Sarah St.Vincent - Ways to Hide in Winter

A silence filled the small space.

“All right,” he said.

We stood wordlessly for a moment, the light shining between us.

“I should get going,” I said then, holding out the figurine. “There are things you’re—we’re—going to need. For the trip.”

“Yes,” he replied. “Of course. Go ahead.”

“All right.” I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “I’ll see you then.”

Turning, I began to walk away.

“You know,” I heard him say, his voice trailing off.

I stopped, my foot on the ladder. But he didn’t finish the sentence.

“What?”

Even in the dim light, I could see his face turn a deep red.

“Only that if you want to come back…I will still be here.” He gave a small, embarrassed laugh. “I mean, of course I will. But…it’s just that you mean very much to me. That’s all.”

Behind him, the blackness was so black it looked infinite. I could hear my own breathing.

I lifted my hand to the rung.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

I mounted the ladder, choosing not to see him still standing there.

In the car, I shook myself, blowing on my cold fingers and gazing through the windshield at the steep wall of forest in front of me. It hadn’t happened, I told myself. It simply hadn’t happened.

I started the engine.

In town, I drove up to the ATM and left minutes later with my life savings—a pathetically small bundle of green—folded inside my fist. At the Walmart, I stuffed a wire basket with water, sandwiches, two sets of men’s clothing that didn’t look as if they’d come from some backwater Salvation Army, a pair of off-brand sneakers, a baseball cap that could be pulled low over the eyes.

Then, at the hospital’s back entrance, I joined the knot of people who always seemed to be there, drawing on their cigarettes and looking up at the setting sun. I asked my question, quietly, and after a moment of hesitation one of them told me where to go.

In an alley that ran between the courthouse and the bar next to it, near a warren of two-story houses that had been turned into apartments for the very young and the very old, I found a scraggly-looking man in a black jacket and told him what I wanted.

He looked me up and down suspiciously. Something about him looked familiar, as if I might have gone to school with him. I probably had.

“Twenty,” I said, opening my hand slightly to show him the folded bills there.

He still looked reluctant.

“You can search me,” I told him.

He moved away with a slouching but still alert walk and a few minutes later was back with a larger man, who did search me, patting me up and down as I stared up at the slice of waning light between the buildings, keeping any expression from my face.

When he was finished, the larger man looked at me. Maybe he recognized me, or maybe there was simply something in my look that he’d seen before.

“Give it to her,” he said to the smaller man.

I left with the bag in my pocket, walking alone back up the alley.

In the hospital lobby, I asked the receptionist if I could use the phone and dialed Beth. When she picked up, I suddenly found myself struggling not to cry.

“I’m sorry,” I told her, my voice threatening to break. “I can’t talk long. But I’m so sorry. I just want you to know that.”

“Oh, hon,” she breathed on the other end. “Don’t be. I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have known better than to say those things. You’re doing what’s right for you—I know that.”

My breathing became uneven, and I turned away from the waiting room, trying to hide my face in my sleeve.

“Honey,” she said. “Do you need me? Where are you?”

While I waited for her, I sat by my grandmother’s side, holding her hand and listening to the sound of her breathing. Her hair was a tangled cloud, and I washed it, running a cloth carefully over her face, the crown of her head. When I was done, she didn’t look any more like herself; she still seemed empty, just another old woman in the hospital. But I talked to her anyway, straightening her gown over her shoulders, telling her things she would have scoffed at if she’d been awake. At last, moving around the machines, I kissed her on the cheek and held her palm, keeping it in mine for a long time.

Eventually, there was a rustling sound in the hallway, then a child’s fussing. “Kathy?”

I walked out, closing the door behind me.

Beth had Dylan on her hip, her purse slung over her other arm, an expression on her face that was almost like fear. She drew me into a hug. “Is she…”

“No, she’s still alive.”

“Oh, thank God.” Dylan’s face was red, as if he’d just been crying, and she ran her fingers over his cheeks. “What’s going on?”

“I have to go somewhere,” I said. “For a while. I’m sorry to ask—you don’t have to, but could you…”

She put the child down, and he clung to her leg. “Check up on her? Sure, when do you need me?”

“I’m…things are a little unclear right now. Maybe—maybe you could call my parents tomorrow? If it’s not too much trouble?”

“Of course, hon.”

“You’re wonderful.” The words felt inadequate, but they were the only ones I had. “Thank you.”

Dylan pulled at her jeans and began making thin sounds, as if he were considering crying again. As she moved his hands away, something about the way the artificial light of the corridor struck her face showed me a thing I hadn’t seen before.

“Are you…”

She gave me a long, sad smile. “Yeah. I’m pregnant.”

My mouth opened, but I couldn’t do anything more than look at her.

“Yeah.” She looked away. “When Mark was here on leave—we really didn’t want this—I definitely didn’t—but—well.” She ran a hand through her hair, lifting her shoulders. “I’m due before he’s even back. Isn’t that—well, it’s crazy. So, our big back-to-school dream wasn’t going to work out anyway, I guess.”

“I’m—” I was too disoriented from the speed at which everything was happening to know what to say. “I’m sorry. I mean, congratulations. But also I’m sorry.”

She gave a laugh that wasn’t a laugh. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s just about it, isn’t it?”

I wrote down some numbers for her, and she took them, already looking older and more tired. Reaching for me, she wrapped me in a hug again, her hair pressed against my cheek.

“Do I need to worry about you?” she said. “Don’t get mad at me for asking, but have you gotten mixed up in something you shouldn’t have? Where exactly are you going?”

“No, I promise. And I’ll tell you everything in a few days.”

“All right, baby girl.” She rubbed my arms. “You go enjoy your freedom.”

At the gas station, I filled the tank, then began the drive west, back to my grandmother’s house. The sun was almost down, the clouds black and low on the horizon, edged with a last tinge of heavy blue. The mountains loomed in the distance, and I looked up at them. The car radio was playing, but I turned it off, watching the long chain of peaks pass by in the silence. When I got to the intersection in Centerville, I stopped, sitting with my headlights cutting swaths of light across the road.

There was something in the air, something that came with the changing of the seasons, leading a person to have thoughts that would normally be unthinkable.

I looked down at the glowing panel of gauges, the clock. The fields outside were vast, open, looking somehow new. I drew the night air into my lungs, letting it slowly back out again.

Then I turned away from home and kept driving, back up the mountain, toward the brick building that loomed in the darkness, lost among the trees.