Girl in Ice(43)

“Val, that’s brilliant!” Nora said. “She’ll love you for it.”

“We got you,” Raj said. They gathered around, took me under the arms, and helped lower me down. Sigrid did a little happy dance, clapping her hands and chattering away. I focused on her as cold swept up my legs, shocking my torso and chest. I thought I’d lasted a good minute, but later Raj broke it to me that it had been only fifteen seconds before they hauled me out.

When it became clear I wasn’t actually going to dive, Sigrid turned away, refusing to look at me. Dripping, I stood over her like a swamp monster. Apologized as I unzipped and unpeeled the gear. She kept repeating that word, about the snake being necessary for her to stay alive. It cut me to feel the limits of what I could do for her—for anyone, including myself—just as it began to register with a flash of joy that I had, in fact—unmedicated—dangled my body in the great polar Enormity.





sixteen


Steaming water sloshed in the massive pot as Jeanne heaved it from the stove. Bracing it against the pocked metal basin, she poured in the third and last round of hot bathwater. The tub was nearly full, but with enough room for a little girl’s body. I’d scared up a few slivers of lavender soap, laid them on a clean washcloth next to the tub. Anything to tempt Sigrid into taking a bath.

“What do you think, Sigrid? Give it a try?” I called over to her.

She got up from the couch with her chin high, gave me a look that said, Please, have you forgotten about our deal? You chickened out on the dive, so no bath for me, and ambled down the hallway toward her bedroom, sweater dragging behind her as if she were a deranged bride.

“There’s your answer,” Jeanne said, not without satisfaction. She folded her arms across her gray, stained sweatshirt, an Arctic wolf’s face distorted across her voluminous chest. Her hair a lusterless brown under harsh kitchen lights, her face puffy and red after several early-evening glasses of wine. I thought, She’s me, in some fun-house way. She’s absolutely me if I really gave it all up, let grief dictate all: How close am I to this? We weren’t as far apart as I pretended.

“Sigrid’s stubborn,” Jeanne continued, wiping down the perfectly clean counter for the umpteenth time. “She’s got her own mind. Just like my Frances did.”

We both watched the water settle in the basin. I opened my mouth—keen to share my recent progress with Sigrid—but flashed on the vicious determination on Jeanne’s face as she’d wrestled the little girl to stillness, Wyatt jabbing the needle in her blood-spattered arm. I swallowed and said, “Just have to keep on trying with her.”

On her cutting board, Jeanne arranged a shank of red meat attached to a jagged length of bone.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Caribou.”

“What’s it taste like?”

“You should know.” She rummaged around deep in the low kitchen freezer. Emerging with a bag of frozen peas, she tossed it on the counter. “You’ve been eating it for weeks. In the stew.”

“I didn’t realize…” The meat was heavily marbled, one rib cracked and sticking out at an odd angle, as if that was where the animal had been shot. “Where do we get it?”

“In the regular deliveries from Pitak or the other hunters in Qaanaaq. Really helps them out to sell to us.”

“Guess I thought I was eating beef.”

She selected a cleaver from the knife rack.

“Listen, Jeanne, I was wondering… I think I’ve misplaced some of my medicine, these pills I take, have you seen an orange bottle around?”

She brought the knife down on the caribou shank, cutting cleanly through the shattered rib. The wine-red meat glistened under the sterile lights. “Check all your pants pockets?”

“Yes.”

She hammered the cleaver down again, severing another generous portion. “They should be in there. Found them when I was washing up. Put ’em back when your pants were dry.”

“But I’ve… I’ve checked all my pockets—coats, shirts, everything.”

She peeled off a stray knot of gristle, flicked it in the trash. “Well, to be honest, I wouldn’t put it past Wyatt to chuck them.” She arranged the slab of meat for another hit of her knife. Gave me a sidelong glance. “He’s very antidrug, you know.”

Whack.

“I didn’t know that. But he says he didn’t touch them.”

“Well, have you asked Raj or Nora? Raj seems to be having a bit of a rough time, if you ask me—”

I took a step closer to her, keeping the big kitchen table between us. “So, you read the label—”

She waved the cleaver in the air, as if she’d forgotten she was holding it. “Well, they were right in front of me—”

“You should have just come and found me. You should have come and handed them to me.”

Jeanne wiped the sweat off her forehead with a sleeve, a look of profound exhaustion dragging her heavy features down until she looked like an old man. I was one more pain in the ass on top of all her pains in the ass—the broken snowcat motor, the nonfunctioning heater in the Dome, the never-clean-enough counter…

“What am I, your servant? You were somewhere with the girl. Making her your best friend.” She stabbed the cleaver into the meat; it stuck there. “Listen, I got enough I gotta take care of, never mind making sure you got your pills—”