seats and yanked on the steering wheel. I was attempting to turn us around. To make something I wanted, happen. Just like she suggested.
Maggie never saw it coming and didn’t have time to react. The car slipped on the icy blacktop. We spun around and landed with our tail end and half the car jammed into a four-foot high snow bank on the side of the road.
To my surprise Maggie laughed. She laughed in the full-bodied, whole-hearted way she used to when I was younger as if whatever I’d done or said was the funniest thing she’d ever seen or heard. It was the times when she laughed that I most enjoyed my mother.
The cigarette lighter popped and Maggie lit a cigarette, balancing it between her lips as she rummaged through her purse with both hands. “Shit,” she swore under her breath and tossed the purse into the passenger seat. “No phone. I must have left it back at the cabin.”
Maggie laughed again and attempted to start the car. It chugged and idled before quickly stalling out. After a few more unsuccessful attempts, Maggie leaned back in her seat and puffed her cigarette into a stump before rolling down the window and tossing it out. I watched the snow drift in through the open window and felt the sting of cold air on my cheeks. We were going to freeze to death if we didn’t get out of there. I wrapped myself up again and buried my face in my knees until she closed the window. I tried to pretend I wasn’t cold. Tried even harder to pretend I wasn’t scared.
Maggie was the first to climb out of the car through the passenger side window. She slid down the slope of snow then the hood, and stood there calling me to her. I didn’t want to go. I could feel the ice in the air, the frozen water. But I was too young then to resist her. Back then, I always wanted to be near her, like opposite sides of two magnets, she drew me to her.
The snow soaked through my pajamas almost instantly. The cold seeped through my skin, into my bones. My skin pricked at first from the biting wind—tiny stabs of pain to remind me I was still alive and in danger of losing feeling. The burn set in later as we traveled further away from the vehicle.
I couldn’t feel my legs at all by the time Maggie laid down upon the snow in a clearing by the road. She wanted to make snow angels. Giggled and pulled me down against the soft white bed with her. We laid there, our eyelashes glistening with frost, our lips turning blue, our breaths—once powerful puffs of smoke—growing shallower. Darkness crept in along the edges of my vision and we laid there so long I thought we might fall apart. Into tiny icy flakes, become a part of the snow beneath us. I’d whined to Maggie that I was tired and she whispered for me to close my eyes. “Go ahead and rest, baby. When you wake up, we’ll be somewhere better. Somewhere warmer.”
The headlights cut through the darkness first, illuminating the field where we laid. Then the smaller wavering beam of a flashlight. Uncle Jim said nothing as he carried me to the truck then drove us back to Little Bend. Just turned on the radio, turned up the heat, and tried to rub me back to life. While I was grateful to have my senses returned—to feel alive once more—there was something to be said for the quiet. The numbness that followed the cold. The relief that came when the feeling stopped and I no longer had to live with the pain.
Chapter Eight
Abby
No one waited at the corner of the block for me on Monday. No black pickup. No smile. No Garrett. I walked to school, arriving late—well after the football players had taken the field. Garrett’s pickup truck wasn’t in the parking lot at the school either. Apparently, he hadn’t been kidding when he told me he hated swimming.
A light was on in Coach Scott’s office and I could see his shiny, round head leaning over a file that was open on his desk. A swimmer splashed in the water below me. I could
Maggie never saw it coming and didn’t have time to react. The car slipped on the icy blacktop. We spun around and landed with our tail end and half the car jammed into a four-foot high snow bank on the side of the road.
To my surprise Maggie laughed. She laughed in the full-bodied, whole-hearted way she used to when I was younger as if whatever I’d done or said was the funniest thing she’d ever seen or heard. It was the times when she laughed that I most enjoyed my mother.
The cigarette lighter popped and Maggie lit a cigarette, balancing it between her lips as she rummaged through her purse with both hands. “Shit,” she swore under her breath and tossed the purse into the passenger seat. “No phone. I must have left it back at the cabin.”
Maggie laughed again and attempted to start the car. It chugged and idled before quickly stalling out. After a few more unsuccessful attempts, Maggie leaned back in her seat and puffed her cigarette into a stump before rolling down the window and tossing it out. I watched the snow drift in through the open window and felt the sting of cold air on my cheeks. We were going to freeze to death if we didn’t get out of there. I wrapped myself up again and buried my face in my knees until she closed the window. I tried to pretend I wasn’t cold. Tried even harder to pretend I wasn’t scared.
Maggie was the first to climb out of the car through the passenger side window. She slid down the slope of snow then the hood, and stood there calling me to her. I didn’t want to go. I could feel the ice in the air, the frozen water. But I was too young then to resist her. Back then, I always wanted to be near her, like opposite sides of two magnets, she drew me to her.
The snow soaked through my pajamas almost instantly. The cold seeped through my skin, into my bones. My skin pricked at first from the biting wind—tiny stabs of pain to remind me I was still alive and in danger of losing feeling. The burn set in later as we traveled further away from the vehicle.
I couldn’t feel my legs at all by the time Maggie laid down upon the snow in a clearing by the road. She wanted to make snow angels. Giggled and pulled me down against the soft white bed with her. We laid there, our eyelashes glistening with frost, our lips turning blue, our breaths—once powerful puffs of smoke—growing shallower. Darkness crept in along the edges of my vision and we laid there so long I thought we might fall apart. Into tiny icy flakes, become a part of the snow beneath us. I’d whined to Maggie that I was tired and she whispered for me to close my eyes. “Go ahead and rest, baby. When you wake up, we’ll be somewhere better. Somewhere warmer.”
The headlights cut through the darkness first, illuminating the field where we laid. Then the smaller wavering beam of a flashlight. Uncle Jim said nothing as he carried me to the truck then drove us back to Little Bend. Just turned on the radio, turned up the heat, and tried to rub me back to life. While I was grateful to have my senses returned—to feel alive once more—there was something to be said for the quiet. The numbness that followed the cold. The relief that came when the feeling stopped and I no longer had to live with the pain.
Chapter Eight
Abby
No one waited at the corner of the block for me on Monday. No black pickup. No smile. No Garrett. I walked to school, arriving late—well after the football players had taken the field. Garrett’s pickup truck wasn’t in the parking lot at the school either. Apparently, he hadn’t been kidding when he told me he hated swimming.
A light was on in Coach Scott’s office and I could see his shiny, round head leaning over a file that was open on his desk. A swimmer splashed in the water below me. I could
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