1492615358 by Seré Prince Halverson

Author:Seré Prince Halverson [Halverson, Seré Prince]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc
Published: 2015-11-30T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

THIRTY-NINE

Kache lay on the bed in Aunt Snag’s guest room and turned to the place in his mother’s journal that Nadia had marked with a cloudberry leaf. This is what he read:

FIGHT IN WINTER

We woke to the aluminum morning

Our fight hanging low over us

Like smoke in the cold.

Outside the smoke from our chimney fails

To rise, carves an ugly road that runs

Parallel to earth but goes nowhere.

On a warmer day, the smoke could sail.

In a warmer place, it would lift easily as a sigh

Instead of lie here a scar.

He closed the notebook. He had a decision to make. He knew Bets Winkel one way, as a boy knows his mother. She’d made it clear these notebooks were for her eyes only, and he had always honored that. Truth be told, he hadn’t had the slightest hint of interest as a kid. But those few lines revealed a side to her he’d never even glimpsed. Was he meant to? After all these years, he still missed her, at times even desperately. But he realized he missed his idea of her, because he never got the chance to know her fully. He only knew her in relation to him. She was the one who had fed him, taught him, stuck up for him, encouraged him. Who was Bets Winkel when she wasn’t mothering him? And did he have a right to know all the things that Nadia already knew?

He buried the notebook in the bottom of the suitcase and drove to the homestead with a plan to sit Nadia down and ask her to tell him her life story, or at the very least her last name. Instead, when he pulled up in the truck, she jumped in and pulled the door shut.

“I’m ready for another trip to town.”

“That’s a change. Wristbands?”

She lifted her sleeves to show him.

“Check. Okay then,” Kache said. Nadia looked like she was ready for a fight, both her arms up, fists clenched above the gray wristbands. But she was smiling. He turned the truck around. “I guess my back needs a rest from gardening and roof repair.”

She made it the whole way without getting sick, nibbling on what she called her “Russian stomach medicine”—a homemade dill pickle. In town, they ordered some feed for the animals. When they approached the airport, Nadia asked him to turn in. “Does it bother you to see the planes?” she asked.

“No, not really. I’ve flown a lot since then, mostly for work.”

“I have never flown. I would love to get on one of those and have it take me far, far away.” He followed her gaze to the blue sky, where clouds lay here and there like exotic, uncharted countries.

He faced her. “That’s pretty bold for someone who wouldn’t get in a truck a few weeks ago.”

“It’s because of your help. And the Internet. There is so much to see, so much to do. But this is just talk.” She held her hands out, palms up. “I will live and die here without knowing other places.

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