We're in Trouble (19 page)

So, she said, here I am. All better.

Brad said, So . . .

Well, yeah, I'm smoking
pot.
I get these, you know, panics? But nothing heavy.

No, I mean—do you ever feel like that? Like . . .

Like killing myself?

Yeah.

She got up and crossed the room again, and rooted in the same drawer that had produced her joint, and then came back with a brown prescription bottle full of pills. She dropped down onto her stomach next to Brad and set the bottle on his chest.

What's this?

My Celexa, she said. I'm supposed to take it for my anxiety, but I hate it. I've been saving it up. I ever have to do it again, I'll
really
do it.

You think you'll have to?

After a long time, she said, Probably not. I
think
about it all the time, but—hey, don't worry. I don't mean it like that.

So throw that out.

Mel picked up the bottle and held it in front of her eyes. She said, No. I kind of like having it, you know? It's like I'm testing myself. If I ever feel bad I take it out and look at it. And then I ask myself, how bad does it hurt? And so far it hasn't been that bad.

They make me nervous, he said.

She lowered her voice, spoke with a Russian accent, Not to worry. I am strong like bull.

Mel, you're nuts.

She said, I didn't tell you all of this so you could, you know, nurse me to health. Or pity me.

No. He ran his finger along her collarbone. I'm just trying to figure you out You seem so . . . okay.

She grinned and rolled herself on top of him, then kissed him.

Who says I'm not?

In the middle of their second night at the cabin, Brad wakes to utter darkness, but also to sound: a light tapping, followed by a howl.

He's confused at first. He just heard these same sounds in a dream—he and Mel were in her bed, and upstairs the house was full of wolves, who kept howling, their claws tapping on the ceiling above their heads—

He blinks into the dark, remembers: Md is with him, and they're in Michigan, at the little cabin. In their makeshift tent. And it's cold. Cold like he's never felt—so cold that his cheeks are like sheets of stone, that his fingers don't want to curl. And the roaring sound is wind—horrendous wind, making the walls of the cabin creak, the windows rattle in their frames.

Brad pulls away from Mel—she mutters and slaps at the mattress where he's been—and crawls out of the tent. He reaches for the flashlight and then, on stiff legs, follows its beam over to the door.

When he opens it the wind bursts through, so cold and quick that Brad feels like he's being cut by knives. And—he can barely believe that's what he's seeing—there's
snow
, too, stinging his cheeks, swirling through the flashlight's beam. He trains the light on the porch—and sees the snow there is already several inches deep, drifting even higher up against the outside walls.

He crosses the room and shakes Mel awake.

What?

It's snowing.

What?

She climbs past him to look for herself. While she's gone
Brad lights the grill, and holds his stiff hands over the flames until they prickle. He's so cold he can barely think.

Mel scrambles back into the tent.

Did you look at the thermometer? she asks—she means the big round one, nailed to one of the porch rails. Her voice is thick, almost deadened.

No.

Fifteen degrees.

Jesus
Christ.

What do we do?

It's a good question, but he can't think of what to say. The grill spills out heat like bathwater; he takes Mel's trembling hands and holds them close to it. The flashlight is still on, next to Brad on the mattress, and in its light Mel's face shines as white and cold as the snow. Her breath is coming in quick, steaming gasps.

Okay, he says finally. I guess we just have to stick it out till morning. We'll see what we're up against when the sun's out. Mel?

How can you say that? she asks.

She's looking at her lap now, shoulders heaving. Her hands are clutching into fists.

Her voice falls apart around the words, We're dead.

No! he says. Mel, come here.

She slides closer, her mouth twisted, her breath sour. She's never cried like this in front of him; she'll get teary over little things every now and then, but he's never seen her
sob.
It's awful. She might be right—his own body is numb with cold and fear—but he can't bear to watch her like this.

Come on, he says. Hey. Come on. We're not going to die.

She wails, How?

We'll think of something, he says. All I know is, we can't panic. Okay?

He holds her to him, strokes her hair, her cheeks, until—at last—she takes a long breath: shaky, but deep.

Then, in a small voice, she says what he's been thinking: But what happens when we run out of gas?

I don't know. I'm thinking. You think, too.

Brad—I've seen the snows up here. People die all the time—

Listen, he says. It's not going to snow forever. We'll wait it out. We haven't used much gas. Okay? So put on all your extra clothes and stay next to me. In the morning it'll be warm.

You don't
know
that—

No, he says, but that's what I'm going with.

She nods, but he can see the fear is still working at her. He remembers everything he's done to bring them here—urging her to come, forgetting to fill the gas tank—

Mel, he says. I'm sorry. This is my fault.

She shakes her head. No. No it isn't.

It is. And I'm going to figure something out. I promise.

She stares at him for a long time, her lips clamped shut. The wind rises, howling, and he holds his fingers against her cheek. She closes her eyes and nods.

Say it with me, he says. We'll be all right.

She puts her arm around her neck and whispers, We'll be all right.

B
EFORE LONG
Mel is drowsing, curled across him—and Brad's glad for this; when she's awake he's too worried about
her, and his thinking isn't any good. He hovers over the grill and considers what options he can. There aren't many.

He told Mel they had enough gas, but that only was a guess—the grill doesn't have a fuel gauge. He keeps the flame on only long enough to warm the air around them. Every time he lights it Mel murmurs, and he holds her hands or her feet close to the heat. But then, when he spins the dial off, the cold rises through the mattress with awful speed, like water filling up a sinking boat.

His thinking is going nowhere. He's exhausted, but he's too afraid to sleep—would he be able to wake back up, if the room gets too cold? He holds Mel and listens to the wind. Some gusts shake the walls so much he closes his eyes and waits for the cabin to fly apart, for him and Mel to get sucked into the sky.

Some time later—neither of them brought watches; he has no idea how much time has passed, but it feels like a hundred years—he shuts down the grill and realizes he can see light, glowing through the quilt. He can see the outline of his own hand. The sun is coming up.

He disentangles himself from Mel and shuffles across the cabin floor to the doorway. When he looks outside he wishes right away that he hadn't.

The wind is still screaming, the snow still swirling down. So much has fallen that Brad can barely register it all—the drift against the cabin is a foot and a half deep, at least. He can't even see the lake—it's just a gray smudge, a lot smaller than he remembers it, appearing and disappearing in the gusts.

The thermometer on the post reads eight degrees. The numbers down this low have blue icicles painted on them.

When he ducks back inside the tent, Mel is awake, her eyes staring out from under the blanket. He wishes he could make his face seem hopeful, but he can't. And she can hear the storm as well as he can.

We'd better eat, he says.

For breakfast they have tuna on bread, and share a can of pop—they've been keeping the cans next to the grill, but even so what's in them is half slush, half syrup, almost too cold to swallow.

After they eat, they huddle, shivering, in the center of the mattress. And Mel tells him, I'm a little worried about my feet.

He takes them onto his lap. She's been wearing an extra pair of his socks, but they haven't helped; her feet feel like pieces of ice. He rubs them and rubs them, until Mel says they tingle, then he wraps them in one of his extra T-shirts.

She's not looking at him. He knows she's waiting for him to produce some sort of plan.

It'll stop soon, he says. We just have to be patient.

She doesn't answer him.

For a long time, they drowse. Sometimes the snow tails off, and when this happens—when the gray light glows just a little brighter—Brad shuffles to the front door, covers his face with his arm, and looks out at the deep white blanket, at the thermometer, which hovers near ten degrees without changing.

Sometimes he can tell Mel's awake—he can feel her staring—and he wants to ask her what she's thinking. But he never does. What's the use? She's probably going over the same bad plans he's been discarding since last night.

The gas station is eight miles away, more or less. The
gravel road keeps on going, deeper into the woods, and it's possible—just—that someone lives not that far away. Like maybe the owner of that yellow Jeep. But it's just as possible that the only thing down the gravel road is more woods. Or other empty cabins.

How many did they pass, on the drive in? Three? Two? He can't remember. And anyway, they can't count on any place out here being wired for electricity, or a phone. But heat—that's another thing. One of those other cabins
has
to have a fireplace, or a woodburning stove.

But this doesn't change the fact that any other place is at least three miles off. Probably farther. Which means walking. And they only have jackets. Mel's shoes have fucking
holes
in them.

And then—he's been trying not to think about this, but he has to—assuming they
are
able to get to the gas station, or a place with a phone, what will they say? By the time they reached anyone they'd have to be pretty fucked up—which means police, doctors, a hospital. Questions. And how would they answer them?
We were just out for a drive?

He's got six months hanging over his head for violating probation, but add on breaking and entering, possession of a stolen vehicle—he'd be going back in for a long time, maybe even long enough to get bumped up from Cook County Jail to one of the penitentiaries.

Mel, he says.

What?

Talk to me, he says. It's too quiet.

I'm trying not to think anything, she murmurs.

He can understand that well enough. But her voice has a
quality to it he doesn't like—and he realizes: it's too even. She sounds too calm.

Tell me something, he says.

Like what?

Tell me where we're going to live.

She shifts, so that he can see her eyes. The apartment? she asks.

No. Like your dream house. Tell me about it.

I don't know, she says.

But then she talks. She tells him about North Carolina, a beach house she went to once, when she was in high school. After a while her hands start moving, above the quilt, shaping what she describes. The two of them will have a house like that one. A big house on stilts, out on the shore.

What's it like there? he asks.

Mel's voice is ragged, but she tells him about the sunrises. How it's so warm at night they'll be able to sleep outside on deck chairs, watching sunrises and sunsets. They'll have dogs that run with them through the surf. The water will be blue and the air will smell like salt. Their hair will turn blond from all the sun.

She stops, a shiver in her voice. Her eyes are blinking. Brad sits and lights the grill—they need the heat, but he also wants the sight of her face in the firelight.

He sinks back down next to her. Keep talking he says, and strokes her hair.

T
HE SUN DIMS
. For the first time in hours the snow subsides, but the wind still sweeps and howls, and the needle on the thermometer drops—at sunset it points at six. When Brad shines the flashlight out at the lake he sees only white
tree trunks, and wisps of snow, swirling and tattering above the ground like steam.

He lights the grill and lies back down—but no sooner has he huddled with Mel than, with a tiny, sucking pop, the fire goes out.

Oh God, Mel says, softly.

Don't panic, he tells her, almost by reflex, even though the sudden dark seizes his breath, too.

He turns on the flashlight, then fumbles in the odd shadows,
trying to
relight the fire. But it won't catch. He tilts the grill up and down, sideways, flicking Mel's lighter. He unscrews the propane tank, shakes it. It's too light.

Okay, he says. Okay.

Mel is watching him, long shadows across her face, the blanket clutched around her shoulders.

He hasn't been able to come up with much of a plan, but he tells Mel anyway. Listen, he says. We have to try and start a fire.

Where?

In the grill.

What about smoke?

I don't know. We can breathe through the blanket or something. Would that work?

She whispers, Maybe.

We need wood, he says.

They look around them. The entire cabin is made of wood, but for all its holes and cracks, it's sturdy. Brad starts to pound on the one interior wall, to see if he can pry loose a board. But he's got no tools. With just his hands it's going to take a while. Maybe too long.

Brad! Mel says. The closet—the shelves.

She's right The three shelves are made of wood planks,
resting free on their braces. He stacks them in his arms. They're too thick to break apart; Brad tries kicking one a few times with his boot heel, but all he does is send a shooting pain up into his kneecap.

Whole, then. He leans the end of one shelf into the grill, into a nest of crumpled pages Mel has torn out of the paperback mystery she brought to read on the drive. The paper lights quickly, crackling. Mel watches the fire, her mouth hanging open. Her hair is like part of the room's shadow, clinging to her face.

Like everything else in the cabin, the wood is full of damp. Brad keeps tearing pages and stuffing them under the board. Finally the board starts to smolder; smoke spills out of the grill and into the tent. They quickly disassemble it. The smoke pours out and up, swirling through the room's drafty air before collecting against the ceiling. Brad's eyes and throat sting, but he pulls his sweater over his mouth and keeps lighting paper. At this rate he's going to use half Mel's book.

Finally the board catches; flames crawl along its sides. And the smoke boils up even faster. The cabin fills with orange light, odd shadows. The heat against Brad's face, his hands, nearly makes him weep with relief. He crouches low, close to the mattress, face-to-face with Mel. Her eyes are streaming, leaving sooty tracks along her cheeks. They cough and cough. Brad's chest tightens.

After another few minutes he starts to feel dizzy.

We've got to put this out, he tells Mel—his vision is so blurred that she's only a smudge in front of him, her cheekbones pulsing orange. We'll suffocate.

Mel shakes her head, puts a hand on his arm. Wait, she says.

She stares at him for a long time. Then she hugs him, puts her mouth next to his ear.

She says, I don't know, maybe—maybe this would be best.