* * *

THAT NIGHT, they took Mama home from the hospital.

Dad held Mama as if she were made of glass. So careful, so concerned for her well-being. It filled Leni with an impotent rage.

And then she’d get a glimpse of him with tears in his eyes and the rage would turn soft and slide into something like forgiveness. She didn’t know how to corral or change either of these emotions; her love for him was all tangled up in hate. Right now she felt both emotions crowding in on her, each jostling for the lead.

He got Mama settled in bed and immediately went out to chop wood. There was never enough on the pile and Leni knew that physical exertion helped him somehow. Leni sat by her mother’s bedside for as long as she could, holding her mother’s cold hand. She had so many questions she wanted to ask, but she knew the ugly words would only make her mother cry, so Leni said nothing.

The next morning, Leni was climbing down the ladder when she heard Mama crying.

Leni went into Mama’s bedroom and found her sitting up in bed (just a mattress on the floor), leaning back against the skinned log wall, her face swollen, both eyes black and blue, her nose just slightly to the left of where it belonged.

“Don’t cry,” Leni said.

“You must think the worst of me,” Mama said, gingerly touching the split in her lip. “I baited him, didn’t I? Said the wrong thing. I must have?”

Leni didn’t know what to say to that. Did Mama mean that it was her fault, that if Mama was quieter or more supportive or more agreeable, Dad wouldn’t explode? It didn’t seem true to Leni, not at all. Sometimes he snapped and sometimes he didn’t, that was all there was. Mama taking the blame seemed wrong. Dangerous, even.

“I love him,” Mama said, staring down at her cast-encased arm. “I don’t know how to stop. But I have you to think about, too. Oh, my God … I don’t know why I’m like this. Why I let him treat me this way. I just can’t forget who he was before the war. I keep thinking he’ll come back, the man I married.”

“You won’t ever leave him,” Leni said quietly. She tried not to make it sound like an indictment.

“Would you really want that? I thought you loved Alaska,” Mama said.

“I love you more. And … I’m afraid,” Leni said.

“This time was bad, I’ll admit, but it scared him. Really. It won’t happen again. He’s promised me.”

Leni sighed. How was Mama’s unshakable belief in Dad any different than his fear of Armageddon? Did adults just look at the world and see what they wanted to see, think what they wanted to think? Did evidence and experience mean nothing?

Mama managed a smile. “You want to play crazy eights?”

So that was how they would do it, merge back into the driving lane after a blown tire. They would say ordinary things and pretend none of it had happened. Until the next time.

Leni nodded. She retrieved the cards from the rosewood box that held her mother’s favorite things and sat down on the floor beside the mattress.

“I’m so lucky to have you, Leni,” Mama said, trying to organize her cards with one hand.

“We’re a team,” Leni said.

“Peas in a pod.”

“Two of a kind.”

Words they said all the time to each other; words that felt a little hollow now. Maybe even sad.

They were halfway through the first game when Leni heard a vehicle drive up. She tossed the cards on the bed and ran to the window. “It’s Large Marge,” she yelled back to Mama. “And Mr. Walker.”

“Shit,” Mama said. “Help me get dressed.”

Leni ran back to Mama’s bedroom and helped her take off her flannel pajamas and get into a pair of faded jeans and an oversized hooded sweatshirt with sleeves big enough to accommodate the cast. Leni brushed Mama’s hair and then helped her out to the living room, got her situated on the ragged sofa.

The cabin door opened. Snow fluttered inside on a wave of icy air, brushed across the plywood floor.

Large Marge looked like a grizzly in her huge fur parka and mukluks, with a wolverine hat that looked to have been handmade. Earrings made of antler bone hung from her sagging earlobes. She stomped the snow from her boots and started to say something. Then she saw Mama’s bruised face and muttered, “Son of a freaking bitch. I should kick his beef-jerky ass.”

Mr. Walker came in to stand behind her.

“Hey,” Mama said, not quite making eye contact with him. She didn’t stand; maybe she wasn’t strong enough. “Would you like some—”

Dad pushed his way in, slammed the door shut behind him. “I’ll get ’em coffee, Cora. You stay put.”

The tension between the adults was unbearable. What was happening here? Something, that was for sure.

Large Marge took Mr. Walker by the arm—a firm, fish-landing grip—and led him to a chair by the woodstove. “Sit down,” she said, shoving him into the chair when he didn’t move fast enough.

Leni grabbed a stool from beside the card table and dragged it into the living room for Large Marge.

“That itty-bitty thing?” Large Marge asked. “My ass is going to look like a mushroom on a toothpick.” Still, she sat down. Planting her fleshy hands on her hips, she looked at Mama.

“It’s worse than it looks,” Mama said in an uneven voice. “We had a car crash, you know.”

“Yeah. I know,” Large Marge said.

Dad came into the living room, carrying two blue-speckled cups full of coffee. Steam rose up from them, scented the air. He handed Tom and Large Marge each a cup.

“So,” he said uneasily. “We haven’t had winter guests in a while.”

“Sit down, Ernt,” Large Marge said.

“I don’t—”

“Sit down or I’ll knock you down,” Large Marge said.

Mama gasped.

Dad sat down on the sofa beside Mama. “That’s not really the way to talk to a man in his own home.”

“You don’t want to get me started on what a real man is, Ernt Allbright. I’m holding on to my temper, but it could run away with me. And you do not want to see a big woman come at you. Trust me. So shut your trap and listen.” She glanced at Mama. “Both of you.”

Leni felt the air leave the room. A chilling, weighted silence came in, pressed down on them.