2 Days Before the Storm
The movers bring everything from storage the next day.
More boxes labelled NICK’S STUFF for me to stare at across the room. Furniture—some chairs, accent tables—we didn’t have room for in the Red Fox Lake apartment. Rarely used kitchenware that I might get some use out of now—I’d have to get a huge bag of flour but maybe the breadmaker can get us through the winter.
There is also Nick’s guitar, and I forgot he put that in storage. I have the movers leave it in the living room in its hard black case, leaning against the far wall under the window. He’d had it since he was a teenager, when he briefly flirted in every area of the arts. While he’d settled on sculpting and woodwork as an adult, he’d never given up that guitar. If we were somewhere with friends, having a few drinks, he was the guy they’d pass a guitar to. I have a photo still on my phone that I can’t bear to look at, from while we were still living in Whitehorse, with two-year-old Nadia on his lap peeking over the guitar as he showed her how to strum. I thought she’d grow up to play and now there’s no one to teach her.
As the movers are finishing up, my cell phone rings from the counter. At the same time I’m offered the invoice to check and sign with my credit card info, which I do, and only when the front door is shut and locked with the truck rolling away do I return to check the call.
Owen.
I haven’t spoken to him since he installed the security system before Halloween, when he left with the parting reminder that he wanted more from me than I was prepared to give and felt it best to keep his distance. I haven’t so much as texted, either, as I’m happy to give him that space—as well as to have my own again.
He didn’t leave a voicemail, nor did he text. I debate for a few minutes and then dial him. Nadia’s at Janelle’s for the morning both because of the movers coming in and out and because we might be locked up for a few days with the storm and I wanted her to spend time with the twins for socialization. I arm the security alarm and put the kettle on as the phone rings.
Owen picks up. “Hey, Immy.”
I lean against the counter. “You called?”
“Yeah. Did you check the website today?”
I have not because I didn’t need to get any angrier. “Hold on.” I tap SPEAKER and then thumb over to my browser. The Lost Ones Advocacy Network is still open in a tab, and I refresh it.
The story about Nick and missing people in the Yukon is gone.
I have to scroll down on the homepage for the arrow link to older articles to find it. Returning to the main page again, I scan the most recent post—it’s about some missing kids in Manitoba—and toward the end there’s mention of an upcoming interview scheduled later in the week with the family, to be conducted by Jenni Montgomery.
“She left Whitehorse?” I ask, assuming that’s what he’s indicating.
“Yeah. A lot of buzz in Red Fox Lake about her leaving for good and someone saw her in the city taking a cab to the airport.”
The kettle whistles but it takes a moment for it to register in my brain past the relief. Eventually I turn and pour the boiling water over the tea bag in my cup, the noise ceasing. “When she first approached me, she said she was doing some kind of article due out in December. She was here yesterday taking photos.”
Owen swears under his breath. “Might be. Wouldn’t surprise me. But for now...”
For now some of the attention had eased off me, even if it was already too late. “I warned her travel would be difficult if she didn’t get out soon. I don’t think the weather here agrees with her.”
“I’m sorry—”
“It’s fine, it’ll die down.”
“But that article brought someone here that could hurt you and Dee, and that’s my fault.”
“I don’t blame you.” I did, a little bit, but it wasn’t maliciousness on his part. I change the subject. “When are you going south?”
A heavy sigh. “I don’t know.”
“Last year that storm blocked the roads for the better part of a week.” Nick disappearing was only the start of it—and maybe he might’ve been found if the weather conditions had allowed for easier searching.
“Anyone been around the house?”
“Just Montgomery.” There’s no point in telling him about Halloween—I’d have to explain more than I want to.
“I can’t just leave when I know you’re in trouble,” he says.
“If he’s found me...then he’s found me, Owen. You can’t stop it by not working and hanging around Red Fox Lake until spring, unable to pay your bills.”
“I’ve got savings.”
Not if you’re going to keep working here free or buying security features for my house. “You’ve done so much for us...and remember, I have Janelle and her family. If it’s too much this winter, if I’m worried, they’ve got room for us.”
He’s silent on the other line—I think he knows as well as I do that he can’t stay here indefinitely. And he can’t both have his space from me and still be on call twenty-four-seven to help in an emergency. I’ve used a tremendous amount of his goodwill and he’s not acted like it’s obligated me toward him but more of the reverse—like the more he does for me, the more he wants to do for me. Maybe it’s something psychological, like I’m an investment and he wants to feel justified in his choices.
I haven’t told him about the gun. I don’t plan to. Maybe it would reassure him, but for me the fewer people who know about it, the better. Most assume anyone rural around here has at least a hunting rifle anyway.
“I’ll think about it,” he says at last, and I hope he goes for it.
Because there is most certainly more than a snowstorm coming, and the fewer people who get caught in it, the better.