Out of the Cold

Chapter Four

T hat night, she again went to bed early and fell right to sleep. She woke after midnight to Hilde staring at the bedroom wall, her growl so low and fierce it was practically inaudible. Then something banged against the cabin, and she nearly fell out of bed. She was afraid to look out the window, afraid to give herself away to whatever was out there.

She finally moved the curtain aside a few inches and peeked out. At first she saw nothing, then the darkness shifted, and she made out the bulky form of a bear moving along the side of the house.

A big bear. Outside.

Should she call Gabriel? No, that was crazy. She was inside the house and perfectly safe.

But Hilde was beside herself. She paced and quivered, whining at the wall. Lucy got back into bed and called to her, but the dog kept up her vigil for several more minutes. Eventually the bear must have left, because Hilde finally came back to her doggie bed to lie down.

Lucy fell into an exhausted sleep, her thoughts filled with shadowy, bulky creatures, bear-like but always on their hind legs.

The next morning, she was sitting down for breakfast when Gabriel came to her door.

He was as big as she remembered, but today he was in running shorts and a short-sleeve top. For a few seconds, she was too busy admiring his truly spectacular thighs to wonder why he was there. His chest and arms were nothing to sneeze at, either. He could probably bench press her car.

“Have you seen the side of your house this morning?” he demanded.

“Good morning to you, too.”

“It’s not, actually. Something tore your garbage apart last night. It’s all over the damn place.”

She pulled on her sneakers and followed him outside and around the corner of the house. Trash was strewn everywhere. Chicken bones, coffee grinds, paper towels, the remains of a head of lettuce.

Her heart sank at the sight.

“I, uh, I heard a bear out here last night, but it didn’t occur to me to worry about the garbage.”

“The bear might have got into it first, but I’m guessing raccoons and maybe a few other things had a party afterward.”

She bit her lip and stared down at the ground. She’d done it again.

“You’re not in the city anymore, and we don’t have curbside trash removal. Garbage is an easy food source, and once a bear finds it, it comes looking for it again and again.”

“You’ve made your point.”

The heat went out of his eyes. “I didn’t mean to sound—”

“Well, you did. Whatever. It was stupid, and now I know better.” She didn’t know who she was angrier at, him or herself.

“I’ll give you a hand. Let me get—”

“This is my mess. I’ll take care of it.”

He looked uncomfortable. “Lucy...”

“What am I supposed to do with my trash if I can’t put it outside?”

“There are trash cans in the shed. I take them to the transfer station on Thursdays.”

“Someone could have told me that.”

He dragged his hand through his hair. “Len told me he had.”

“I guess maybe he did. I’m not sure.”

He’d emailed her all kinds of information, but she’d been a mess at that point. All she’d cared about was that he was offering her a free place to stay.

She looked at the carnage in front of her, a seemingly concrete manifestation of the mess her life had become. Angry tears threatened to spill, but she held them in, determined not to show more weakness than she already had.

“You can’t be careless like this, not up here.” His tone was almost gentle.

“So what happens now? You’re saying this bear will be coming around every day? Do I have to worry about going outside?”

“You’ll need to be aware of your surroundings in case it comes back, though it may only come around at night. We only have black bears around here, and they rarely attack people, but they can get more aggressive around food, and they do go after small animals.”

“Hilde?”

“Possibly, if it feels threatened or has cubs.”

“Oh, God.”

“Unless we have a mild winter, the bears will be denning by mid-December. But that’s not the same as hibernating. They may still go out looking for food.”

“So this really is bad.”

“It’s not great.”

“I suppose I gave you one more reason to think I don’t belong here.”

“Yes.”

“Maybe I don’t, but that’s my problem, not yours.”

“It becomes my problem if you’re putting yourself in danger. You don’t even know how ignorant you are,” he said, his voice strained. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

He looked back down at the ground, but his face betrayed an anguish that went far beyond a bear getting into the trash. Something else was going on with him, but that didn’t change the fact that he was right.

“Go back home, Gabriel. I’ll deal with this, okay?”

He nodded, his face once again impassive. “You know where I’ll be.”

She watched him go, her anger dissolving into uncertainty. Maybe Gabriel was right and she should cut her losses here. She was miserable anyway, and tired of not knowing what she was doing. Last night talking to Cara, she’d been trying to convince herself she’d be fine and get the hang of things.

Only she clearly wasn’t.

Back inside, she rummaged around under the sink until she found more garbage bags. Her heart beat faster and her hands shook as she dumped the mess into the trash bag, expecting a bear to come lumbering around the corner of the house at any moment. When she finished, she took the bag to the shed that sat near the trees on her side of the little creek. Inside, as promised, were several trash bins.

Her steps were slow and heavy as she made her way back to the cabin. Her pride in having managed the fire seemed pitiful now.

Her oatmeal sat on the table, cold and congealed. She ate it anyway, too defeated to bother heating it up, and washed it down with the last cold dregs of her coffee. When she was done, she pulled her laptop toward her and searched for all Len’s emails. Sure enough, he’d mentioned the trash and hot tub. Apparently, Gabriel maintained the hot tub, too.

When she was done reading emails, she opened her manuscript to the most recent scene, but her fingers didn’t move. Her mind was blank, Maggie’s determination and grit a million miles from what she was feeling.

A familiar weariness filled her. Closing the laptop, she rose and headed for her bedroom, Hilde at her heels. The dog looked at her in confusion as she climbed into bed and pulled the covers over her.

She woke sometime later to Hilde’s whines. Opening her eyes, she found the dog sitting exactly where she’d been when Lucy fell asleep. The clock on the bedside table showed it was nearly one o’clock. She’d been out for nearly four hours, and she was still exhausted.

Could she be getting sick? The treatments that cured leukemia sometimes caused their own problems later on. She tried not to dwell on the possibility, but her body was out of kilter, and she knew better than anybody not to ignore symptoms.

She kneaded the glands in her throat. Normal. Getting up, she went into the bathroom and pulled out her thermometer, sticking it under her tongue. The thermometer beeped. Her temp was normal, too. Developing a heart condition from the treatments was always a fear, but she’d seen the cardiologist a month ago, and everything had been fine.

She wouldn’t be like this if she were home. Nothing here was what she’d expected, and she wasn’t up to it. Her body was only telling her what she already knew.

Hilde whined again. Heading into the mudroom, Lucy stuffed her feet into her sneakers. “Sorry, girl,” she said, snapping the leash on Hilde. “No more running free for a while.”

The fresh air revived her somewhat, and she couldn’t help but smile as the dog sniffed her way around the yard. Hilde would hate being stuck in the car on the drive to Florida, but they could stop often and take walks. And the whole family would dote on her. She’d get even more spoiled.

Relief swept through her as she pictured them heading east, then arriving at the safety of her parents’ house. They were going to be thrilled when she told them. It would be embarrassing to give up so soon, but she knew her limitations. She was lonely, and she wasn’t physically up to being here.

Back inside, she heated up some soup, already feeling better. She’d call her parents and let them know, then call Len. She didn’t relish the thought of telling him she was leaving already, but he didn’t need her here.

Her phone rang as she was sitting down to eat lunch.

Mark.

They hadn’t seen each other since he’d moved out of the apartment and headed to Washington for a job at another university. She’d spoken to him only once since then, when they discussed shipping the furniture he’d left behind for her to use. All other communication was conducted through email.

She briefly considered sending him to voicemail, but curiosity got the better of her.

“Hello?”

“Hi Lucy. Sorry to bother you.” His voice cracked, as if he was nervous, too. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

He cleared his throat. “Your new Triple A card came, and I wanted to send it to you. Are you at your parents’?”

He was still kind. Somehow he’d managed to leave her without ever saying anything mean or raising his voice. She still didn’t understand what had gone wrong.

“No, I’m at Len’s cabin. I can give you my post office box.”

“Wow, really?”

“His family isn’t using it, so he offered it to me.”

“That’s great,” he said, sounding doubtful.

She dug the paperwork out of her purse and read him her address.

“I was sure you’d go back to Florida,” he said.

She couldn’t bring herself to admit she was planning to. “Can I ask you something?” she said instead.

“Anything.”

“Why did you break up with me?”

“Lucy...”

“I need to understand. I know things weren’t perfect, but we never fought, and I don’t know...I thought we were sort of happy.”

“We were, for the most part. But we hadn’t been together very long when I realized...” He sighed and went quiet.

“Tell me.”

“I thought you were wonderful. I still do. But after we started living together, I realized I didn’t have a partner. I need to be with someone who can share the burden, but instead I felt like I was the only grown-up. You never stepped up and sorted anything out.”

“But we each had our thing, right? All couples do that. One person does most of the cooking, the other person does the yard work. That kind of thing.”

He sighed, and she could almost see him running his hand through his hair the way he did when he wasn’t sure how to explain himself. “Sure, yes. But I took care of all the boring, mundane things so you could live in your imaginary world.”

“I thought you liked taking care of those sorts of things.”

“No one likes calling their internet provider or their insurance agent. You do it because it has to be done.”

“But you never said anything.”

“Of course I did. I tried to, anyway, but you didn’t pay attention, or you forgot what I asked. It was easier to do things myself.”

“While I hid away and wrote my book,” she said, her whole body cringing at the thought.

“It’s a great book, and I’m glad I made it easier for you to write. You deserve someone who’ll take care of you, but I realized it couldn’t be me.”

His words knocked the breath out of her. In all the years of hospitals and paper gowns and lying on exam tables, she’d never felt so exposed.

“Luce?” His voice was soft, hesitant.

She choked back a sob. “I understand. I wouldn’t want to be with me either.”

“Don’t say that. It’s not...we’re just...we’re in different places.”

That’s what had attracted her to him. That and their mutual love of books. She’d been clueless, living on her own for the first time. He was thirty-two and already a respected tenure-track associate professor.

If only he’d yelled or insulted her, accused her of something. Instead, his kind explanation eviscerated her. Of all the varieties of pain she’d endured, this was the worst. Never had she seen herself so clearly.

“I sometimes wondered what you would have been like if you never got sick,” Mark said.

“You and me both.”

“I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”

I’d probably never have met you , she wanted to say. I’d have been somewhere else. I’d have been long gone.

“I should go,” she said, desperate to get off.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “I wanted to know, and now I do.”

“Lucy—”

“I have to...” She couldn’t finish the sentence. “Goodbye, Mark.”

She hung up, her breath sawing in and out, her heart racing. Spreading her knees, she leaned over and took deep breaths.

She was fine. She’d be fine.

But was it true? Was she incapable of being a partner to him? To anyone?

The floor vibrated with the heavy tread of someone coming up the deck stairs. Straightening up, she saw Gabriel appear on the other side of the glass doors carrying a bucket.

He paused, and she could faintly hear him call her name, presumably to make sure he didn’t walk in on her naked. A moment later, he disappeared behind the barrier surrounding the hot tub.

She was as bad as Gabriel thought she was. Worse even.

She’d once found a pamphlet for the parents of cancer patients on her mother’s nightstand. She knew it wasn’t meant for her, but she’d read it anyway. A lot of it was stuff she’d heard before, but one part talked about teenagers missing developmental milestones. At the time, she thought they meant things like prom and graduation.

But it was more than that. She’d never had the chance to go to parties with her friends and defy her parents’ curfew. She didn’t have a job until she was in her twenties. She was in the hospital or home sick in bed while her friends were taking the first messy steps into adulthood. She didn’t even move out of her parents’ house until she was twenty-seven, the same year she finally finished college. She met Mark six months later. Now she was thirty and barely able to live on her own.

She’d tried so hard to be normal, but she never stood a chance.

Had she even been in love with Mark, or was he a way to get away from her hometown and start the life she’d been missing?

It was a big world out there, and she’d managed to put three thousand miles between herself and her family. But she wasn’t independent. She wasn’t a functioning adult. She’d only switched from depending on her family to depending on Mark.

It’s not my fault , she wanted to yell. How was I supposed to tell the difference?

Hilde came and sat next to her, her body warm and heavy against her leg. Sometimes she did that, sat so close there was no space between them. That was okay for a dog, not so much for a human.

She was too exposed with Gabriel out there, even though she doubted he’d so much as glance in her direction when he left, so she went to her room and lay on her bed. Exhausted by self-doubt, she was asleep in minutes.

She woke to eat dinner and take the dog out, then went back to bed again with an apologetic pat on Hilde’s head. She woke at dawn from a dream that she was back in the hospital.

She’d had similar dreams for years after going through treatment, and they’d started up again after Mark left. Each one left her weak with relief, like she’d had another close call.

Heart pounding, she pushed the curtain aside and drank in the pink and lilac sky. She was still sitting there with her face pressed against the cool glass when Gabriel emerged from his cabin in sweats and a hoodie and headed around the side of his house toward the trail.

She sat up straight. She might not be as strong and capable as Gabriel, but she wasn’t as incapable as he thought she was. Or maybe she was, but she could learn.

She wasn’t in the hospital, and she wasn’t sick anymore. There was no excuse for running home now.

It was time to grow up.

What was the point of surviving if she didn’t live a good life? If she didn’t find love and happiness?

Still, the days stretched out before her, all the empty hours like so many blank pages waiting to be filled. If she was going to stay here and finish her book, she needed some structure.

After taking Hilde out, she made a cup of coffee, then sat down at the table, opened her notebook, and sketched out a schedule for weekdays and weekends.

Sitting back, she regarded it with a satisfied smile.

She could do this, and she’d start today.

It was a relief to lose herself in writing over the next few days as Maggie sat for the medical school entrance exam after fighting to take it. Surrounded by men giving her withering looks, she held her head high even as nausea and doubt plagued her.

“Do not let the female in our midst distract you, gentleman,” the proctor said. He didn’t even glance at Maggie. “Simply go about your business and show her who really belongs here.”

She could feel Maggie’s adrenaline and fear, her overwhelming relief as she stood up after four hours of writing and handed her exam in.

Maggie was all the things Lucy wanted to be. She didn’t wait for life to give her what she wanted or settle for what others were willing to offer her. Things were going to get even more difficult for her soon. Men were going to make her life hell once she got accepted into the medical school. She was a threat to their way of life and everything they knew about the world, and they weren’t going to take it lying down. But Maggie was tough, and even though she had doubts, her resolve never wavered.

Lucy had never had that kind of resolve about anything, not until now. She hadn’t needed to. She had a family who had been her strength and kept her from falling. But she was standing on her own two feet for the first time, and it felt great.

Her stomach growled, reminding her it was time for lunch. She’d gone too long without seeing anyone else, and she was starting to talk to herself. Time to go to town and see some human beings.

She stopped first at the post office. It was too soon for her to have received any mail from people back east, but even so, her heart leapt at the sight of something in her post office box. Unfolding the bright yellow flyer, she saw it was a circular from the town about events that week—talks at the library and historical society, an outing with a local ornithologist, and children’s story hour at the bookstore.

She was totally going to do some of the things on the flyer. Maybe even all of them.

Well, not the children’s story hour.

Back on the street, she took a deep breath and started walking toward the shops at the other end. It was cold today, cold enough to bring home the fact that she didn’t have the right clothes for living up here.

She walked up one side of the main drag, dipping into boutiques to linger over cashmere sweaters and artisan jewelry, working her way toward Turn the Page, a surprisingly large bookstore with the latest bestsellers in the window. Opening the door, she stepped inside, smiling as she looked around. Why had she taken so long to come here? All her worries faded away when she was in the company of books.

She scanned the new fiction for something to read, agonizing over several hardcovers before deciding to buy all three.

Finally, when she couldn’t pretend any longer that she didn’t care, she headed for the young adult section to see if they carried her book. She did the same thing at every bookstore she visited. Most of the time, she found her book on the shelf. But there were times she didn’t, and it was always difficult talking herself out of her disappointment. She wasn’t a big-time author and shelf space was scarce, so that was life.

Her eyes skimmed the titles, searching for the authors whose last name started with P—Parsons, Partridge, Pearl, Pearson, Pitman. It took her a moment to recognize her own book.

She must have made some kind of noise, because one of the staff members, a handsome man in his forties, looked up from where he was straightening books on a nearby table. “Did you find something you like?”

“No. I mean, yes. I was looking for this...” she stammered.

“That’s a great story. If you’re looking to buy something for a teenage girl, you couldn’t do better.”

“You really think so?”

“As long as she likes historical fiction. That one takes place in the early twentieth century.”

“I actually wrote this,” she confessed. “That’s why I was so happy to see it here.”

“How about that?” he said, coming over and holding out his hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, Lucy. I’m Hector Diaz, the owner. We don’t often get authors here. It’s a little too far off the beaten track. What brings you here?”

“I’m staying in Jeffrey for the winter while I work on the second book.”

“In that case, I’d love to have you read here one afternoon. It would be a real treat for everyone. What do you think?”

Her first instinct was to demur. She’d had a modest tour when the book came out, and not all of the events had been stellar. Only four people had shown up to the first one. But she wanted a career as a writer, which meant she couldn’t turn down offers like this one.

“That would be wonderful,” she said.

“Perfect. Let me take a look at the calendar, and I’ll be in touch about dates. I’ll look for something right before Christmas, when there are lots of people in town.”

Giddy now, she let Hector lead her to the cash register, where he introduced her to the two other booksellers. One of them, a girl of maybe eighteen or nineteen named Kelly, had actually read her book.

“Oh my God, this is so cool. I love that book! I recommend it all the time.”

Lucy’s face got hot with embarrassed pleasure. “Thank you. That’s so nice to hear.”

“Do you think you’ll ever write a book about Maggie?” Kelly asked.

“That’s what I’m working on right now.”

“That is so awesome. I can’t wait to read it.”

She left the store with a smile still on her face, feeling like a real author.

Crossing the street, she pushed through the door to a little café and stood there, inhaling the scent of coffee and baked goods.

It was busier than she’d realized, with only a couple of open tables. Taking off her coat, she draped it over a chair to reserve it and placed her order at the counter. She’d only been away from San Francisco for five days, but she’d taken no joy in the city her last few months there. Her split with Mark and the subsequent uncertainties had left her reeling. If it hadn’t been for Hilde, she might not have left the house at all some days.

The barista brought her sandwich and hot chocolate, and she sat and read the first few pages of one of her new books, content to be exactly where she was.

She’d drunk most of her hot chocolate when a movement at the corner of her eye made her look up.

Gabriel stood a few feet away, a mug in one hand, frozen in what appeared to be indecision.

There was one open table, but he was obviously contemplating whether he should sit with her.

She had to clear her throat to speak. “Hi, Gabriel.”