All the Winters After (17 page)

THIRTY-SEVEN

Lettie and A. R. hurried to get the cabin done before winter busted in. While she split wood, aiming for the tree stump beneath the log, instead of for the log—Frank Newberry had taught her that after she'd hounded him—she lost herself in the rhythm of it. Up, back, over, crack, pull, her feet planted out to the sides. Up, back, over, crack, pull. Muddy? Hell yes. Her feet, her trousers, her hair even. Up, back, over, crack, pull.

The rhythm of it reminded her of the rhythm of the wooden swing her father had hung for her when she was small, intending it to amuse her for a year or two until she outgrew it. But she never outgrew the swing, not really. From the first time she got it going by herself, pumping her thick legs hard enough, she thought,
Leave the adults indoors to do their washing and futzing; this is what they mean when they sing those songs, with their hopeful words and their tears, despite themselves, slipping down their cheeks: “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”
If she kept trying, maybe she might touch heaven with her toes; it certainly seemed possible from her perspective in the swing. “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” It never happened like that exactly. But sometimes, with the sun just so on her face, sometimes she had a feeling. The breeze picked up her hair and smoothed it back from her face as if something—or someone maybe—was telling her she was indeed
beautiful
. She knew she was not, was quite plain, in fact—big-rumped, wide-faced, and bespectacled as she was—though everyone agreed she had a fine nose. But that
feeling
. She thought it might be the presence of God everyone talked about. She didn't feel compelled to define it. The presence of love? She didn't know the answer. She didn't have to. But it was because of that silly swing that, in her own small way, she did believe in miracles, in mystery.

So it wasn't beyond her scope of belief when, after three months in Alaska, she, Lettie Winkel, missed her first period. And then her second. At age thirty-four, she was going to be a mother. A
mother
. She watched the other women with interest. How those with babies let them suckle at their full breasts. How a woman might take her toddler's face in her hands, kiss his forehead, and pat him on his bottom as he turned to seek out more mischief. How they were always, always tending to meals, whether it be preparing, dishing up, washing up, or putting away. And in the middle of this, Lettie stood, her hand on her belly, amazed. The wonder!

There was the nausea, exhaustion too. She fought the intense desire to lie down and sleep the next seven months away, to become a bear, perhaps. But her desire to finish the cabin won out. Now it
had
to be done. And A. R., so tickled about the baby he seemed more energetic, even sang while he fit logs, started the chinking.

They finished just before the first snow. Huddled inside, with two small windows and a door, Lettie and A. R. were as proud and giggly as two kids who'd just finished their very own blanket fort on a clothesline pole.

“I love you, Lettie,” he said to her that night. Ran his hand over and over her stomach. “You were right, you know. About coming here. It was the right thing for us.”

“Because of the baby?”

“Well, the baby, yeah. But not just the baby. It's you. And me too.”

The snow gave the land a singularity of purpose. During the summer, there was so much to do, so much to see, taste, touch, smell, hear. But in the winter, it was the silence she heard. Whiteness was what she smelled, touched, tasted, saw. A big, thick blanket tucked around her, summoning her to do nothing but rest in the womb of the cabin. And wait.

Inside her too, the baby rested. Waited. Moved about. The baby was all she thought about, it seemed. She touched her belly and closed her eyes. Tried to imagine the unseen face, the unheard cry. Tried to feel the knob of the baby's head inside her, imagine it curled into the nape of her neck, where she stroked its tiny hairs with her own strong and able fingers.

One of the younger women commented on Lettie's age. She hadn't meant to be unkind, but it stung. Certainly, Lettie wasn't young, but women older than her became mothers. She looked out and felt as cragged and ancient as the mountains. But the jolt inside her, a romp like a bear cub, and then another, said something else. There was one window of opportunity for Lettie to be a mother (perhaps it was more like the tiny porthole on that slamming ship), and this was it.

She was embarking on change as deep and quick as the Alaskan tides. She knew then she wasn't having a baby. She was having
two
babies. She knew it in the marrow of those tired bones, where earned wisdom flowed. And if she could survive the birth—
Oh please, let me survive it
—she would be the best damn mother any of those younger women had ever laid their clear, wide eyes on.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Snag sat, watching her mother breathe. The in, the out, the up, the down of Lettie's breath filled Snag's own chest with a sweet sadness—gratitude for what had been, dread of what was to come.

She started singing her mom's favorite song. “The water is wide. I can't cross over. And neither have I wings to fly…”

Gilly stuck her head through the doorway. “I just love that song. You are one sweet daughter, Snag Winkel. Sweet voice too.” And then she was gone down the hall in a flurry of nurse busyness.

Snag felt her cheeks go red and turned back to her mom. “Build me a boat, that can carry two…” Theirs had been an easy mother-daughter relationship, as far as mother-daughter relationships went. Snag grew up worshipping the ground Lettie walked on, which also happened to be the ground Lettie worshipped. Because Lettie's religion, if you chose to call it that, was steeped in those four hundred acres overlooking Kachemak Bay. Lettie told Snag she'd only been half alive before she and A. R. moved to Alaska from Kansas. She was even convinced whatever had caused her infertility had died on the boat trip up; Lettie arrived on this shore, suddenly Mrs. Fertile Myrtle. As a token of her gratitude for Snag and Glenn, she'd offered up herself—with years and years of hard work and dedication to their land.

But Alaska was the same land that had taken away not only Glenn, but Bets and dear Denny too. When Snag had brought that up once after the accident, Lettie had said she didn't see it that way. They'd loved their lives here in Alaska, doing what they enjoyed. Sure, they might not have gotten in a plane crash if they'd lived in LA or Tallahassee, but who was to say? Lettie didn't blame Alaska for the accident. But she might blame her daughter, once she heard the whole story.

When Lettie woke, Snag didn't waste any time. “Mom, I really need to talk with you.”

Lettie rubbed her eyes and reached for her glasses. “Last time I tried to have a heart-to-heart with you, you ran out of the room. Or crawled was more like it.”

“Well, I've been thinking of everything you said. Thinking and thinking. All this time, I didn't know you had a clue about me, and I wonder why we didn't talk about this back when it would have been helpful—back when I was a young woman instead of an old lady.”

“You've still got time to get it right.” Lettie sighed. “But that's no excuse for me. I thought I was being a good mom to keep quiet and let you find your way. But we didn't live in an area where you got much guidance. It wasn't like we had a gay pride parade on the spit. You could have used some straight talk about being a lesbian. There, I said it.”

Snag's ears felt hot. The heat spread down her chest, and she took off her cardigan.

“But I felt ill-equipped back then,” Lettie continued. “Honey, I didn't even know what a lesbian was when I was growing up.”

“I didn't either. I thought I had a horrible affliction.”

“That's my fault. Because, by then, I knew better and should've helped.” Lettie leaned in and lowered her voice. “And then the whole thing with Bets.”

Snag stared at her mom, her ears pounding. “Wait. You knew?”

“It was obvious you always had feelings for her. It wasn't a big secret.”

“It wasn't?” Snag felt the blush wash over her from forehead to toes. They kept the place so warm.

“Not to me, anyway. It was all over you every day.”

“Oh. That's great, Mom. Thanks.”

“Honey. You can't hide what you can't hide.” Lettie took Snag's hand in her own even more brown-spotted, vein-mapped one. They sat in the silence for a while, Lettie drawing her thumb back and forth over Snag's knuckles, the way she had since Snag was a little girl, as if each knuckle were a large, treasured pearl.

Snag finally spoke. “Since we're confessing all today”—though Snag was decidedly not confessing
all
—“I have a question for you.”

“Go ahead.”

“You're not taking your pink pill, are you?”

“Hell no.”

“And you know you will probably die without it?”

“I know I'll die with it or without it, and I know I'm ninety-eight. I'm sufficiently aware of the consequences.”

Snag bent over Lettie and cradled her in her arms, and her mother grabbed onto her shoulders. They held each other while the squeak of a cart went past the room. Snag was sixty-five years old, and she wanted to stay right there, forever and a day, finally fully exposed but still tight in this nook of arms where she'd always felt safe.

THIRTY-NINE

Kache lay on the bed in Aunt Snag's guest room and turned to the place in his mother's journal that Nadia had marked with a cloudberry leaf. This is what he read:

FIGHT IN WINTER

We woke to the aluminum morning

Our fight hanging low over us

Like smoke in the cold.

Outside the smoke from our chimney fails

To rise, carves an ugly road that runs

Parallel to earth but goes nowhere.

On a warmer day, the smoke could sail.

In a warmer place, it would lift easily as a sigh

Instead of lie here a scar.

He closed the notebook. He had a decision to make. He knew Bets Winkel one way, as a boy knows his mother. She'd made it clear these notebooks were for her eyes only, and he had always honored that. Truth be told, he hadn't had the slightest hint of interest as a kid. But those few lines revealed a side to her he'd never even glimpsed. Was he meant to? After all these years, he still missed her, at times even desperately. But he realized he missed his
idea
of her, because he never got the chance to know her fully. He only knew her in relation to him. She was the one who had fed
him
, taught
him
, stuck up for
him
, encouraged
him
. Who was Bets Winkel when she wasn't mothering him? And did he have a right to know all the things that Nadia already knew?

He buried the notebook in the bottom of the suitcase and drove to the homestead with a plan to sit Nadia down and ask her to tell him
her
life story, or at the very least her last name. Instead, when he pulled up in the truck, she jumped in and pulled the door shut.

“I'm ready for another trip to town.”

“That's a change. Wristbands?”

She lifted her sleeves to show him.

“Check. Okay then,” Kache said. Nadia looked like she was ready for a fight, both her arms up, fists clenched above the gray wristbands. But she was smiling. He turned the truck around. “I guess my back needs a rest from gardening and roof repair.”

She made it the whole way without getting sick, nibbling on what she called her “Russian stomach medicine”—a homemade dill pickle. In town, they ordered some feed for the animals. When they approached the airport, Nadia asked him to turn in. “Does it bother you to see the planes?” she asked.

“No, not really. I've flown a lot since then, mostly for work.”

“I have never flown. I would love to get on one of those and have it take me far, far away.” He followed her gaze to the blue sky, where clouds lay here and there like exotic, uncharted countries.

He faced her. “That's pretty bold for someone who wouldn't get in a truck a few weeks ago.”

“It's because of your help. And the Internet. There is so much to see, so much to do. But this is just talk.” She held her hands out, palms up. “I will live and die here without knowing other places.”

Kache fixed his eyes on the mountains. “I have an idea.” He pulled the truck onto the road, onto the spit, and then into the parking lot of the Spit Tune. “First, a bathroom break,” he said as he parked.

Inside the alcove, before it opened up to the main bar, he pointed out the women's room. “Go ahead. I'll meet you back here.” The men's room was locked. Kache waited a minute before the door popped open.

“Hey, my friend.” It was the man who'd bought Kache a beer that day, right after he'd first discovered Nadia. “I wonder if I see you here again. I forgot to get your name.”

Kache told him, and when the man questioned its origin, he explained.

“I see. A man truly of this place. I am Tol. You find yourself beautiful woman now?”

“I'm working on it.” Kache couldn't believe he'd admitted that and fervently hoped Nadia couldn't hear them through the women's room door.

“Excellent. Good for you! You have beer with me again?”

When Kache told him that he was just making a pit stop, Tol clapped him on the back and said he'd see him next time. Kache used the bathroom and was still done before Nadia. He waited a few more minutes before he knocked on the door. He had a plan and didn't want to miss the boat—as in literally miss the
Danny J
.

“Nadia?”

No answer.

“Nadia?” He tried the knob. Locked. He went around the corner and scanned the bar, but there was just the Tol guy watching the droning TV with the same bartender. In the old days, Rex would never have let another soul tend that bar.

He heard a door open and turned back. Nadia said, “Sorry I take long. So many things to read on wall. Why people giving their good heads away? Is this like writing or teaching?”

“Not exactly.” Kache laughed as she exited in front of him. He heard a “Good day, Kachemak Winkel” from the bar, ducked, and waved good-bye to Tol.

They walked past boat after boat, some of the charters and private yachts gleaming in their showcase perfection, but most of the fishing boats—gillnetters, long-liners, combinations—rusty with history and livelihood, their decks piled with glistening, blank-eyed salmon, cod, and halibut. His dad had tried to get Kache to join him and Denny on the fishing boat, but after one vomit-filled, miserable storm of a trip, watching his dad shoot the caught but flailing giant halibuts before Denny hauled them on deck, Kache refused to go back out. He worked at the movie theater and later sang at the Spit Tune, handing over portions of his paychecks to his dad instead of helping in the family business.

Kache took Nadia's elbow for a moment to steer her, and they boarded the old fishing boat that served as a ferry, the
Danny J
, bound for Halibut Cove, the tiny artist community across the bay.

The wind pulled their hair back, teared up their eyes, and reddened their cheeks. “Have you ever been to the other side?”

She shook her head. “Never. Sometimes I dream there was bridge here, like the Golden Gate.”

One of the few splurges his dad had made was taking the whole family over to the Saltry, at the time Halibut Cove's new and only restaurant, which the owner had brought in by barge during a high tide. His mom had said the food was as good as any she'd had in New York. She'd worn a black dress and a long string of pearls under her red parka. Kache and Denny wore their best Sears catalog sweaters. While part of him wished there was somewhere to escape the memories, a better part of him was beginning to welcome these old slide shows in his head.

“Look,” Nadia said, pointing to the wide natural arch in the rock, which marked the beginning of the cove. “It is in the cliff, a doorway!”

It had been twenty years, but the cove looked very similar to how it had the last time he'd visited. Many of the buildings sat perched on stilted docks, with others dotting the hills. No cars; people got by with a boat and a pair of hiking boots. Less than fifty people lived there in the winter, with the population growing as fast as an Alaskan cabbage to over a hundred in the summer. The boat held about two dozen tourists. When he'd gone with his family, they'd been the only passengers.

Kache leaned down so his mouth was almost touching Nadia's gold-studded earlobe. “I'm sorry I got so mad about the journals.”

“I am sorry I read them.”

“Don't be. I'm glad they were here for you.” And part of him was. But it still felt odd that she knew so many details about him, knew things his mom thought and felt that he didn't know.

“What I gave to you? Did you read?”

“No. I tried. Not ready. But I kept the two you gave me. And I put the box back in the closet. So you'll have them.”

She nodded and kept her eyes on the approaching mountains.

He said, “Let's leave all that behind for a while, okay? Today you'll be farther away than you've ever been.”