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April Fool’s Day, a year later.
They made it through another twelve months. Between fishing and careful rationing of the old man’s scavenged food, they had survived. They had not seen another person in all that year. The two of them seemed to be alone in the world, and to Coral’s mind, that was okay.
Even better, yesterday they had seen the first day above freezing they’d seen in twenty months. Not much had melted, but for a couple hours, a water bottle could be left outside without freezing. They celebrated with baths and laundry.
Coral had left mid-morning to go ice fishing, and she’d caught six tiny fish. The fish were getting smaller, but this was enough for another day’s survival, so she quit for the day. The ice was still solid. One afternoon of warm weather had not made any difference there. But today felt warmer too. She unzipped her jacket as she turned down the path toward the cabin.
Benjamin was there, stacking fuel. He stood and watched her coming, waiting for her. He smiled at her—which he had been inclined to do more and more in the past year—and she held up the line of fish.
“Not bad, not bad,” he said.
It was the middle of the afternoon now, a good time to put on water for fish stew, and she was standing, holding the line of fish, debating whether or not to open one of the last jars of home-canned beets from the root cellar for supper too, when he said, “Stop. Coral, look,” in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Where?” Her heart skipped a beat. After all this time alone, was there an enemy nearby?
He read her mind—or her posture. “No, nothing’s wrong. Look at your feet. Look down!”
She did. “What?” Her feet looked normal in the thrice-patched boots.
“There’s a shadow.” She looked up at him, and his eyes were wide with childlike delight. “The air must be starting to clear. I can see your shadow.” He held his arms up into the gray sky, in benediction, or in gratitude. That’s when she saw. He was casting a shadow, with two dim lines from his arms drawn on the snow, pointing from him to her.
Coral stared at those lines. Life lines. A return of light meant plants would grow. Insects would emerge. The fish would eat them and grow bigger and lay eggs. If the sun came back, they would survive.
They would survive.
She stared harder, afraid the shadows would melt away, prove to be nothing more than a mirage.
But they weren’t a mirage. They were real. Light and shadow. So simple. So rare. So precious.
She dropped the line of fish and ran to him.
