Cloud Nine

‘Every year. All the time.’

‘You can’t tell them enough,’ Will said. ‘You have to tell them you love them all the time.’

‘That’s why I’m going to Maine,’ Sarah said, bowing her head.

‘It’s been too long,’ Will said.

She nodded. Composing herself, she looked up.

‘I’m afraid the farm is wrong for him. It’s very isolated, there aren’t any other kids around. His father was from the island, but he’s dead. And my father …’ She glanced at Snow. ‘Well, my father is difficult. Losing my mother made him unhappy. He never got over it. Never. The years did nothing to soften his pain.’

‘Death does that,’ Snow said.

Sarah nodded. ‘I’m afraid his misery will rub off on Mike. My Aunt Bess used to be the smilingest person you knew when she lived in Providence. But when her husband died, she moved back to the island, and you should see her now. Living alone with my father all this time has turned her into an old prune.’

‘It sounds interesting,’ Snow said.

Sarah stared at her. What kind of wonderful girl would think such a bleak scenario sounded ‘interesting’?

‘I felt guilty for leaving,’ Sarah said. ‘But I had to.’

‘Did you take care of your mother?’ Will asked.

‘How did you know?’

‘You just seem like someone who would,’ Snow volunteered.

‘I did,’ Sarah said quietly, remembering her mother’s loving presence, her steady gaze. ‘But I had to escape.’

‘And now you’re going back,’ Will said, ‘for Mike.’

‘Exactly,’ Sarah said. Unconsciously, her hand strayed up to her head, where the cancer had been. ‘I want to set him straight before it’s too late.’

‘Before he turns into a young prune,’ Snow said.

‘Before he forgets why you love Thanksgiving so much,’ Will said.

‘Fuel up the big plane, Dad,’ Snow said. ‘Because I’m coming with you.’

‘No!’ Sarah said quickly. ‘The island’s a mess. There’s not enough heat in the house, the geese smell terrible.’ She felt worried, not wanting this to become a big excursion, a way for the Burkes to pass Snow’s school break, to get through whatever trouble they were obviously having.

Sarah had a mission. She saw her son as lost, a piece of driftwood far at sea, and she needed to bring him back. Wanting to say more, to stop this before it went too far, her thoughts raced. She didn’t want Snow, another person in need of attention, to distract her from Mike. But Will saved the day.

‘You can’t come, honey,’ he said. ‘It’s my job, not a vacation. And your mother wouldn’t like it. She needs you with her for Thanksgiving. You know that.’

‘She has Julian,’ Snow said.

‘Yes, but she needs you,’ Will said.

‘Dad, I –’

‘No, Snow. You’re staying with your mother. That’s all there is to it.’

Sitting back, Sarah knew that Will needed Snow every bit as much. He was big and strong, and he had a deep, calm voice that hid a lot. But he couldn’t hide his love for his child. Sarah knew. She couldn’t hide hers for Mike either.

That night at home, Sarah opened the package Snow had left on her desk. It was a small cardboard box of bleach. She stood in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. The thought of dyeing her hair felt weird, but Thanksgiving was less than a week away.

She lit the candle Meg had given her before her last surgery. It glowed from within. Staring at the candle, she thought of the red barn and white goose down of Elk Island, candles and quilts, the mysterious connection between the archaic and the modern.

She pictured Mike in the cold barn. She heard the geese honking, saw their feathers drifting like snow in the wind. As a baby he had loved the geese. He had cried one time, afraid his grandfather was hurting them to get their feathers. Holding him tight, Sarah had smelled his sweet neck, whispered in his ear that the geese didn’t mind, that taking their down was no worse than combing a little boy’s hair.

Her words had been a lie, and by now, working in the barn, Mike would have found that out. Ducking her head under the faucet, feeling the hot water on her head, she wondered what he thought about that.

Reaching blindly for the box of bleach, Sarah thought of Snow. She was another woman’s daughter, and Sarah hoped she was as kind to her own mother as she had been to her, encouraging her to take this scary step. Sarah would never have bleached her hair on her own. Wondering what she would look like, she found herself imagining what Will might think of her. Whether he would think she looked foolish, a middle-aged woman trying to look too young.

Or whether Will would think she looked pretty. Like he had said at the fair.

The evil castle was cold and forbidding, with everyone letting Snow know exactly how they felt about her. All the big, ugly, baronial furniture squatted along the walls like toady gnomes, closely watching her every move. Her mother and Julian sat on the love seat by the fire, sharing a bottle of wine. The old portraits leered at her, Julian’s moon-faced ancestors. They didn’t love her, but they were going to make sure she didn’t escape.

‘I want to go,’ Snow said again.

‘Absolutely not,’ her mother said.

‘Poor Dad. You’re going to let him fly all the way to Maine with some stranger and no one who loves him on Thanksgiving?’

‘He’s a grown man, Susan,’ her mother said. ‘Accepting that charter was his choice. If he had wanted to stay in Fort Cromwell, he could have picked you up after dinner on Thursday and spent the whole weekend with you. I’m sure you’ll see him when he gets back.’

‘Dinner’s the important part,’ Snow said. ‘Last Thanksgiving he ate frozen turkey dinners. Six of them!’

‘We want you to be here with us,’ Julian said, swirling his wine and appreciating the color in the firelight.

‘Yeah, right,’ Snow said.

‘We do,’ he said. ‘I’ve already told Pansy to make that sweet potato dish you like, with the marshmallows and pecans …’

‘Hazelnuts,’ Snow said. ‘I like it with hazelnuts.’

‘Ah. Well, we’ll have to tell Pansy.’

Snow wanted to walk right across the room and wipe that dumb grin off his face. He thought he was being such a great stepfather, telling his cook to make sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving while her father was being forced to fly practically to the tundra to rescue someone else’s kid.

‘They need me to go with them,’ Snow said.

‘That’s not what your father said,’ Alice said.

‘That’s only because he’s trying to make things easy for you and not fight for me on the holidays. They need me, to help talk Mike into coming home.’

‘Who’s Mike?’ Julian asked.