“He won’t really do it. He was just crazed. He’ll see reason.”
“That’s what you’re going to rely on?”
Leni saw for the first time how old her mother looked, how drawn and defeated. There was no light in her eyes anymore, no ready smile.
“I’ll get you coffee.”
Before Leni made it to the kitchen, a knock rattled the cabin door. Almost simultaneously the door swung open. “Hullo, the house!”
Large Marge strode forward. A dozen bracelets clattered on her fleshy wrists, earrings bobbed up and down like fishing lures, catching the light. Her hair was growing out again. She’d parted it down the middle and tied it into two pom-pom balls that flopped as she moved.
Dad pushed in behind the black woman, put his hands on his bony hips. “I said you couldn’t go in, g-damn it.”
Large Marge grinned and handed Mama a bottle of lotion. She pressed it into her hands, closed her big hands over Mama’s small ones. “Thelma made this from the lavender growing in her backyard. She thought you’d love it.”
Leni could see what this small kindness meant to her mother.
“We don’t want your charity,” Dad said. “She smells just fine without putting on that shit.”
“Girlfriends give each other gifts, Ernt. And Cora and I are friends. That’s why I’m here, in fact. I thought I’d have coffee with my neighbors.”
“Would you get Marge some coffee, Leni?” Mama said. “And maybe a piece of cranberry bread.”
Dad crossed his arms, standing with his back to the door.
Large Marge led Mama to the sofa, helped her to sit, then sat beside her. The cushion popped beneath the woman’s weight. “Really, I wanted to talk to you about my diarrhea.”
“Good Christ,” Dad said.
“It’s been explosive. I wondered if you’d come across any home remedies. Good Lord, the cramping has been awful.”
Dad muttered an expletive and left the cabin, slamming the door shut behind him.
Large Marge smiled. “Men are so easy to outthink. So, now it’s just us.”
Leni handed out coffees and then sat down in the old Naugahyde recliner they’d bought at a junk store in Soldotna last year.
Large Marge’s gaze moved from Cora, to Leni, and back to Cora. Leni was sure that it missed nothing. “I don’t imagine Ernt was pleased about Thelma’s decision at Earl’s funeral.”
“Oh. That,” Mama said.
“I see the posts he’s dug out on the main road. Looks like he’s building a wall around this place.”
Mama shook her head. “He won’t.”
“You know what walls do?” Large Marge said. “They hide what happens behind them. They trap people inside.” She put her cup down on the coffee table, leaned toward Mama. “He could put a lock on that gate and keep the key and how would you escape?”
“H-he wouldn’t do that,” Mama said.
“Oh, really?” Large Marge said. “That’s what my sister said the last time I talked to her. I would do anything to go back in time and change what happened. She’d finally left him, but it was too late.”
“She left him,” Mama said quietly. For once, she didn’t look away. “That’s what got her killed. Men like that … they don’t stop looking for you until they find you.”
“We can protect you,” Large Marge said.
“‘We’？”
“Tom Walker and me. The Harlans. Tica. Everyone in Kaneq. You’re one of us, Cora, you and Leni. He’s the outsider. Trust us. Let us help.”
Leni thought about it for real, seriously; they could leave him.
It would mean leaving Kaneq and probably Alaska.
Leaving Matthew.
And, what? Would they have to be on the run forever, hiding out, changing their names? How did that work? Mama had no money, no credit card. She didn’t even have a valid driver’s license. Neither of them did. On paper, did she and Mama even exist?
And what if he found them anyway?
“I can’t,” Mama finally said, and Leni thought they were the saddest, most pathetic words she’d ever heard.
Large Marge stared at Mama a long time, disappointment etched in the lines of her face. “Well. These things take time. Just know that we are here. We’ll help you. All you have to do is ask. I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night in January. You come to me, okay? I don’t care what you’ve done or what he’s done. You come to me and I’ll help.”