She couldn’t complain that her family had turned out to be fragile and that she no longer felt safe in her home, not after what he’d been through.
She could have said it before—maybe—when life had felt different for both of them, but not now, when he was so broken he couldn’t even sit up straight.
She almost said, It will get better, to him, but then she saw the tears in his eyes and she closed her mouth. Neither one of them needed platitudes right now.
What they needed was help.
*
IN JANUARY, the weather got worse. Cold and darkness isolated the Allbright family even more. Feeding the woodstove became priority number one, a constant round-the-clock chore. They had to chop and carry and stack a huge amount of wood each day, just to survive. And as if all of that weren’t stressful enough, on bad nights—nightmare nights—Dad woke them in the middle of the night to pack and repack their bug-out bags, to test their preparedness, to take their weapons apart and put them back together.
Each day, the sun set before five P.M. and didn’t rise until ten A.M., giving them a grand total of six hours of daylight—and sixteen hours of darkness—a day. Inside the cabin, the Dixie cups showed no new green starts. Dad spent hours hunched over his ham radio, talking to Mad Earl and Clyde, but more and more of the world was cut away. Nothing came easily—not getting water or cutting wood or feeding the animals or going to school.
But worst of all was the rapidly emptying root cellar. They had no vegetables anymore, no potatoes or onions or carrots. They were almost to the end of their fish stores, and a single caribou haunch hung in the cache. Since they ate almost nothing but protein, they knew the meat wouldn’t last long.
Her parents fought constantly about the lack of money and supplies. Dad’s anger—kept barely in check since the funeral—was slowly escalating again. Leni could feel it uncoiling, taking up space. She and Mama moved cautiously, tried never to aggravate him.
Today, Leni woke in the dark, ate breakfast and dressed for school in the dark, and arrived at her classroom in the dark. The bleary-eyed sun didn’t appear until past ten o’clock, but when it did show up, sending streamers of brittle yellow light into the shadowy lantern-and woodstove-lit classroom, everyone perked up.
“It’s a sunny day! The weatherman was right!” Ms. Rhodes said from her place at the front of the classroom. Leni had been in Alaska long enough to know that a sunny, blue-skied January day was noteworthy. “I think we need to get out of this classroom, get a little air in our lungs and some sunshine on our faces. Blow out the winter cobwebs. I’ve planned a field trip!”
Axle groaned. He hated anything and everything that had to do with school. He peered through the rat’s-nest fringe of black hair he never washed. “Aw, come on … can’t we just go home early? I could go ice fishing.”
Ms. Rhodes ignored the scruffy-haired teenager. “The older of you— Matthew, Axle, and Leni—help the littles put on their coats and get their backpacks.”
“I’m not helping,” Axle said flatly. “Let the lovebirds do everything.”
Leni’s face flamed at the comment. She didn’t look at Matthew.
“Fine. Whatever,” Ms. Rhodes said. “You can go home.”
Axle didn’t need more encouragement. He grabbed his parka and left the school in a rush.
Leni got up from her seat and went to help Marthe and Agnes with their parkas. No one else had shown up for school today; the trip from Bear Cove must have proven too harsh.
She turned back, saw Matthew standing by his desk, shoulders slumped, dirty hair fallen across his eyes. She went to him, reached out, touched his flannel sleeve. “You want me to get you your coat?”
He tried to smile. “Yeah. Thanks.”
She got Matthew’s camo parka and handed it to him.
“Okay, everyone, let’s go,” Ms. Rhodes said. She led the students out of the classroom and into the bright, sunlit day. They marched through town and down to the harbor, where a Beaver float plane was docked.
The plane was dented up and in need of paint. It rolled and creaked and pulled at its lines with every slap of the incoming tide. At their approach, the plane’s door opened and a wiry man with a bushy white beard jumped down onto the dock. He wore a battered trucker’s cap and mismatched boots. The smile he gave them was so big it bunched up his cheeks and turned his eyes into slits.
“Kids, this is Dieter Manse, from Homer. He used to be a Pan Am pilot. Climb aboard,” Ms. Rhodes said. To Dieter, she said, “Thanks, man. I appreciate this.” She glanced worriedly back at Matthew. “We needed to clear our heads a bit.”