They didn’t say much after the two men left. Cherie cleaned up the kitchen; Dove checked in with Jessica and asked her to call everyone to a meeting at the store first thing in the morning. Then he stood by the window and watched the snow. He had a lot of work to do but every piece of this puzzle seemed like sky – each piece of the mystery was bright and indistinguishable from the next. He had no idea how to put it together to find Tessa Bradley and the person who killed Fritz.
Cherie moved about easily in the silence knowing she could be of little help. What she didn’t know was that Dove was also counting his blessings. He was blessed to live outside of Peter Wolfson’s world, lucky to be married to a woman like Cherie, happy not to be Jake Bradley. Dove was also taking note of his own failings. He couldn’t channel the feel and that kept Tessa Bradley just out of his reach. Time and the weather were making matters worse.
When it was very late, Dove stripped and climbed into bed beside his wife. He pulled her to him, feeling the softness of her flannel nightshirt against his skin and the bareness of her legs and the silkiness of her hair as it spread out over the pillow. He pulled her closer still and breathed her in but even Cherie couldn’t calm his worries. There was too much of the outside world atop the mountain. There was Tessa Bradley’s face in his mind’s eye.
Dove Connelly turned away from his wife as if he had just betrayed her. He got out of bed again, wrapped himself in a robe and passed by the basinette without a second glance. In the living room he looked out the window and wondered how anyone survived this dark, cold world.
My boots are expensive so they have no zippers and heels that are good for walking on nothing more treacherous than marble floors in a New York hotel. Marta shakes her head at such ridiculous footwear. She cups the heel, looks up at me as if to say ‘hold on’, then she yanks hard. She is strong but she is an old woman. It takes more than one try to get those boots off because the leather shrank in the river water.
It hurts like hell when the first one comes off. Heck, it hurts like hell when the second one comes off. Marta works so hard her barrette slips and hangs over her forehead like a little plastic red bow of a bindi. She massages my right foot and then the left. Finally she peels the socks away, and I see that my feet are still pretty. There is some swelling but no frostbite. I am lucky.
Pushing my feet off her lap, Marta walks backwards on her knees. She motions to my jeans. I unzip them, wriggle out of them as she pulls on the legs. She sets them aside atop a cracked toilette. My sweater is next. I lift my arms like I’m five years old. It doesn’t come off as easily as the boots. It sticks at my shoulder where I was shot. Marta picks at the scab like she is undoing a poorly stitched seam. She looks close when my sweater is finally off but I’m the one who really touches the wound. My fingers touch around it then go in it. I have a hole in my body and I can feel bone. It won’t heal well. There will be a scar. I don’t think I will have it fixed no matter what anyone says.
“It seems so long ago.” I say this as if I am commenting on someone else’s misfortune.
“Yah. You shouldn’t be here,” Marta comments.
I think that is a strange thing to say. Does she mean a woman like me shouldn’t be in this situation, or does she mean that I should be dead because of my wound? I don’t ask. She doesn’t tell.
Marta turns on the shower and leaves. I drop my drawers. I am naked in a little bathroom in the middle of the forest in a mobile home that my mama would have spit at. I’m in heaven. I glance at the mirror but it’s old. I only see a little bit of my face; really only half of my face. It’s me and it isn’t. I don’t fret about it as I step into the shower and shiver.
Marta lied. The water isn’t even warm. In fact it’s cold. Bracing. Like the river.
I pull back. My head hits the wall hard.
I cry out and curse and laugh all at the same time.
Marta hollers at me but the sound of her voice is lost in the rush of freezing water that cascades down the back of my head.