You could always tell when Dad was gone. Everything was easier and more relaxed in his absence.

Large Marge and Mr. Walker sat at the big rectangular dining table Dad had made last summer, playing cards.

“Hey, Leni. Make sure they’re not cheating,” Mama yelled from the kitchen alcove, which had been redesigned piecemeal over the years—a propane oven had been hauled in, as well as a refrigerator. Mr. Walker had tiled the counter and put in a better dry sink. There was still no running water and no bathroom in the cabin. Large Marge had built a rack for the dishes they bought when they went to the Salvation Army in Homer.

“Oh, they’re cheating,” Leni said, smiling.

“Not me,” Large Marge said, popping a chunk of reindeer sausage in her mouth. “I don’t need to cheat to beat these two. Come on over, Leni. Give me a run for my money.”

Chuckling, Mr. Walker got up, his chair screeching across the plank floor. “Looks like someone bagged a sheep.” He pulled a big white plastic sheet out from underneath the sink and spread it out on the floor.

Leni thumped her load down onto the plastic and knelt beside it. “I did,” she said. “Up by Porter Ridge.” She opened the bag and pulled out the field-dressed carcass.

Mr. Walker sharpened an ulu, handed it to her.

Leni set about her task of cutting the haunch into steaks and roasts and tearing away the silvery skeins from the meat. Once it had seemed weird to butcher meat in the house, on a sheet of plastic. No more. This was life in the winter months.

Mama came out of the kitchen, smiling. In the winter, it seemed, she was always smiling. She had bloomed here in Alaska, just as Leni had. Ironically, they both felt safest in the winters, when the world was at its smallest and most dangerous. With Dad gone, they could breathe easily. They were the same height now, she and Leni. Their protein-heavy diet had made them both as lean and lithe as ballerinas.

Mama took her place at the table and said, “I’m shooting the moon this time. Just letting you get your strategy set.”

“All the way?” Mr. Walker said. “Or just most of the way, like usual?”

Mama laughed. “You’ll eat those words, Tom.” She started dealing.

Leni did some pretending in the winter, just as she did in the summer. Like now, she pretended not to notice how Mama and Mr. Walker looked at each other, how careful they were never to actually touch each other. How Mama sometimes sighed when she mentioned his name.

Some things were dangerous; they all knew that.

Leni bent to her task. She was concentrating so keenly on making her cuts that it was a moment before she noticed the sound of an engine. Then she saw a flash of headlights come through the window, illuminating the cabin in a staccato burst.

Moments later, the cabin door opened.

Dad walked in. He wore a faded, frayed trucker’s hat, pulled low on his brow, his long beard and mustache untended. After months on the pipeline, he had the sinewy, hard look of a man who drank too much and ate too little. The harsh Alaska weather had given his skin a lined, leathery look.

Mama shot to her feet, looking instantly anxious. “Ernt! You’re home early! You should have told me you were coming.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking at Mr. Walker. “I can see why you’d want to know.”

“It’s just a hand of cards with neighbors,” Mr. Walker said, pushing to his feet. “But we’ll leave you to your reunion.” He walked past Dad (who didn’t take a step backward, forced Mr. Walker to change course), took his parka from the hook by the door, and put it on. “Thanks, gals.”

When he was gone, Mama stared at Dad, her face pale, her mouth parted slightly. She had a breathless, worried look about her.

Large Marge stood up. “I can’t get my stuff together quick enough, so I’ll just stay tonight, if you don’t mind. I’m sure you don’t.”

Dad didn’t spare Large Marge a glance. He had eyes only for Mama. “Far be it for me to tell a fat woman what to do.”

Large Marge laughed and walked away from the dining table. She plopped onto the sofa Dad had bought from a hotel going out of business in Anchorage, put her slippered feet up on the new coffee table.

Mama went to Dad, put her arms around him, pulled him close. “Hey, you,” she whispered, kissing his throat. “I missed you.”

“They fired me. Sons of bitches.”

“Oh, no,” Mama said. “What happened? Why?”

“A lying son of a bitch said I was drinking on the job. And my boss is a prick. It wasn’t my fault.”

“Poor Ernt,” Mama said. “You never get a break.”

He touched Mama’s face, tilted her chin up, kissed her hard. “God, I missed you,” he said against her lips. She moaned at his touch, molded her body to his.

They drifted toward the bedroom, pushed through the clacking beads, apparently unaware that anyone else was in the cabin. Leni heard them fall on the bed with a thump, heard their breathing accelerate.

Leni sat back on her heels. Good God. She would never understand her parents’ relationship. It shamed Leni; that unshakable love both she and Mama had for Dad gave her a bad, heartsick feeling. There was something wrong with them; she knew it. Saw it in the way Large Marge sometimes looked at Mama.

“It ain’t normal, kid,” Large Marge said.

“What is?”

“Who the hell knows? Crazy Pete is the happiest married person I know.”

“Well, Matilda’s no ordinary goose. You hungry?”

Large Marge patted her big belly. “You bet. Your mama’s stew is my favorite.”

“I’ll get us some. God knows they won’t be out of the bedroom for a while.” Leni wrapped up the meat she’d butchered, then washed her hands with water from the bucket by the sink. In the kitchen, she cranked up the radio as loud as it would go, but it wasn’t enough to drown out the reunion in the bedroom.

* * *

BREAKUP IN ALASKA. The season of melting, movement, noise, when the sunlight tenatively came back, shone down on dirty, patchy snow. The world shifted, shrugging off the cold, making sounds like great gears turning. Blocks of ice as big as houses broke free, floated downstream, hitting anything in their way. Trees groaned and fell over as the wet, unstable ground moved beneath them. Snow turned to slush and then to water that collected in every hollow and indentation in the land.