Jincy Willett - Winner of the National Book Award

“Put him back on.”

“You don’t know,” she said. “You just have no idea how hungry I am.”

“Put him back on the goddamn phone,” I hissed, cupping my hand around my mouth, although basically I didn’t give a damn whether anybody heard me or not.

Again, there was a long, scary silence.

“Abigail! Go next door. If nobody’s home, just keep looking until you find somebody.”

“I told you. We’re snowed in. I just don’t have the strength to shovel.”

“Well, he does. Put him on now . Right now .”

“I have to go.” Click .

I stared at the phone for a good five minutes, thinking, calculating, and then I called back and told whoever picked up and refused to speak that I’d be there as soon as possible. “And if that’s you,” I said, “you miserable worthless sadistic bastard, you’d better be gone when I get there.”

“I’m leaving in the morning,” I told Rocco and the others.

“But what if—”

“As soon as it clears. One way or the other I’m leaving. I’ve got an emergency in Watch Hill.”

Instead of arguing with me like the rest of them, Rocco thought for a while. “Do you cross-country?” he asked me.

“Cross-country what?”

“Guess not. Hold on.” He rummaged around in the stockroom and emerged with a big flat box. “They’re yours,” he said, presenting it to me. Snowshoes, brand-new. He wouldn’t hear of taking money. Just bring them back, he said, when you’re through.

I didn’t think I’d sleep at all that night, but I did, awakening refreshed before the others, and when I opened the door, there, above a neck-high snowdrift, was the rising sun, raying pinkly across an innocent sky. Rocco had put together for me a fantastic snow outfit, warm enough for Greenland, and while I got myself ready he heated up the last of the hot chocolate for me. Whispering together we went over the necessary maps, until I was clear in my mind how to proceed. He showed me how to wear the snowshoes, and how to use the compass he pressed into my mittened hand. He loaded me down with venison jerky, a canteen of Kool-Aid and an ingenious folding shovel, and he wished me luck. Give us a call when you get there, he said, and waved good-bye to me behind the closing door.

A prince among men. And not once did he, or any of them, ask me what the emergency was about. I love Rhode Island. I really do.

The trek was arduous and long and absolutely the best time I ever had. I am not the outdoor type; nor was I changed by this experience. It was just the sort of thing everybody should do once. To have the sparkling world all to yourself, free of landmarks, grids, and signs; to walk for miles and hear nothing but the sound of your own breathing. I didn’t see another living creature, not even a bird, until the day was half gone. It is nine miles from Ashaway to Watch Hill as the crow flies, which is pretty much the path I took. I dreaded my destination, but that dread didn’t spoil the day; if anything it sharpened it up. I was going to save my sister. How, I didn’t know, nor did I worry about it. Who could worry on such a day? And who would clutter it up with thought? On that beautiful day I lived in the moment, in pure sensation; in, I suppose, my sister’s world. And this time I was ready for it. I thought for a fleeting moment of Henry David Thoreau, and then I put him out of my mind. He would have done the same for me.

By the time I got to Westerly, people had begun digging out in earnest, and on the outskirts of Watch Hill I actually found a Dunkin’ Donuts, manned by a cheerful old crone named Olivia, who, in exchange for the story of my journey there, loaded me down with day-old doughnut holes and two dozen freshly baked jelly doughnuts. Now I knew I could save Abigail, and, with the sun beginning to fade, I marched on to Agincourt.

The sun was setting when I arrived. There was a lot less accumulated snow down there than at Ashaway, but evidently the wind had been fierce off the water, and I had a terrible time finding the cottage, hidden as it was behind a huge drift satiny with ice. They really were trapped inside. I was suddenly exhausted, my ankles were killing me, and the thought of battering my way inside was daunting. I wanted to stand there and bellow until one of them opened a window. Damn the neighbors, if indeed there were any. I didn’t see any signs of one. But after summoning what remained of my strength I got out Rocco’s little shovel and set to work.

It was dark in there, and it smelled stale, moldy, as though the place had been deserted suddenly, and abandoned for years; as though it were inhabited only by ghosts and mice. Long minutes passed, before my eyes, burned by snow sparkle, could make out even large shapes, the coat tree, the telephone table. Plumply suited and hooded in goose down and lambs’ wool, I stood in the front hall like a wary space traveler, calculating whether to remove his helmet and test the air. Was there sentient life on this planet? And did it mean us harm?

Where were they? I hadn’t called out, but I had certainly made enough commotion getting in the door to alert them of my presence. At least, I thought, it doesn’t smell downright bad. At least there isn’t what the horror books and police procedurals always describe as “the sweet odor of rotting meat.” This was an unwise thought.

I untied my hood and listened very hard, breathing shallowly, and then at last, thank heaven, came shuffling sounds from the master bedroom upstairs. I imagined Abigail in her pig slippers (a Christmas present from her husband, which she defiantly wore all the time) slouching toward the top of the stairs. She moved like an invalid, and she didn’t call my name. Surely she had heard me come in. She had to know it was me, come to help her. I opened my mouth to announce myself, and found that I couldn’t speak. It wasn’t fear exactly; more a profound unwillingness to affect the moment, as unsettling as that moment was; to set in motion whatever was going to happen next. I had come to save her, but I didn’t want, right then, to see her.

The kitchen, I thought, that’s it, I’ll go to the kitchen and find out just how bare those cupboards actually are. Surely something’s left. I turned to go, and there he was, inches away. “I knew you’d come,” he said. He put his hands on me, unzipped my parka, slid it off me while my arms dangled straight down, like a child’s. He touched my cold face with a colder fingertip. “You are,” he said, “one amazing piece of work. Look how far you’ve come.” His smile was admiring. “You’re mad at me,” he said. “But you’ll get over it.”

I backed away, circling him until my back was to the kitchen. Behind him, my sister loomed up from the murk, and came to stand beside him, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She looked unwashed, apathetic, as though drugged. He put his arm around her puny shoulders. “Look who’s come to save us, honey,” he said.

I fled to the kitchen, where things got even worse. The shelves were anything but bare, and the refrigerator was still stocked with milk, cheese, English muffins. In the freezer was even new stuff, acquired since I left, a Sara Lee cheesecake, a gallon of vanilla ice cream. Was my sister delusional? There was enough here to feed everybody at Rocco’s for a week.

“Do you see?” she asked me. “It’s all gone.” She leaned against the door frame.

What do you say then? “Abigail,” I finally said, “you’re frightening me.”

“Did you bring me anything?”

“Of course I did. It’s in my backpack, in the hall.” I wasn’t going to go back there for it.

She left, and returned after a long while, dragging the open backpack behind her. She regarded me with horror. “How could you?” she said. There were tears in her eyes. She’d never looked at me like that in her life.