Sarah St.Vincent - Ways to Hide in Winter

“The story is that there was a man who was passing through here,” I began. “This was back during the Depression, nineteen thirty-one or thirty-two, I think. The man had lost his job somewhere else and came here looking for work, but he couldn’t find any.

“He had three daughters with him, young ones. I think the oldest was maybe twelve or thirteen. Their mother was dead, although they had a stepmother of some kind, their father’s girlfriend or fiancée or something like that. So, this man and the fiancée and the three girls, they were driving through Pennsylvania looking for work—he had a Model T or something—but there wasn’t any to be found, even on the farms. They ran out of money, and then eventually they ran out of food.”

The stranger was listening intently, gazing down at the toes of his shoes.

“We think the man tried, for a while, to find something to feed them, but there were three of them, plus the woman. It was hard, even when he went through town and begged. No one had anything to give.

“As the winter came, he realized there was no hope, at least not here. He decided to go out to California and look for work in the fields there. A lot of people were doing that, thousands of them, driving or walking across the plains out west.

“The girls, of course, weren’t very strong, especially not having had anything to eat aside from what they could scrounge. He loved them, or so people say. But he didn’t know what to do. And he couldn’t bear to see them suffer.”

I looked down at the pool of water that reflected our dangling feet, our hands poised next to each other, gripping the log. “So he drove them up here,” I said, and fell silent.

“And he left them?”

“Well, yes.” I replied. “In a manner of speaking.”

The stranger’s expression grew puzzled. Then he suddenly looked at me. “Wait. You mean he killed them?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” He grimaced. His gaze moved to the middle distance, as if the scene were being played out somewhere in the tree limbs. “You’re right. That is terrible. Especially for a beautiful place such as this.”

I flicked a hand dismissively. “Beautiful places are just like anywhere else. People still suffer.”

He sat wordlessly, his face troubled. One of his hands moved over the bark, then came to rest.

“That’s terrible indeed,” he said after some time, as if he hadn’t heard my words. “I can see why there would be a sign there. I suppose that kind of thing leaves a mark on people here.”

“For a long time, we all heard something completely different, actually,” I told him. “The father laid them all next to each other, just like they were going to sleep. And that’s what everyone used to say—that he left them in the woods to fend for themselves, and eventually they got tired and curled up together, the younger ones around the oldest one. But then a couple of years ago one of the newspapers ran a piece on it, and we all found out the old story wasn’t true.”

There was a sound in the brush, and I looked up, but it was nothing, probably just some small animal whose winter rest we had disturbed. Or, I thought, the hawk had finally gotten its prey.

“‘On this spot were found three babes in the woods,’” I said. “That’s what it says on the sign.”

“Do you wish they hadn’t told you the truth?” he asked.

I thought about this for a moment. “No. No point in being sentimental about it, I guess. Nobody benefits from that, in the end.” I turned slightly, and one of my joints cracked. “People do horrible things to the ones they say they love sometimes. Hurt them, abandon them. No reason to pretend they don’t.”

He reflected on this, putting his hands on his knees. For some reason, he looked less odd in profile, more like the thoughtful, if slightly shabby, student he’d claimed to be.

“Well,” he said after a long moment, “I think sometimes we do things like that when we don’t mean to. Sometimes we think we’re doing the right thing, and it’s not until later that we realize it was a mistake.”

“That’s not an excuse,” I replied, more sharply than I had intended. As I spoke, I pictured my parents, Amos, the priest on his darkened porch. The stranger, of course, couldn’t know this, and gave me a surprised look.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “We all do things we regret. For example, I…I know I’ve put my wife through some unpleasant things. Being a lawyer in Uzbekistan has its risks, you could say. And I knew that from the start, but…” He rubbed his thumb over a knot in the wood. “Sometimes things happen, and we do what we think is best. It’s only later that we understand the consequences.”

Neither of us spoke for a time. I busied myself scratching a series of shapes into the log with a twig.

“So your wife is…still there?” I asked.

He looked away and nodded. “Yes. She’s still there.”

“I noticed your ring, that first time you came into the store,” I told him, for lack of a better idea of what to say. “It’s nice.”

“This?” He held up his hand, his expression lightening. “Yes, isn’t it? I got it—and hers, too, of course—when I took a trip to Paris once for work. The authorities let me have an exit visa that time.”

“Paris?” I couldn’t hide my envy. “When were you there?”

“Oh, about fifteen years ago, I suppose.”

I studied his face, his eyes. “That can’t be right. You’re not that old.”

“I’m thirty-nine.”

“What!” I gaped at him. “No, you’re not.”

“Oh, really?” He laughed. “I had thought I was. Have I been wrong all this time?”

“I had no idea. I thought you were ten years younger than that.”

“No—I’m an old man, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll say. Twelve years older than me, and I’m already ancient.” Stretching, I flicked a piece of bark at him. “Should we keep going?”

“Of course.” He worked his way gingerly back across the log, holding out a hand to me when he reached the land. I could see the tiredness in his face, but he seemed determined to offer help, even though I didn’t need it. His grip was warm and surprisingly firm.

Now that I knew, I could see his age, especially in the fine lines around his eyes. I had thought they came purely from worry.

“You have children, back at home?” I asked as we returned to the trail.

He was panting, attempting to scramble up a pile of boulders after me. “No, unfortunately. We couldn’t have any, it seems. Can’t,” he corrected himself. “Can’t have any.”

“Does she get to visit you here?” I pulled myself over the rocks, their edges rough against my hands.

“No, it’s…not that easy, I’m afraid. I wish it were.” His foot slipped on a vein of ice, and he caught himself awkwardly on a branch. “I do hear news of her from time to time, when another exile from Tashkent comes over. We knew a lot of people there. But sometimes I don’t hear anything for months, and sometimes what I hear isn’t so good.”

I gave him a questioning look, and he hastened to add, with seeming embarrassment, “Not that there are any other men, I mean. But that she’s…” Climbing the last few paces to the foot of the slab of rock at the top, he searched for words. “Not safe.”

“Oh.”

When he remained quiet, I stopped and pointed. “We’re just going up that short path and then over that ravine you can see. And then we’ll be at the top.”

Our shoes scraping against the stone, we made our way to the summit, standing together on the immense slab of rock and looking out over miles of evergreens and glimmering, ice-coated ashes and cedars. The gap where the park was fell away below us, the lakes and road hidden by the endless web of branches. On the other side, the mountain rose again, its rounded peaks undulating into the distance.