The Winter People(15)

“It’s just for one year,” her mother had said, a now familiar mantra.

Right.

Ruthie closed the door, pulled off her jeans and damp socks, and crawled into bed. Roscoe settled in beside her, kneading the blankets, circling once, twice, three times, before lying down and closing his eyes.


She dreamed of Fitzgerald’s again. A small bakery with steamy windows that smelled of fresh-baked bread and coffee. There was a long counter with a glass front that she stood in front of for what felt like hours, staring at rows of cupcakes, apple turnovers, cookies dusted with colored sugar that sparkled like jewels.

“What do you choose, Dove?” asked her mother. She held Ruthie’s small hand firmly in her own. Her mother wore smooth calfskin gloves. Ruthie pointed her other hand, chubby little-girl fingers smearing the glass.

A cupcake with pink sculpted icing.

Then Ruthie looked up to see her mother smiling down—only this was where the dream always went funny, because the woman standing over her wasn’t her mother at all. She was a tall, thin woman with heavy tortoiseshell glasses shaped like cat’s eyes.

“Good choice, Dove,” the woman said, ruffling her hair.

Then the dream changed, as it often did, and she was in a tiny dark room with a flickering light. There was someone else there with her—a little girl with blond hair and a dirty face. The room seemed to get smaller and smaller and there wasn’t enough air; Ruthie was gasping for breath, sobbing.

Ruthie opened her eyes. Roscoe was smothering her, his warm, heavy body draped over her nose and mouth.

“Get off me, you big lug,” Ruthie mumbled peevishly, shoving at him.

But it wasn’t the cat. It was her sister’s arm, clad in fleecy pajamas. Ruthie’s head pounded, and her mouth tasted like cat shit. She was in no mood for a visitor this early.

“What are you doing in here?” Ruthie snapped. Her twin bed was crowded enough without her little sister, who did acrobatics in her sleep, often waking up with her head down at the foot of her bed. Fawn sometimes crawled in with her mother in the night, but hadn’t gotten into Ruthie’s bed in ages.

Fawn didn’t answer. Ruthie rolled over to find that the mattress was warm and damp.

“Oh my God!” she yelped. “Did you pee in my bed?” She reached down. The mattress was soaked. So were her little sister’s fleece pajamas. Fawn kept her eyes closed tight, pretending to be asleep. Ruthie shoved at her, trying to roll her out of the bed.

“Go wake up Mom,” she said.

Fawn rolled over onto her belly, her face buried in the pillow. “Aacaaat,” she mumbled.

“What?” Ruthie asked, rolling her sister over to face her.

“I said, I can’t.” Fawn’s face was flushed and sweaty. The urine smell hit Ruthie hard, making her stomach flip.

“Why not?”

“She’s not here. She’s gone.”

Ruthie glanced over Fawn to the alarm clock. It was six-thirty in the morning. Her mother was rarely up before seven, much less out of the house. She needed a good three cups of coffee before she’d even speak most mornings.

“What do you mean, gone?”

Fawn was quiet for a minute, then looked up at Ruthie with huge, saucer eyes. “Sometimes it just happens,” she said.

“You’ve gotta be kidding,” Ruthie said, rolling out of the damp bed. Her bare feet hit the floor, which was freezing cold. The fire had gone out. She threw a sweater over her shoulders, pulled on some sweatpants.

Ruthie marched down the hall to her mother’s room. She felt queasy, and when she burped, she still tasted schnapps. She half wondered if she was still a little drunk and stoned, which contributed to the this-can’t-really-be-happening sort of feeling that was washing over her. She put her hand on the knob and opened it slowly, not wanting the squeak of hinges to wake her mother. But when the door swung open, she saw only the bed, neatly made.

“I told you,” Fawn whispered. She’d come up behind Ruthie in the hall.

“Go get cleaned up and changed,” Ruthie said, her eyes locked on her mother’s empty bed. She stood a minute, swaying slightly, while her sister crept off down the hall.

“What the hell?” she said. It was six-thirty in the morning. Where was Mom?

She went down the steep, narrow wooden stairs, counting them, like she’d done when she was little, for luck. There were thirteen, but she never counted the bottom one, jumping over it like it didn’t exist, so that she’d have a nice even twelve.

“Mom?” she called. The full cup of tea was still on the table. Ruthie went into the living room to discover that the logs she’d put on the stove last night had never caught. It was a big soapstone stove set up against the brick hearth of the old, original farmhouse fireplace. The stove was their only source of heat—her parents refused to buy fossil fuels.

She bent over, head pounding, and hauled the unburnt logs out of the stove so she could scoop the ashes into the can next to it. Then she started a fire from scratch: wadded-up newspaper, cardboard, kindling.

Fawn padded down the steps, dressed in red corduroy overalls and a red turtleneck, her mother’s hand-knit thick wool socks on her feet. Red, of course.

“You’re looking very monochromatic,” Ruthie said, closing the glass door of the woodstove, the fire inside already crackling and popping.