Ian walked past the communal bathroom to the last door on the left and inserted a key into the padlock below the doorknob. Their room was small and nondescript. They’d zipped their sleeping bags together once again, and the purple bags dominated the bed.
“Shall we read a bit, luv?” Ian asked, removing two flashlights from his pack.
“Sure.”
“You change first. I’ll go outside.”
“Okay.”
Ian stepped out into the hallway, the scent of smoke still reaching him. He wondered how the woman got her firewood, now that her husband was gone. Did she have to gather it herself? She probably couldn’t afford to buy it. Perhaps one of her sons-in-law helped her with the wood. He hoped so.
After Ian reentered the room, Mattie eased into the sleeping bag and closed her eyes while he changed into his pajamas. He then used bottled water to brush his teeth, spitting carefully into a tissue that he then dropped in a rusted bucket serving as a trash can. Picking up an old copy of Newsweek that he’d purchased in Kathmandu, he lay beside Mattie and turned on his flashlight. She already had hers out and was reading the fifth book in the Harry Potter series, a heavy work to haul up the side of a mountain.
“Is our brave lad getting into his usual mischief these days?” Ian asked.
“He had a really boring summer, and now he’s back at Hogwarts, which should be good, but he’s fighting with his friends.”
“Fighting with his mates? Why?”
“No one else believes that Voldemort is back.”
“But Harry does?”
“Of course.”
Ian smiled, pleased that Mattie was so engrossed in the series, which sometimes they read together. “It’s not getting too scary, is it?”
“Well,” she said, partially shutting the book, “maybe you can tell me a story later. A happy story.”
“No worries, luv. You let me know when.”
Ian leafed through his magazine, scanning letters to the editor, political cartoons, and an article about rising sea levels. Occasionally he glanced through the room’s sole window, watching darkness creep into the world. Now that Kate was gone, darkness affected him differently. He thought about her more often at night, for once Mattie had been born, night had brought them together in ways that the day could not. If he wasn’t working late at the office, after putting Mattie to bed they had often sipped wine and recounted the highs and lows of the day. Sometimes he needed to catch up on e-mails, and she paid bills by his side. But even in silence, they’d been together, keenly aware of each other’s presence, grateful for the solace that this presence provided.
Mattie set her book aside. “Daddy, will you tell me that story? I’m tired.”
“Aye, aye, First Mate,” he replied, shutting off his flashlight. She did the same a few seconds later and the room further darkened. “Feels as if I have my eyes closed,” he said. “Maybe this is what it’s like to be a bat.”
“But you can’t fly. And you don’t have radar.”
“No, luv. Not yet. But I’m working on it.”
“Why don’t they have electricity?”
“I reckon they will, in a few years. That road we came up here on, one day I figure it will run straight through this valley. And then they’ll have lights and idiot boxes and all that other nonsense.”
“You like it better like this, in the dark? That’s better than watching television?”
He pulled the sleeping bag higher up on him, careful not to move it past her face. “Sometimes it’s good to remember our roots,” he answered, feeling her feet brush up against his shins. “And idiot boxes don’t remind us of that.”
“Right.”
“You know, your mum never had one. Not even as a girl. So she read books and poems instead. That’s why she fancied poetry so much. Why she was always looking at things and describing how they made her feel.”
“She was good at that.”
“It helped that her mum was a teacher. I reckon they learned a lot together.”
“Like Mommy and me.”
He tugged gently on her earlobe. “Those toes of yours are like bloody ice cubes.”
“They’re freezing.”
“Sure you don’t want your own bag?” he asked, smiling.
“No way.”
“So, I get to carry both bags up the mountain, and now I’m your electric blanket as well?”
“Can you tell me a story? Something happy?”
“About what? An animal? A princess? A girl?”
“Just a girl. A girl like me.”
“A girl like you? A little ankle biter with frozen feet who tortures her father?”
“Daddy!”
“All right, luv. Just give me a few ticks of the old clock. I’ll think