These Silent Woods: A Novel(41)

“Engaged,” I tell Marie. “But not married.”

Marie hands me a sliver of chocolate. “Well, you’ve done a good job with her on your own. Finch. She’s sweet and imaginative and bright.”

I slide the chocolate into my mouth and for some reason think of communion, the wafer melting on the tongue, the burn of the wine. I took it, once. “Thank you. She takes after her mother.”

“Where does she go to school?”

School. Of course Finch would love school, her mind and its sponging up of any type of information, her voracious appetite for words and books. Sometimes I imagine taking her to a library, not even a big and famous one, just someplace small would be enough. The look on her face, her green eyes wide with wonder, mouth open. The joy of it for both of us. Sometimes I picture her coming home from school, leaping off the bottom step of a school bus and then bouncing home to tell me all about what she learned that day. Nothing special, just regular things that kids and parents experience. But these things will never happen for the two of us. For her, yes. When she’s older and I have to let her go. I know this and always have, but Marie asking about it sparks a crushing sadness in me. “She’s homeschooled,” I say.

“Oh. What a shame. I mean, for her to have to miss out.”

All of a sudden I can’t wait for Marie to be gone. The moonlight spills in through the window and illuminates the mug she’s holding, yellow, a small chip missing from the rim. It has been too much. The girl in the woods, the car driving up the gravel road, the news of Jake’s death. The fact that Marie owns the cabin and could, if she wanted to, sell it out from under us. But it’s not just all of that. It’s that Finch is already falling head over heels for her, attaching like a limpet. Marie reading, Finch nestled up against her, the warm soapy water and the tea and the chocolates—it’s too painful, it’s too much, these glimpses of a life we will never have, when all this time, I’d convinced myself that what we had was enough. I finish my tea and place the mug on the counter. “Well, I’m gonna turn in,” I say.

Marie looks at her watch. “It’s eight thirty.”

“Been a long day. You sure you’re all right here on the couch?”

“I’ll be fine. Do you think it’d be all right if I use my headlamp and read for a bit? Will that keep you up?”

I tell her it won’t bother me. “Thanks for the tea and chocolate, Marie.”

“Good night, Cooper.”

In the morning we’ll make breakfast. I’ll fry eggs and help Marie load her car. Finch and me will watch her go, watch her negotiate the ruts and rocks on the dirt road. Finch will say that she loves Marie, that she wishes she could stay, and I’ll rest my hand on her shoulder and lie and say, Me too. She’ll be sullen for a few hours, shoulders sagging, maybe even some tears over Marie’s departure, as there always were when Jake had to leave. We’ll split some firewood, maybe see if we can bag a turkey or a grouse. Maybe I’ll ask Marie if she can leave the chocolates, and Finch and me can have them later in the evening, with the door of the woodstove open so we can hear the fire hiss and crack, a special treat and a tribute to Marie. We’ll read The Book of North American Birds. By evening, Marie will be back home in Michigan, and Finch and me will be okay. Still the girl in the woods, and still the ongoing issue of Scotland, but at least the added complications of Marie and her quiet little car and the reminder of all that we are missing out on will be long gone.





TWENTY




But no. By first light the trees are draped in snow, the weight of it bowing the pines, the branches bent at strange angles so that the woods, familiar to me in their shape, have transformed into something different. Everything white and new, and still the snow is coming fast and hard, a hypnotizing blur. I watch from the bedroom window, and the first thing that comes to mind is Finch and her sled. Finch and her new camouflage snow clothes from Walmart. It’s barely light, the sky that unholy gray when there is snow, and she is still asleep on her little bed, tangled in the sheets and heavy blanket, but she’ll wake soon, almost the same exact time each morning. Finch and me gliding down the bank to the west of the cabin, first making tracks for the sled, then slogging back up the hill, then going, over and over, until we’re tired and hot in our winter jackets. Once we’re really tuckered out, we’ll come in for hot chocolate. I won’t even skimp on the amount of mix I put in.

And then, as my senses return, I remember: in the main room of the cabin, Marie. Took me a long time to fall asleep but then I slept so hard I forgot all about her. Marie with her reusable grocery bags packed with teas and chocolates. I stand and press my head to the thin glass and feel the cold against my forehead.

I pull on my jeans and flannel and then sneak across the room, the floorboards moaning and cracking in the cold. Time to get the fire going and gather the eggs and see about breakfast. Maybe it’ll warm up by midday, melt the snow. Maybe she can still go.

Once I open the door, I’m hit—“hit” is the word—by the scent of bacon. How had I not smelled it from the bedroom? In the main room, Marie is at the woodstove, which is hot and purring nicely already, the small fan, powered by heat, on top spinning fast and pushing warmth around the room. She’s wearing an old red apron from the bottom cupboard, and she’s leaning over with a spatula in her hand, inspecting something in the cast-iron skillet.