other shy smiles, and Jack felt like an intruder. Garrett jumped down from the log wall and led her through the rough-cut doorway and into the roofless cabin.
I know it’s hard to see, with just the four walls, but over here, this will be the kitchen and the window will look out to the river. Won’t that be fine?
Faina nodded, but her gaze was distant, as if this all were a strange dream to her.
The woodstove will go here. And through there, that’ll be our bedroom, and the baby’s. I know it’s not real big, but don’t you think it’ll do?
Faina nodded once, slowly.
Garrett seemed unnerved by her silence.
It’ll be OK, won’t it? Once we get some windows and doors in, it’ll feel like a real home. Don’t you think, Jack? It’s coming together?
Jack started to say that yes, he thought it would be a dandy little cabin for a family starting out, but then he saw the girl smile up at Garrett, a tender, reassuring smile. Jack was struck with the notion that perhaps she was the wiser and stronger of the two.
Faina stayed while the two men worked. She threw sticks for the dog. She ran through the tall, green grass around the cabin and picked bluebells and wild yellow asters, but her eyes kept to the trees. The dog ran, barking, to chase a squirrel into the woods, and Faina followed. When she reached the edge of the meadow, she looked over her shoulder and gave a small wave back toward the men.
“She’s leaving,” Garrett said.
“She is, but she’ll be back.”
“I know. But sometimes I wonder.”
“What’s that?”
“If this is the best for her—a baby. Me. If it’s the right kind of life for her.”
“Too late to change that now,” Jack said. He regretted his anger.
“Maybe she doesn’t have to give up everything,” Garrett said. “You know. We’ll run traps together this winter, after the baby comes. I’ll take her out in the woods and she can put out her little snares. It doesn’t all have to change.”
“It will. Everything will change. But you’ll do the best you can.”
Jack turned back to the cabin, because that was something a man could do—fell trees and scribe-fit logs and build a home.
“Come on, now,” he said. “We’re almost to the ridgepole. We’ve got to get this thing closed in before the big day.”
T
here’s no way in hell that cabin is going to be done in time for the wedding.” Esther’s hands were on her hips as she stood looking up at the honey-colored logs. “Just a few more days, Mom. That’s what he says to me. We’ve almost got it wrapped up, he says. Why is it men always overestimate their own prowess?”
Mabel smiled in spite of herself. “They have done a great deal.”
“Sure they have. But I tell you, it won’t have a roof on it before Sunday.”
“Perhaps that’s all right.” Mabel thought of Faina looking up through the logs into an open sky, and somehow it was comforting.
“It’s all good, as long as there’s not a drop of rain or a single mosquito… in Alaska… in July.” Esther made no attempt to hide her sarcasm. Then she hoisted her overall straps like a man and shrugged. “Ah well. When you’re young, everything is romantic, right? Even a cabin without a roof.”
“It is lovely. I’ve already sewed some curtains for the windows. And George tells me you’re making them a quilt.”
“Yep. And it will be done by Sunday.” Esther laughed at herself and added, “I might not sleep much this week, eh? But how’s the dress coming?”
“It is finished, but Faina has secret plans. She’s been working on it these past few nights at our house. She waits until we go to bed, and then she stays up at the table doing something, but she won’t tell me what.”
“She is an odd duck, isn’t she?”
Mabel had never thought of Faina in those terms, but the girl was peculiar, and even unconventional Esther could have misgivings about her son marrying her. A fascinating stranger was one thing, a daughter-in-law quite another.
“It is true—I have never met another person like Faina,” Mabel said, choosing her words carefully. “But then, I’ve never met anyone like you before, either.”
“All right. All right. I’ll give you that one. And I know I should count my blessings that someone is willing and able to put up with that son of mine.”
“She doesn’t just put up with him. I think she’s quite taken with him.”
“Hmmm.” Esther sounded doubtful.
“They have a great deal in common. They love this place, and each other.”
“But who is she? She’s a wild thing from the mountains. More times than not, Garrett doesn’t even know where she is. When she’s saddled with a screaming brat and a sinkful of dirty dishes, what then? Is she going to stick around long enough to be a wife and a mother?”
Mabel’s throat was swelling shut. She walked around the corner of the cabin, pretending to inspect the other wall. Esther was instantly at her side.
“Oh, Mabel. I meant no offense. I know she’s like a daughter to you, and my son surely loves her. That’ll have to do for the rest of us, won’t it?”
Mabel smiled and nodded and blinked away tears. The two women hugged and hooked arms to walk back to Jack and Mabel’s.
The nightmares had returned. Naked, crying babies melted as she held them, and dripped to the ground even as she tried to close her fingers and cup her hands. Sometimes she clutched the infants to her chest, only to realize that the warmth of her own body was the cause of their demise.
Then there was Faina—her face would appear in the trees like a scene through a rain-streaked windowpane. In her dream, Mabel would run outside and it would be raining the way it did back home in the summer, a blinding, warm downpour. She would call Faina’s name, try to run through the forest to find her, but the rain would fill her eyes and mouth and she would wake gasping. In another dream, Mabel stood hip deep in the river and clenched Faina’s wet hands as the current pulled her downstream. Mabel would try to hold on, but she was never strong enough, and Faina would slip from her grasp and be carried away in the silty water. The girl would flail her arms and cry for Mabel to help, please, please, help, but she would be unable to move. She would stand and watch as her beautiful daughter drowned at her feet. Never in these dreams could Mabel cry or move or even speak a word.
The day of the wedding came, and Esther was right—the cabin wasn’t finished, but it was all the more lovely, like a cathedral sculpted of trees and sky. Mabel walked there in the morning and was grateful to be alone. It had become a holy place, the sound of the river, the fragrance of the freshly peeled spruce logs, the blue sky, the green meadow. The cottonwood trees were blooming, and the downy white seeds floated on the breeze like feathers.
Jack was back at their own place, loading the wagon with tables and chairs to haul to the cabin. George and Esther were coming just before the ceremony so they could bring the food for afterward. Garrett’s oldest brother would marry them. He wasn’t a pastor, or even one to attend church regularly, but Garrett had wanted him to perform the ceremony, and no one objected. Though he was a well-spoken man, Mabel would have preferred an ordained minister but never said so. The brothers, along with their wives and children, would be the only other guests at the wedding. No one else was invited; that much Mabel had insisted upon.
They had curtained off a section of the unfinished cabin with white sheets so that Faina could put on her dress and prepare herself. She had not yet appeared this morning, and she had the wedding gown with her.