The Silence by Karen Lee White

Author:Karen Lee White [White, Karen Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Exile Editions

CHAPTER TWELVE

Leah has one perfectly preserved and beautiful memory that comforts her spirit. She keeps reliving it.

Uncle and Haywire are outside, she hears them talking.

“Come on, Chaos, the ice will melt!” Leah’s excited, like a little kid, can’t wait to get moving. She smiles to herself and calls,

“I’m coming, just grabbing mitts!”

Doris has a filthy look on her face, is shaking her head. Leah isn’t measuring up. She feels Doris’s judgement coming at her like a bad smell. She hears every day, “A good woman can run fishnets in winter with bare hands. You think you can do that, city girl?” Leah feels frustration rise. She sees the dark look in Doris’s eyes, and knows Doris does not approve of Leah being with her son. Doris is trying, but Leah knows it’s only to keep peace with Haywire. Leah can feel the resentment coming off Doris in waves when he’s not looking.

She smiles and says “Bye!” to a grumpy Doris, pulls her mitts on, and throws her scarf around her neck, tying it tight.

They’re waiting outside the back door. She breathes in air redolent of spruce, moss, frozen berries. Doris is glaring at her through the kitchen window, but she will not show that she feels it. Leah can’t help herself, turns and sticks her tongue out. Then just as Doris’s face scowls, it changes into a broad smile and Leah sees the wave. She knows Haywire has changed that look. He pretends he does not see this tension between the two women, but he teases Leah out of earshot.

“What did you do to Mom? Pee in the mush? Chip her stove? Insult Hank Williams?”

They take the well-worn path behind the house, heading for the meadows, and she can’t wait to see this place Haywire has talked so much about. Her feet crunch on frozen moss, layers of fallen pine needles. The ground has no give. As if the permafrost has reached with icy fingers all the way to the surface. The air is stinging cold on her ears, her face. Her breath clouds with every exhale.

Angus walks ahead, with his .30-30. This is not a hunting trip, but guns are part of life because, as Angus says, “Never know.”

Leah is walking in the middle behind Uncle. Haywire behind her, carries a.22. They don’t make a sound when they walk but, no matter how hard Leah tries, she makes noise as they weave through the spruce, jack pines and buck brush. Leah tries hard, but her feet keep breaking sticks. Haywire hisses, “Why don’t you scare all the game away?” She turns and shoots him a look. He grins widely as she trips on a deadfall.

She finds looking at Angus’s back comforting. He always wears the same plaid wool cap, army-green bush jacket, loose khaki pants. Bush boots, leather lace-ups, high on the ankle, pants tucked in.

They move around willows, through thickets of buck brush, and finally now the land is clear and flat for miles around, except for stands of trees with a few deep gold leaves here and there.

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