Caroline #2
That aspect of things is made harder by the fact that I'm in his cabin, on his couch, tucked nicely under his blanket, with my naked little piggies dancing in the air. But if I can keep my hands to myself, so can he.
I hope.
He comes back into the room a minute later with a glass of water and a small bottle of ibuprofen. "Here. Don't choke."
I take the two pills he offers and throw them down the hatch with enough water to ensure I don't asphyxiate. That'd be a really shitty way to go.
When the meds are gone, Afon nods and retreats to the other side of the living room to sit in an overstuffed armchair. He watches me steadily, unblinking.
I twiddle my thumbs as an awkward silence takes over. Ultimately, I can't stop myself from saying, "So…"
But before I can even proceed to the second syllable, he's shaking his head. "No."
"I haven't even asked anything yet!"
"I know. The answer is still no."
"You don't even know what the question—"
"I know what the question is, Caroline."
I shudder at the way he says my name. Kah-roh-leen, frosted over and carved into sharp pieces by his Russian accent. My whole body breaks out in goosebumps, head to toe, despite this really quite cozy blanket I'm burrito'd up in. "So I came all this way for nothing then."
He tugs at his beard in exasperation. "I didn't tell you to do that."
"No, but I—"
His raised hand once again stops me in my tracks.
"Here's what's going to happen," he rumbles in his deep voice.
"I'm going to ask you three questions, and you're going to answer them.
Once that's done, there will be no more talking.
You'll go to sleep, and in the morning, you'll leave. You will not ever come back."
"I—"
"That was not one of the questions."
I close my mouth.
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, weathered hands dangling loose between them.
It's damn near pornographic how strong and masculine those hands look.
Strong knuckles, scarred and tattooed, with a dusting of dark hair rising up his forearms, which are nicely framed by the cuffed sleeves of the thick flannel shirt he's wearing.
A dull bronze band shines on his left ring finger.
That puzzles me. There's no sign of a woman in this place at all. It's manly mountain man through and through, albeit a clean and well-organized manly mountain man with a good eye for interior design.
But apparently, he's married.
Weird.
His voice jars me back to reality. "One: Does anyone know you're here?"
"No," I lie at once. It just seems like the answer he's looking for, and I really would like to avoid pissing him off.
"Not one living soul?"
I then promptly fold at the first follow-up question.
For an Ivy League educated lawyer, I'm turning out to be pretty shit when I'm on the wrong side of the deposition.
"I may have told Cassandra I was going on a wellness retreat of sorts.
To, like, find myself. Forest bathing, immersion in nature, that kind of thing. "
The derisive snort that escapes his nostrils makes it painfully clear what Afon thinks about "that kind of thing." He sighs wearily, as if exhausted already by this unwanted interrogation.
"Question number two. Are you hurt anywhere other than your head?"
I take a moment to do a mental scan from head to toe. Ankle: tender, not broken. Knee: probably purple by tomorrow, but structurally sound. Pride: deceased.
"Just my head. And my—uh. My ankle, a little. Like, a one out of ten. Maybe a two."
"Which one."
"Left."
He reaches out—and I want to be very clear that I do not, at any point during this maneuver, think about anything other than the medical-professional nature of his hands on my body—and lifts the blanket off my left leg.
He puts a thumb on the bone of my ankle and presses, and I yelp like a kicked Pomeranian.
"Two out of ten?" he questions.
"… It might be a three."
He sighs again, somehow even more wearied than the first time, and drops the blanket back over my calf. "Why are you here?"
And there it is. The question I have been rehearsing in my head for six months.
Since I first charged out of that wedding in Red Hook to go after Afon, I've drafted, redrafted, workshopped, A/B tested, and otherwise fine-tuned a billion possible answers.
I'd finally landed on one I really liked.
The way I had it all planned out, I was going to blow him away with the firm, forceful, but not intrusive quality of my presentation.
I was gonna deliver it in a clean, brisk, lawyerly voice, in nice clothes, in daylight.
Fate, it seemed, had other ideas.
Because I'm not going to have to deliver it from my back, with a rapidly swelling goose egg on my forehead and poison ivy in my underwear.
Oh well. Fuck it. Daddy didn't raise no quitter, and sure, the circumstances aren't ideal, but a girl's gotta make do. Without further ado…
"It all started when I was born."
The third Afon sigh shuts me right up. "Jesus fucking Christ," he mutters. "Never mind. Forget I asked."
He stands up again. His knees crackle like bubble wrap and he winces, a hand rubbing at his lower back. I'm no doctor, but it doesn't sound to me like his body is in such great shape.
He walks over to the front door and shrugs into a workman's jacket hanging from a hook on the wall. He keeps his eyes averted, like he can't even bear the thought of looking at me.
"Where are you going?" I blurt out. I'm annoyed at how squeaky and annoying my voice sounds to my own ears. It's so plaintive, like, ew, what's wrong with you, girl? Don't be desperate.
Counterpoint: I really don't want him to leave me alone in this strange cabin with only a moose head for company.
Either way, Afon doesn't seem to care.
"Out," he grunts.
"The world's a big place. Care to be more specific?"
"To chop wood."
I sit up another inch on the couch. This is a mistake, headache-wise, but I am too indignant to lie back down.
"You have wood."
"Need more."
"No, like, you have a lot of wood. I saw it on the way in. There's a whole—you have a woodpile, Afon, it's like ten feet long, it goes all the way down the side of the—"
"I know where my woodpile is, Caroline."
"So then why are you going to chop more wood?"
He pauses with his hand on the doorframe and looks back at me over his shoulder. The lamp is behind him now and his face is mostly shadow, but the depth of sadness in his face throws me for a really strange loop.
"Winter's long," he says.
And then he's gone.
The door closes behind him with a soft, considered thunk. I hear his boots on the porch, then on the dirt, and then the unmistakable thock of an axe being pulled out of a stump.
Then the thock of an axe going into a log.
Then again.
Thock.
Again.
Thock.
I sit there on the couch, washcloth pressed to my forehead, plaid blanket pooled at my hips, and I stare at the moose head. It stares back. We have a long and quiet moment of mutual understanding.
"He hates me," I confide in the moose.
The moose offers up a shocking lack of disagreement.
I lower the washcloth and look at it. There's a smudge of blood on it, brownish at the edges, fresh red in the middle. It's not really that much, but the migraine it's left behind is a real bitch.
I take stock of the room again, slower this time.
There's a small kitchen at one end. It contains the sink I saw him at, the window I saw him through, a stove that runs on propane by the look of it, a stack of cast iron pans hanging from a pegboard.
A round wooden table with two chairs, one of which has a book splayed open face-down on it, spine cracked.
(My mother would have killed him for that.
You break the spine, you break the soul, Caroline.)
The other end of the room has the couch, the fireplace, a worn armchair, a braided rug. A doorway leads off into what I assume is a bedroom and, God willing, a bathroom. There's a rifle on a rack above the front door and a row of pegs for coats.
No photographs. Not one. Not on the mantle, not on the wall, not propped up on the side table next to the bourbon. Nothing in this cabin that says a person lived a life before arriving in it.
Which, I suppose, is the point.
Thock.
Thock.
Thock.
I lie back down. It's funny how naive I was when I first embarked on this insane odyssey.
Two little envelopes sent me on my way—one from Afon, one from my father.
Afon handed me the first one himself; my dad sent the latter via Matvei Satyrin from beyond the grave.
I didn't open Afon's for a long time. I guess I was scared of what might be in it.
When I finally did, what was in it changed everything.
It's the reason I'm on this couch. The reason I suffered all those wrong turns and dead ends, those "never heard of him"s and "What's an A-Fawn?" I had to find this man so I could ask him to explain, because what little bit that envelope contained wasn't enough to satisfy me, not in the least.
I had to know more.
I had to know everything.
I open my eyes. The moose is still there. "I'll try again in the morning," I vow. "I bet he'll be more talkative then."
Thock, goes the axe outside. Thock. Thock.
I pull the blanket up to my chin, because the fire is burning low and the cabin is starting to get cold. I'm just gonna rest my eyes for a minute while I wait for Afon to stop pouting and come back inside. Just long enough for the room to stop tilting.
But the thocks keep going, and I'm pretty comfy.
Just a minute longer before I open my eyes again.
A minute more. He's a stubborn son of a bitch anyway, so it wouldn't surprise me if he stays chopping wood all night long.
That's probably easier, for a man like him, than sitting in a room with an equally stubborn woman like me and answering questions about the past he left behind.
Winter's long, my ass.
Maybe it is.
But I'm not going anywhere until he explains some things.