16
Snow was lightly falling as five barefoot, shirtless men made their eager way towards the icy pond.
Clara dragged her eyes from Jesse’s shoulders to squint at her mother.
“Something on your mind?” Dr. Wilder asked.
They were sitting on the cabin’s covered front porch, snug in their down jackets, holding cups of cocoa to warm their hands.
Clara considered her wording carefully. “What’s the secret to developing a…clinical view of human anatomy?”
“Dissecting cadavers did it for me.”
Clara grimaced. “Never mind. I’ll just suffer.”
Her mother smiled. “They say it’s good for the soul.”
Clara tracked Jesse’s movements with her eyes, wishing she could see him the same way as the others. Her mother’s words penetrated. “Wait. What’s good for the soul?”
“Suffering.”
“Oh. Right.”
“If you and I weren’t here, they’d all be buck naked. Guaranteed.”
Clara rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Mom.”
“There goes Nash,” Dr. Wilder said with a laugh. “And there goes Beck. Sometimes I think they’re just trying to live up to their last name.”
“I can’t believe Dad wanted to do this. I can’t believe Hart wanted to do this. I wouldn’t jump in that lake for a million dollars.”
As they watched, the Colonel hopped into the pond and disappeared briefly beneath the surface. Instead of scrambling back out as Nash and Beck had done, he treaded water and watched as Jesse and then Hart took the leap.
“Ice baths are great for circulation,” Dr. Wilder remarked.
“Uh-huh,” Clara said. Jesse climbed back onto the dock, grinning and dripping wet, and shook the hair from his eyes. If there was ever a good time for a slow-motion replay—
“Your father is so happy to have you all back at home.”
“I know.” Clara looked at her, hearing what she didn’t say. “So are you.”
Dr. Wilder kept her eyes forward. “Yes.”
“Almost everyone together,” she said.
Her mother didn’t answer.
“Well, maybe next year.”
“Here they come,” Dr. Wilder said, nodding towards the men who were starting back up the path, laughing and ribbing each other.
Clara resisted an impulse to raise the hood of her jacket, mostly confident that none of them would dare to fling frigid water droplets on her as they passed her chair.
Instead she extended an open hand, and her faith was rewarded with five high-fives and no unwelcome spray as they half-jogged past her into the house like a football team entering a stadium.
“That was a test. Y’all passed,” she called after them. She added, to her mother, “Well, I’m going to go in and frost your cake. Coming?”
“I think I’ll sit out here a bit longer,” Dr. Wilder replied, her wistful brown eyes on the incredible landscape that stretched out all around them.