White Ivy(106)

With all her might, she reached out her hands and pushed.





PART FIVE





21


HE DIDN’T MAKE A SOUND. He didn’t shout. The arms and legs bicycled in the air for a fraction of a second, and then Roux was rolling down the side of the valley, bouncing with surprising sprightliness for such a tall, lanky frame. She could make out the faint thuds each time his body hit the rocks. Three-quarters of the way down, his fleece got caught on a particularly jagged edge and the body stopped rolling. She saw the odd angles of the limbs, contorted like a Chinese circus acrobat; the head was dangling in a position that was too close to the shoulder. She could make out the blood on the side of the cliff, a faint red smear like the trail marker that’d led Roux to his end here in this frozen valley in which no creature stirred.

She waited five minutes to make sure the body didn’t move. If the heart hadn’t stopped yet, it would most definitely stop by morning from hypothermia. Hikers died all the time on unmarked trails. It was an accident. A tragic accident. Tragic. Tragedy. An accidental tragedy. With difficulty, Ivy roused her limbs and climbed her way back up to the flat expanse where only moments ago, she and Roux had drank the Dalmore and whispered their lovers’ talk, a memory that was transforming by the second into a hazy dream from which she would wake and think that the man whose steely arms had embraced her were the arms of a stranger.

Why am I here, she asked herself, tripping over a branch and cutting her palm open, two drops of blood staining the snow in the shape of a spiky flower, a brilliant red spiky flower whose name she could not recall but had seen once—at the Crosses’ wedding, perhaps. A tragic accident. Without knowing it, she’d begun to run, slipping and stumbling through the snow like a wounded animal whose only remaining instinct is to seek repose in the safety of its own dark den. A tragic accident. She repeated this phrase all the way to the main highway.

Snow was falling in thick tufts at the bottom of the valley. Every one of her footsteps was promptly filled with fresh powder. She reached the gravel road where she’d parked just as the sun dipped behind the top of a mountain. The windows of the car were frosted over with ice, the roof covered with an inch of snow. She blasted the heat inside the car. Without waiting for the air to warm, she stripped down to her underwear and changed into the outfit she’d packed that morning: gray sweatpants, a flannel shirt, an old college sweatshirt, fresh socks, shearling boots, a heavy goose-down parka that fell to her knees. As the temperature rose, her jaw finally loosened and her teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. Peeling off her socks revealed feet that were grotesquely devoid of color and shape, just white blocks of flesh so bloodless they gave the impression of being made of rubber. There were various bruises along her limbs, as if she’d taken a fall, and the skin around her ankles was stretched thin over the swollen joints and ached when she tightened the laces of her boots. With her fresh suede gloves, she wiped the steering wheel, the gearshift, the buttons. She examined every crevice for stray hairs, the bleached strands now easy to spot against the black leather. The inspection complete, she locked the car, hoisted her backpack over one shoulder, and walked.



* * *




STOCKSFIELD WAS AN eighty-five-minute walk away. Other than Red Wingz, the only other attraction for visitors was a bus stop where the 5:20 p.m. Concord Coach bus made its daily run to South Station. According to her plan, she would make it there with an hour to spare.

The sun had long disappeared but light was still clinging to the edges of the sky, which gradually became infused with color, wispy pinks and mauves and azure blues, the farther she pulled away from the mountains. She’d been afraid that cars would see her walking along the highway and pull over to ask where she was going, but there were few cars, only the odd SUV or truck, and no one stopped or even seemed to notice her. Twenty minutes later, when she’d walked herself into a trancelike rhythm, the cold didn’t reach her anymore. Occasionally, she was seized by the sensation that something was missing, like the time she’d left her purse behind at a restaurant. She would stop and rack her brain, going over all the details again. Wallet. Phone. Car. Clothes. Body. Snow. Only when she felt certain that no detail had escaped her would she begin to walk again. She felt empty and alone and numb. She imagined that this was what it would be like to be back in her mother’s womb, surrounded by amniotic fluid, the outside world a strange and foreign place that did not touch her.

Soon she began to see signs of civilization. There were more cars, the two-lane highway became a local road called Crest Lane. Ivy took notice of the cars she passed, the pedestrians waiting by the crosswalk. She used to be afraid of the crossing guard when she was young. What a silly girl she’d been. She was so tired. She was down to her last cigarette.

When she finally reached town—a dirty, graffitied sign wearily announced itself: WELCOME TO STOCKSFIELD, HOME OF THE FIRST TAVERN—she turned onto the main road and saw a Dunkin’ Donuts. She checked her phone. It was twenty past four, exactly an hour before the bus arrived. She marveled at her own punctuality. She went inside, ordered a half dozen donuts and a large coffee, and wolfed everything down at a booth overlooking the deserted parking lot. The donuts were delicious.

A police officer walked into the store. Ivy ducked her head so violently she knocked over the coffee. Scalding liquid spread through the thick fibers of her sweatpants, lighting her thighs on fire. She grabbed her backpack and fled to the bathroom. She immediately heaved into the toilet, bringing up the colorful mush of undigested pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles, and then a thin yellow liquid near the end. She sat on the cold floor, head between her knees. Seconds, maybe minutes passed, she didn’t know. The sound of wailing startled her. It was coming from her throat.