Lucinda drove toward home as fast as the road permitted. She needed to get up to Jonah’s, but the snowfall was worsening each second. By the time she got up into the Gore, dark would be gathering, the snow piling up in the mountains. She’d need real snow boots and a good flashlight. And your handgun, the voice said as she yanked the Wrangler into the drive to almost smash into Dale’s Ford Tempo. He was home. She’d never been so relieved to see his homogenous heap.
She jumped out of the Wrangler, her boots slipping on the drive. Her arms pinwheeled and she clutched her side-view mirror and balanced herself. She ran her hand along the Tempo as she trudged along it up the drive.
She entered the kitchen and called out, “Dale?”
No answer came.
Was he in the bedroom?
Packing?
She trod into the living room where Dale sat at his desk, absorbed in using tweezers to set a seat in the cockpit of the 1930s Tether.
He’d lit a fire in the fireplace. The warmth from it radiated in the room and the orange glow from the flames jigged on the walls and floor. Dale sipped scotch from a tumbler, the amber liquid shimmering and swirling.
“Hey,” Lucinda said, winded.
Dale drank down his scotch. “Hey.”
“Sorry,” she said.
“About?”
“Last night.”
“I’m over it.”
“I thought—”
“What?” he said and worked his tongue around the inside of his mouth, savored the smoky brined aftertaste of the scotch, the mellow numbness at the tongue, Lucinda knew. At times, he spoke about and described scotch as if he were an art critic deconstructing a Rembrandt; he narrated as he drank. Normally, Lucinda was apathetic toward his fervor for scotch, if not amused. Right then, she found it endearing. Sweet. He brought up the bottle at his feet and poured a good measure, held the glass to the lamplight. “What’d you think?”
“I thought you’d left,” she said.
“I did.”
“And you’re back.”
“Where else was I going to go in that mess outside?” he said. “I didn’t expect even to be gone long as I was. I went out to Kale’s Auto to see about finally getting the snow tires on the Tempo, and they were packed since all the other jokers who waited for the snow to fly were lined up in there with me; so that took a lot longer than I thought, and by then I was hungry, so I stopped in at the Burger Barn and had a burger and onion rings and got to gabbing with a few folks and well”—he shrugged—“it was about time to get back home by then. So here I am.”
“I can’t tell if you’re a good man or just dim,” she said.
“Dim,” he said and sipped his scotch.
Lucinda stood in front of him, looking into his face. “Why haven’t you mentioned Canada. Asked more about it? Been angry?”
“I am angry. But. What’s to ask? You’ll tell me when you’ve decided. I hope.”
“It’s ten months,” Lucinda said.
“True.”
“A long time.”
“I lived thirty-three years before ever knowing you existed. We’ll manage.”
She eyed his scotch, slipped his glass from his grip, and took a sip. It tasted of peat and stung her tongue, then smoothed at the back of the throat. She shimmered, a liquid warmth in her veins. She needed to get going, to see Jonah, but the warmth of the fire, and the scotch, lulled her. It had been days since she’d known calm. She finished the drink. A vaporous glow bloomed in the brain.
She reached into her coat pocket and took out her deputy’s badge. The button from her father’s uniform box fell out with it. She set the button on Dale’s desk and pinned the badge to his chest. “You are hereby deputized for putting up with me.” She breathed on the badge and buffed it with her shirtsleeve.
“What’s this?” Dale said, holding up the button.
The scotch was loosening her, swimming in her bloodstream. She peered at the button. “It was in my father’s trunk when—”
She stopped. Blinked.
She plucked the button from Dale’s fingers and stood with it. Stunned.
She gazed at the button, then at the badge pinned to Dale’s chest. “No,” she said. She staggered into the kitchen, bewildered. At the sink, she splashed cold water on her face, but the rush of heat pushing through her was too much and she fought the urge to be sick.
Dale put his hand on her shoulder.
“I have to go, right now,” she said.
“What is this? Go where?”
“Jonah’s.”
“You can’t go up there now in the snow, it’ll be dark soon.”
She plucked the badge from his chest and set it and the button down on the table, a sick feeling writhing in her gut like a knot of baby snakes. She vomited in the sink, wiped her mouth with a sleeve, and spat. “No,” she said.
“What the hell is going on?” Dale said.
“I have to go.”
“You’re not going anywhere like this.”
“You drive then. Grab headlamps. I need to go. Now.”
“Me drive? I’ve had too much scotch.”
But she was already going for the door.