The River is Everywhere by Emilie-Noelle Provost

Author:Emilie-Noelle Provost [Provost, Emilie-Noelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: novels set in cape cod;good boy turns bad boy;young adult books set in canada;teenage romance;romance high school;devout Catholic;wilderness adventure books;teen mystery books;teen mystery fiction;books about teenagers and murder;self-discovery;books for boys about survival;franco-american characters
Publisher: Vine Leaves Press
Published: 2023-03-13T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Roland put the Subaru into four-wheel drive, and we headed down an unplowed logging road, a shortcut, he said, back to his cabin, since Route 7 was now impassable. After we’d driven what seemed like several miles, we parked by the side of the road and followed Roland through the woods. How he knew where he was going is still a mystery to me. By the time we got to the cabin, we were nearly frozen solid.

Embers from the morning’s fire were still glowing in the woodstove. CL took off her coat and boots and pressed her little body against the cast iron in an effort to thaw herself out. Roland, who didn’t seem to be cold in the least, set about opening cabinets and tossing things into bags, which, I realized, we were going to have to haul back to the car.

It took about an hour for us to gather up all the food in the cabin, three liters of Canadian whiskey, one liter of Yukon Jack, several gallons of fresh water, two boxes of ammunition, two copies of the Bible—one in French and one in English—all manner of sweaters, coats, mittens, socks, hats and scarves, and the few toys CL had been playing with, including the doll Roland had given her for Christmas, and her crayons, paper, and coloring books. We loaded it all onto a rickety wooden sled that Roland cobbled together from a couple of old pallets.

After Roland had somehow fit everything into the Subaru’s hatch, we set out to find a store where we could buy a few things we didn’t have and fill the car up with gas. We ended up at a Walmart in a sad outpost of a town called Jacob’s Bridge.

Before going into the store, I pulled on one of Roland’s wool hats and a pair of sunglasses so no one would recognize me. I’m pretty sure I looked like a homeless person, but everyone shopping there seemed pretty destitute, so I basically blended in. A guy with an eye patch, whose winter gear consisted only of a white T-shirt and a beat-up leather vest, rummaged through a bin of DVDs. Whole families roamed the grocery section en masse, like they were on some sort of gloomy field trip. Even the little kids in that place looked depressed.

I remembered the cash I’d earned helping Daryl clean out the barn and offered to help Roland pay for the windshield washer fluid, ice scraper, and emergency blankets he had loaded into our cart. He waved me off.

“CL, is there anything you want? Are you hungry? Do you want something to play with?” I felt like I needed to do something for the poor kid, especially now that I’d had to tell her that we weren’t going to be taking her to her mother for a while longer.

CL shook her head, not seeming to care one way or the other.

I grabbed a bag of M&Ms and paid for them myself as we were checking out.

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