she parks and goes inside. Half an hour later, I wind up walking back over to be sure things are still okay. I catch a glimpse of her through the kitchen window, all dark hair and narrow shoulders. Then I tromp back through the snow to my place—the cabin next door.
11
Elise
It’s a frosty morning, so Mary Oliver is what I have in my lap. Mary Oliver atop a heavy blanket I spread over myself from neck to ankles. My legs are swinging over the frigid, teal boards of the porch, swinging in socks, and I’m reading the line, “I have a lot of edges called Perhaps/ and almost nothing you can call/ Certainty” and sort of smiling to myself.
It’s not really a smile, because I’m not happy. But I’m okay. I’m thinking. About a lot of things. I’ve found that when I’m the most upset, that can be the best time to think.
I reach for my mug and swallow a long, warm sip of English breakfast tea. Then I set my book on the cold porch swing beside me.
I love reading, but I want to move. I’m not sure where I’m going, but I’ve got snowshoes just inside the front door. I pull on my tall snow boots—the ones that go up almost to my knees—and look down at myself, deciding I don’t really need my snow pants since I’ve got on a slouchy sweater, pink silk long johns, and my thickest pair of flannel PJ pants.
I grab my blanket-like burgundy down coat, my favorite gray scarf and silly unicorn beanie, gloves, and my phone. Then I sit on the screened-in porch’s little stoop and strap the snowshoes on, blinking around the snowy forest. Absolutely gorgeous—and dangerous, if you’re not properly dressed. My phone’s app said nine degrees when I woke up. I bet it’s no more than fifteen right now.
I grab one of the poles I keep leaned against the porch and start toward the grove of conifers that dot the lawn between the back of the cabin and the lake.
I’m sure snow’s been on the ground up here for weeks and weeks. The blanket of white around the cabin is hard-packed and undisturbed. I can sink my pole nearly a foot deep, so I’m grateful for the snowshoes, strapped to the underside of my boots like little boats to keep my feet from sinking.
I could veer left along the tree-line, venture into thicker woods between this cabin and the chalet-style lake house four acres over. Or I could hang a right and head toward the second fishing cabin, which my dad sold sometime in the last few years. It’s tucked close to my place, separated by only an acre or two. To the right of that cabin, through another copse of trees, is the big, white-washed lake house. Since that’s the place that houses all my childhood memories, I decide to go that way. If it hurts to see, maybe it needs to hurt. Sometimes life can’t offer anything but pain, and pain is what you need to get to happiness.
It’s so quiet, my footsteps seem outlandishly loud. Snow squeaks and crunches with each step I take. I watch as birds glide over the trees—tamaracks, I think the trees are. Then I weave my way between their bristles, drawn toward the water like I am in summer.
Except it’s not water; it’s a vast sheet of thick, snow-dusted ice. I look out at Lake Flower, abandoned for this long, harsh season. Unenjoyed. Unknown. I clamp my teeth down on my lower lip, because I draw the line at crying about a frozen lake in winter.
A few hard swallows and I’m on my way. I walk over the snow that covers the shore, looking for the beauty in the barren landscape. And there is some. Always. In every situation, there is beauty. I believe that. I think of Becca’s dress—the last one she wore. Then I see my own dress that winter night in college. I think of him inside the elevator. I can see his eyes, their roundness and the tension of his mouth and then the softness of his mouth. These things are as much buried with me as my sister’s beloved Pandy was with her. Little snippets, soft and jagged, and they’re simply mine to hold.
I pull my mind forward in time—to that morning on my run in Central Park. How he was different but the same. There aren’t words for how…incredible that is. Sometimes I think