Bitter cold, but sunny. Spent day with Mary. No coffee left.
—from Ada Weeks’ diary
In contrast to their dim hovel, the bright, early winter sun stabs Ada’s eyes as she emerges from the snow tunnel. Virgin snow sparkles with flecks of silver and gold as she conjures words to describe the wintry scene: alabaster, ivory, eggshell, bone. Or brilliant. After nine days of snow, Ada welcomes the sun’s return like the prodigal son. For a few minutes, she forgets about hunger.
Snowdrifts reach rooftops now; by Ada’s estimate, banks of snow stand ten or twelve feet high. Only treetops shoot up like daggers through the vast sea of white. Fifteen-year-old John Breen spends the day carving a snow staircase from the cabin’s threshold through thick drifts. Chunk by chunk he shovels snow and ice and slush and pounds it down into useable steps. Now, when Ada needs to clear her head or lungs or bladder, she’ll trudge up snow stairs to the world beyond darkness and stink of soiled bedding. But today is glorious. Almost all the emigrants spend time outside today, milling about, sharing stories, gazing west.
“It’s like the balm of Gilead,” Mary says.
Ada pats Mary’s arm. “I don’t know about that, but I’m ever so heartened to see the sun.”
Mary drops her voice to a whisper. “What’s it like in your cabin? I mean, is it vile?”
Ada nods.
“It’s bad in ours, too, Miss Ada.” Mary shakes her head. “Sometimes I wonder what it is we’ve done wrong to deserve this.”
“We haven’t done anythin’ wrong, Mary. Expect maybe do what everyone tells us to do.”
When she can stand it no longer, Ada takes a snow corridor toward a stand of pines poking up through the world of white and hides behind a forked treetop. She lifts her fouled skirt, and squats. Some of the women have sewn their skirts together like trousers. Ada has not. Not because she doesn’t think it useful. No, it’s because she no longer has needle and thread, and doubts anyone else has any to spare. Cold drafts run up her unstockinged legs and bite at her thighs.
She finishes and hurries back to find Mary Graves. They huddle and whisper, rubbing chapped hands over and over again, Mary repeating the same words over and over again, too, until all Ada can do is nod: In all God’s creation, has there ever been a lovelier day? Don’t you think so, Miss Ada? You must agree? Don’t you?
Nightfall comes earlier as December unspools, although inside the cabin, by day or by night, it’s always dark. Ada works alongside Ma Breen, stoking the fire, emptying slop buckets. Patrick Breen is gaunt, his eyes hollow. He complains of the gravel, a disease of the kidneys.
Before bedding down, Ada begs four sheets of paper from Breen. He’s too weak to protest. She folds the paper in half to make a chapbook eight pages thick. If she writes small, and uses both sides of the paper, she’ll be able to cram more words onto sixteen half-sized pages: weather, lists, a few rough sketches.
There is only one pen, so Ada writes by firelight while Breen sleeps. She peeks into his diary to read today’s entry: Fine clear day beautiful sunshine thawing a little, looks delightful after the long snow storm.
Yes, it had been the finest day in ages. The last day that evoked such a sense of calm was way back at Beaver Creek, on the Fourth of July. Ada thinks longingly of Edwin Bryant and revels in the thought of standing beneath the arch of the natural bridge, back when the sun generated warmth, not just light.
When Ada’s fingers cramp, she tries to warm herself until shiver after shiver runs up her spine. Ma Breen lights the fire and, one by one, each person takes his or her turn before weak flames. Ada goes last, when the fire dies to embers.
The next morning, Ada breaks the skin of ice on the water bucket and scoops a cupful of icy water. Her teeth chatter. She wishes it were coffee or hot tea or—here she closes her eyes to remember—cocoa. Anything to warm her throat, her hands, her body. The last of the coffee is gone now, and it’s been months since tea ran out. As for cocoa, well, that’s a dream from bygone days.
Ada’s joints ache. She goes back to her corner and wraps her blanket around her head, neck, and shoulders, leaving the lower half of her body exposed. The dirt floor is frozen and hard. Minutes later, she unwinds the blanket to cover her shaking legs, leaving her head and upper body uncovered. She clenches and unclenches her fingers to keep blood circulating and shoves her hands under her bony bottom for a vestige of warmth. Her face is dry and scaly, with deep indentations in her cheekbones. Even though the day before had been the loveliest day by Mary Graves’s estimation (and, Ada agrees, it had been a respite), Ada knows that winter is closing in. It’s not the advent of summer. She knows she shouldn’t succumb to melancholy, but it’s in her blood. She’s ill-tempered, like everyone else. And, wouldn’t you know it, tobacco is long gone, too.