Susan Wiggs - Snowfall at Willow Lake

“Don’t be obnoxious.” She finished filling a section of her garment bag. “You’re going to get your dream job because I’m leaving,” she told him.

“I’d rather have you,” he said simply, opening his arms.

“You’re not obnoxious,” she said as he closed her into a hug. “You’re the best. You’re the one person I’m going to miss, desperately.”

“I know.”

She pressed her cheek to the soft Scottish cashmere of his sweater. “I’m scared,” she whispered, thinking about what awaited her in Avalon—the failed marriage to Greg and her inadequate mothering.

“I don’t blame you, Petal.” He stroked her hair in a soothing gesture. “I’d be scared of a small town in America, too. I keep thinking about plaid hunting jackets and open-bed lorries on gigantic tires.”

She pulled back, gently slapped him on the shoulder. “Oh, come on. It’s not that bad.”

But it might be, she conceded. She was no expert, having always lived in big, bustling cities—Seattle, Boston, Tokyo, New York, The Hague. She had no idea how she would manage in a town like Avalon. But she had to get back to her family. She felt a keen sense of mission about it, the way she used to feel about an important case. She needed to reclaim the things she had lost to her career. She needed to find a new direction for her life.

“I haven’t said anything to them yet. Just that I’m fine and I’ll be coming home. They don’t know I’m staying.”

“You are mad. Certifiable.” Tariq started to pitch in, folding trousers and stacking them precisely in the oversize Louis Vuitton bag.

“If I tell them I’m moving to Avalon, they’ll think something’s wrong.”

“Something is wrong. You’ve lost your mind.”

“No, listen, I do have a plan. Some friends of mine from New York—the Wilsons—have a lake house they only use in the summer. They’ve offered it to me for the entire winter. So I have a place to live.”

“In Mayberry.”

“Avalon, but that’s the idea.”

“And do … what, exactly? You need to reconnect with your kids. I get that. Is that a full-time occupation?”

She zipped her jewelry into a side pocket of her case. The small pouch of tasteful baubles made her remember the conversation with Brooks Fordham that night about her refusal to own anything produced by exploitation of labor. “I don’t know,” she said to Tariq. “I’ve never done it before.”

“And why would you even want this?” he asked her without a hint of irony.

“Because I’ve never had it,” she replied. “Because being part of a community has never happened to me and I think it’s about time. Because underneath this legal robot you see, I have a heart.”

She and Tariq went to the tiny nook of the main room, which served as her study. This, too, was devoid of personal items except her laptop and a corkboard to which she’d pinned a few items. “My rogues’ gallery,” she told Tariq. “And it’s all yours now.”

The faces of the warlords had been her motivation for the past two years. The plan was to prosecute each one in turn at the International Criminal Court. The people on her corkboard represented the very worst of humankind—men who practiced child conscription, sexual torture, slavery. She took down each picture in turn, making a small ceremony of handing them to Tariq.

“That’s it, then,” she said, slipping the laptop into its case. “You’re going to do great things.”

“And you’re walking away from doing great things.”

She shook her head. “I walked away from my marriage and family. I can’t ever go back to the marriage, but my family still needs me.” She thought they did, anyway. She hoped. They had certainly taught themselves to get along without her. Maybe the truth was that she needed them.

“I’ve never seen you run away from anything,” Tariq said. “This isn’t like you.”

“Oh, it’s exactly like me. When it comes to my professional life, to cases involving genocidal murderers, you’re absolutely right. I’ve been like a dog with a bone since I was in high school. But in my personal life, I’ve done exactly the opposite. Here’s the thing. You can’t run from yourself. It only took twenty years and a few hours with a team of terrorists for me to figure that out.”

She took a deep breath, looked around the apartment with her things packed in boxes. The place was as impersonal and anonymous as a hotel room.

She was off, then, to make things right with her family. It was insane, going to a place where the Bellamy family had been entrenched for generations, where her ex-husband was living happily ever after with his new wife. Yet this was the place her children lived, and she intended to be their full-time mother. She hoped with all her heart that it wasn’t too late.

February

A cheer for the snow—the drifting snow;

Smoother and purer than Beauty’s brow;

The creature of thought scarce likes to tread

On the delicate carpet so richly spread.

—Eliza Cook, English poet

Morning Muffins from the Sky River Bakery

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup ground flax seed

3/4 cup oat bran

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup milk

2 eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 cups peeled and shredded carrots

2 apples, peeled and shredded

1/2 cup raisins or currants

1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix flour, flax seed, bran, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, eggs, vanilla and oil. Add to the dry ingredients. Fold in the carrots, apples, raisins and nuts. Fill prepared muffin cups two-thirds full with batter.

Bake for fifteen to twenty minutes.

Sophie woke up hugging a warm teddy bear in a strange bed. Hovering in the zone between full alert and dreams, she lay very still, waiting for the customary nightmares to fade. She’d learned that they would, eventually. But she wondered if she would ever stop seeing the faces of the dead or feeling the desperation and panic that had seized her in the moments before the accident.

Yet this morning, the memories seemed curiously distant. Simply lying adrift felt so good that she held still, hugged the teddy bear closer and kept her eyes shut, prolonging a completely unjustified sensation of well-being.

When it came to jet lag, she was a champ at dealing with it. Besides, with her frequent trips back to the States, she had enough miles for an upgrade every time. She’d schooled herself to sleep with the self-discipline of a yoga master. But it was never a restful sleep. Therefore, feeling warm, comfortable and rested was simply wrong.

Finally, like drips of water through a slow leak, little awarenesses pried her awake.

Landing at JFK, making the drive upstate through ever-thickening snowfall. A deer leaping out of nowhere, the swinging glare of her headlights as she swerved to avoid hitting it. Then came the terrible thud and a bone-jarring jolt as she came to rest in the ditch. And then … someone had arrived. She remembered looking up and seeing him outside her window, a man …

Encountering a large, strange man, when she was alone, stuck in a snowbank in the middle of nowhere, should have set off alarm bells. However, she experienced nothing of the sort. After his imposing height and big shoulders, the first things she’d noticed about him were his kindly eyes and boyish grin. She and Dr. Maarten had talked about this in her therapy sessions, the gut sense of danger that she must learn to distinguish normal caution from trauma-induced anxiety. When she’d looked at the stranger, standing in the snow, the only thing she felt in her gut was a wave of sturdy trust.