4 Days Before the Storm
Halloween.
I honestly forgot about it. It’s only a reminder text from Janelle that morning that kicks my brain into gear—I knew it was the thirty-first, but hadn’t connected with what that meant.
Nadia is going to be a polar bear.
There is a bitterness to the air and increasing snow that makes me glad she went with something bulky I could put a lot of layers on underneath. The plan is to take the young kids—all three to six years old—formally trick-or-treating to a couple of houses on the block around four, then head to Janelle’s neighbour’s place for a party. It would give the little kids a taste of Halloween without making them drudge in the cold for long, and then I could be home by six or six-thirty, shortly after dark.
It’s a high of two Celsius today, so I’m glad we made those plans. Previous Halloweens hadn’t been big affairs, and last year I’d skipped it entirely on account of Nick going missing. But this was one Nadia might remember when she grows up, and I wanted her to be excited for the candy and dressing up just like any other kid.
The preparations that afternoon almost make it feel like a normal day. No alerts in the night with the new security system, so I managed to sleep a few hours. I’m marginally well-rested, all things considered, and I could push aside the buzzing anxiety of being watched and focus on Nadia. I want to wait and get her dressed up when we get to Janelle’s, but she wants to be a polar bear right away, which means layering her in winter clothes before tugging the polar bear costume on top. Between the colour of the costume and how bundled up she is, she resembles the Michelin Man more than anything else, but she’s pleased and excited, and I temporarily am as well.
Arming the alarm and locking up as we leave reminds me how far we are from normal, however.
On the way to Janelle’s, the radio announcers warn of the upcoming storm, due to hit Whitehorse and the surrounding area within the next few days. The skies are so thick with clouds it’s nearly an entire blanket of white so I’m not surprised, but I’m dreading it—especially as the male cohost points out it’s likely to be on par with, or perhaps worse than, what hit around this time last year. That was the storm when Nick went missing, and something about the approach of another one has my stomach in knots, like the brewing blizzard is some supernatural beast that might take even more from me. Snowstorms aren’t new to the Yukon, I’d seen plenty in my years here. But maybe it’s a delay of trauma processing, because the thought of this one terrifies me.
I change the station in favour of cheery pop that makes Nadia bounce in her seat even as she complains she’s too hot.
Janelle’s cul-de-sac street is already lined with vehicles and kids out and about. School let out a short while ago, so those kids with caregivers at home move with purpose toward decorated houses, their bright costumes cheerful against the frosted lawns and dusting of snow. Older kids will be out later this evening; nearly every child I see now is under six with the odd older one trudging around with siblings.
I park at Janelle’s. My friend comes out dressed in a cat suit—not latex, like a cat. A grey tabby, to be specific, the outfit bulky enough that she likely has warm layers beneath, with a hood that comes over her head with ears. She’s painted a pink nose and white whiskers on her face, and a grey tail trails behind her.
The twins come out next: Simon as a jack-o-lantern, his pumpkin costume bouncing against everyone as he walks; and Sam as a ninja, his plastic katana almost the length of his little body. They both have the darker skin of their mother and Jacob, but I’m not certain who the biological father is—and I’ve never asked. “Daddy” is for Easton and “Papa” is for Jacob, and that’s all the boys have ever known.
Easton waves from the window, wearing a heavy cloak and vampire teeth—he’s going to hand out candy. I wave back. I think Jacob’s still at work but might join us at the party later.
There are other parents on the block in costumes and I feel out of place in my heavy dark green utility jacket with a sweater underneath and black jeans. Of course I always feel like I’m wearing a disguise—five years apparently hasn’t been enough for me to settle into what I look like now. Non-prescription glasses no one has ever noticed I don’t need; bleached hair in a bob; the extra weight—for a time this felt like the real me, but in the last week I’ve felt the old me under my skin, frightfully thin and nervous, dark hair she wears like a shield. Her bony shoulders threaten to poke through my flesh, reveal the real me to everyone. Jenni Montgomery already thinned my protective skin, but I can’t blame her for everything. That other part of me has always been below the surface.
I meet Janelle and thrust these thoughts aside, focusing on keeping our kids excited and safe as they go door to door with their plastic pumpkin treat baskets. Simon’s going through a phase where he doesn’t want to be far from one of his parents, and Janelle keeps at his side while they head up a longer driveway to a duplex sitting back from the street. I remain on the sidewalk and watch, a little wistful that Nadia doesn’t even look back at me but boldly hobbles in her many layers up the steps with her treat basket thrust out. She’s comfortable and confident here, and I’m grateful, again, that my own myriad of anxieties haven’t yet seemed to infect my child. My own pasted-on smile feels almost grotesque, like it’s some skeletal Halloween mask, but I’m striving to seem as normal and engaged as I can despite the circumstances.
“Chloe!” a child’s voice calls behind me.
I hear that name a lot—it’s fairly common. I heard it when I first travelled through the south and had to physically stop myself from turning every time. I hear it here in Whitehorse, even occasionally in Red Fox Lake. It’s become background noise.
But with my exhumed past reaching up to pull me back down again, the name strikes me like a physical hit.
My spine straightens and shoulders tense, even as I suck in a breath of frigid air to calm myself. For a moment I think I imagined it until again I hear, “Chloe!”
I don’t turn, I keep my focus on Nadia, because there are too many common reasons why someone might be calling that name right now and none of them involve me. The break-ins, the graffiti, the national news article—it’s all made me paranoid. Rightly paranoid, but still. I may be seeing shadows where there are none.
There are footsteps all around me but I home in on ones pattering in my direction. A moment later there’s a tug on my jacket that sends all my nerves on edge.
I turn to peer down at a little boy dressed as Spider-Man—he’s maybe two or three years older than Nadia, I think, though he isn’t much taller.
The open pillowcase in his hands is weighed down by hunks of candy, but he lifts it and thrusts it at me. “Trick-or-treat!”
My face feels cold as my lips automatically force a widened smile. “You have to go up to the houses, I don’t have any candy.”
His shoulders slump as he drops his arms, the candy at the bottom of the pillowcase thumping on the sidewalk. “The police officer said you were giving out full-size chocolate bars. Are you Chloe?”
The police officer.
Chloe.
That smile hasn’t left my face, but I feel the weight of ice in my veins and my heart might burst from the sudden pressure in my chest. I lift my gaze to the direction the child had come from, scanning the adults walking with their kids and talking in clumps across the street. I don’t see any cops—not even a child in costume.
I look down at the boy again. “Sorry, that’s not my name. Maybe he meant someone else.”
Little Spider-Man drags his heels as he turns, sulking that he missed out on this mythical big candy bar.
All at once I have the urge to just grab Nadia and go. To not stop at the house. To not stop anywhere until we’re south, maybe somewhere in B.C., maybe Alberta, just an anonymous city where we can hide. Maybe I’ll be a redhead this time. Maybe I won’t ever even look at another man again so I don’t marry, have my husband go missing, and end up exposed like this.
What I said to Owen is true—I don’t actually want to run. I don’t want to put Nadia through that. I don’t want to have to change her name, to fake her birth records. I don’t want to leave Imogen Sharp behind and pretend her life never happened—I don’t want to give up that part of me in case Nick is still out there, even when all evidence points to him being gone. I don’t want to leave the cold dark isolation I found here, the refuge that gave me space to heal and rebuild and become myself.
I know the urge to flee is not from who I am now; it’s born of a different girl, of Chloe poking through my skin again, whispering in my ear that we are the hare, we are the prey. That our only option is to run.
I feel the jaws of a predator about to close on me, and, even if I run again, I won’t necessarily escape it.
Nadia trundles toward me with Janelle and the twins several steps behind, her basket of treats thrust out in front of her. I crouch, all smiles, as I inspect the candy and offer appropriate pride over how much she’s accumulated already.
Running is an option, but it will be the last one considered. Because running will not guarantee either of our safety—only one thing will, which I have prepared for.
But I still have to wait for him to come to me.