Paul Curtin - Gray Snow

And his words. They sunk deep into her like a serrated knife between her ribs. You killed us . Maybe she had. She had tried to do what she thought was best. Sean had scared her in the days beforehand with his muttering to himself, with the way he looked at his axe and his guns. She didn’t think he would hurt anyone—just himself. But it was she who ended up hurting everyone instead. In a way she wished he had gone through with the slap. Maybe she deserved punishment. Many days she felt like it would have been right.

Then again, that was what all battered women said. That they deserved it. Not that she was a battered woman. He hadn’t even hit her. He had asked for forgiveness hours later, and she gave it to him. But the look in his eyes kept coming back into her mind. Those eyes.

She was always surrounded by the people she was ashamed to look at. Her children—the prospect of them starving because of her. When she hugged Aidan particularly, feeling his ribs under her arms, guilt simmered deep inside her gut. It would be her fault. All her fault.

She ended up spending the most time with Kelly, maybe because Elise’s guilt about what happened to her was strongest, the replay always at the front of her mind. For the first few days, sitting there with her, a hand resting on her knee, Elise couldn’t find the words to say anything other than how sorry she was. What else was there to say, that she thought inviting Travers in was compassionate? That she didn’t know he would bring his friends or what they would do to her? And if Sean hadn’t done something, there would have been much more of that. Poor consolation.

Then one day Kelly spoke. “I’ve been thinking.”

Elise, her hand over Kelly’s, turned from the fire toward her.

“I’m glad it wasn’t Molly, you know?”

Elise gripped her hand tighter.

“Because if it was anyone,” Kelly whispered, tears lining her eyes, “I’m just glad it wasn’t her. She wouldn’t have deserved it.”

“You didn’t deserve it either.”

Kelly gripped her hand. “You’ve raised such great kids.”

“Kelly—”

“They’re so strong,” she said, eyes dripping. “So much stronger than—” She paused. “You’re so strong too.”

But Elise didn’t think so. Most of the time, all she could see was weakness.

She spent days sitting with Kelly, silently moving through the darkness with her, speaking little but feeling connected to her sister-in-law for the first time. When she wasn’t with Kelly or making food, she busied herself around the house even though the cold made her toes and fingers numb. The walls pressed in closer to her. She cleaned. She tried to insulate the home, sealing everything with caulking, but it felt like a losing battle.

With a caulking gun in her hand, she filled one corner of the mudroom and then covered it with duct tape when it dried.

She didn’t hear the footsteps behind her. Startled, she leapt to her feet and twisted around. Sean.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he whispered.

She held her hand to her chest. “It’s okay.”

He looked toward the kitchen and then back to her. “Listen, I don’t know what’s going on, but this doesn’t feel like us.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re avoiding me, is what I mean.”

She set the caulking gun down on top of the washer. “I don’t really know what to say.”

“I don’t know either. But we need to say something.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. We both—” He looked down the hall. “We both did things we’re not proud of. I get it. But we need to move past it.”

“I agree,” she said in an annoyed tone.

“What’s that about?”

“I’m sorry about my—”

“You know, I have always felt like you had my back.”

“I do.”

“But you don’t. I don’t know how many times I can say I’m sorry before you’ll drop the ice queen act.”

Elise frowned. “I’m sorry.” She took a step forward toward him and paused, closing her eyes, almost a wince, and moved closer until her head touched his chest. Her arms shook, so she put her hands on his shoulders to steady the tremor. Even with the layers of clothing, he was so thin, thinner than in their early twenties when he had been a rail. He released a deep moan and squeezed her in his arms, resting his chin against the top of her head. She took in shallow breaths.

“I was thinking,” he said, looking back down the hall, “remember before all this started, when we would fight, and we would say, We just need to have sex?”

She stepped back. “I don’t know, Sean. I’m not sure about that right now.”

He refilled the space between them. “I feel distant from you.”

She put a hand on his chest, but it didn’t stop his advance. “Not right now.” His body forcing itself closer.

He stopped. “Really? Still?”

Elise looked away.

“I thought we moved on—God, Elise, do you even love me anymore?”

The question hit her hard. She hadn’t had sex with him in a while, long before the house was invaded. She looked in his eyes and loved him. It was love. She wanted to make him happy and support him. But that hand primed to deliver the slap… “Later,” she said.

“You always say that.”

“I just need time.”

“And I don’t?”

A deep voice came from the kitchen. “Hey Sean, you back there?”

Michael. Sean stepped backward as her brother came around the corner. Michael pointed away. “I can come back.”

Elise shook her head. “You’re fine. What’s up?”

“I need Sean to explain how to sharpen the axe again. I keep trying to work it, but the stone keeps slipping.”

Sean motioned for Michael to lead the way, not looking back to her again, leaving a chill crawling over her skin.

ELISE WOKE IN the night and her husband wasn’t next to her. She turned over, the firelight dim. All the kids were there. Kelly and Michael too. Andrew on the couch. No Sean. He was upstairs at the rifle again. Had to be.

She listened to the wood crackle in the fireplace and pulled a few more blankets on top of her sleeping bag. She looked up at the ceiling. A creak in the wood upstairs. As if hallucinating, the ceiling pulsated in waves, creeping toward her. She blinked, and it stopped. There wasn’t enough room to stretch her legs, confined to her sleeping bag, so she wiggled around, turned to the side.

Her daughter and son slept next to her. She wondered if they were warm enough. They seemed peaceful, but she read somewhere that freezing to death was a peaceful way to die. It was like falling asleep. The ceiling creaked again. Always expanding and contracting.

A loud pop rang out upstairs. Elise jerked up. Another loud pop. A gunshot. Aidan screamed, sitting up. Molly leaped over to him and covered his mouth. Another shot echoed from upstairs.

Michael jumped out of his sleeping bag toward the shotgun. “Was that a gunshot?”

“It sounded like it,” Elise said, throwing off the covers, the cold flooding into her cocoon of warmth. She crawled out of her sleeping bag. Stood up.

“Get down,” Michael hissed. “It might be the guys coming back.”

Kelly clasped a hand around her mouth. “Sean said they weren’t coming back.”

“Sean might have been wrong,” Michael said. He looked around the room. “Is he upstairs?”

Outside, a voice started in a low groan and rose to a blood curdling screech. A woman’s voice. From the sound of it, it came from the front yard. Elise grabbed Michael’s arm, and the moan rose into a guttural cry for mercy. The woman cried out to God and whoever else listening. Finally, she shouted, “You killed him,” and screamed it repeatedly.