Chapter 12
I do not remember returning to the cabin, but suddenly I am swaddled in a towel on the carpet where earlier I crawled on all fours.
Beneath this towel I am not wearing any clothes.
Henry lights a roll of newspaper with a match and waves it around the interior of the fireplace like a torch, a search-party signal to the little lost people who took a wrong turn into the chimney.
He lights another match and tucks it under the pile of wood.
I expect an explosive whoosh, writhing orange peaks, but a single low flame struggles to convince others to join.
Henry sits back beside me. He is still wearing his wet clothes. “Who else is here?” I ask him in a whisper.
“It’s only us,” he answers in a stunned voice, like he can’t believe everything that just happened happened.
“I heard someone saying my name.”
“You lost consciousness. I… I did not mean to hold you under that long. I thought you were dead.” Henry begins to shiver violently.
He gets up and leaves me for a while. When he comes back, he’s wearing dry clothes and he offers me some too.
He turns away while I put them on, though he must have been the one to undress me, and then he helps me into bed and puts a pillow under my bad ankle before tucking me in.
But even with the fire and the flannel sheets, I cannot get warm.
My fingers and toes are ice and my teeth won’t stop chattering.
Henry stares at me, shaking so hard the headboard batters the wall, and then tells me this is to prevent shock.
He gets under the covers with me. He reaches for me like he used to.
We find our fit—my face jigsawed into his collarbone, his hands sprawled in the small of my back, holding our centers together until the birdsong starts in the dark.