There was a knock at the window of the truck, and she looked up to see Willie, his fingers stuck in a bowl of something pink. He scooped out a bit with his middle and index fingers as she unrolled the window.
“Hey,” he said.
She wiped her eyes. “Hey.”
“You okay?”
Trixie started to nod, but she was so sick of lying. “Not so much,” she admitted.
It was nice, the way Willie didn't even try to say something to make her feel better. He just let her sadness stand. “That's your dad?” he asked.
She nodded. She wanted to explain everything to Willie, but she didn't know how. As far as Willie had been concerned, she was a Jesuit Volunteer, one who had been stranded by the storm. With him, she had not been a rape victim or a murder suspect. How did you tell someone that you weren't the person he thought you were?
And more importantly, how did you tell him that you'd meant the things you'd said, when everything else about you turned out to be a lie?
He held out the dish. “Want some?” “What is it?”
“Akutaq. Eskimo ice cream.” Trixie dipped her finger in. It wasn't
Ben & Jerry's, but it wasn't badberries and sugar, mixed with something she couldn't recognize.
“Seal oil and shortening,” Willie said, and she wasn't in the least surprised that he could read her mind.
He looked down at her through the window. “If I ever get to Florida, maybe you could meet me there.”
Trixie didn't know what was going to happen to her tomorrow, much less after that. But she found that in spite of everything that had happened, she still had the capacity to pretend, to think her future might be something it never actually would. “That would be cool,” she said softly.
“Do you live nearby?”
“Give or take fifteen hundred miles,” Trixie said, and when Willie smiled a little, so did she.
Suddenly Trixie wanted to tell someone the truth . . . all of it. She wanted to start from the beginning, and if she could make just one person believe her, at least it was a start. She lifted her face to Willie's. “At home, I was raped by a guy I thought I loved,” Trixie said, because that was what it was to her and always would be. Semantics didn't matter when you were bleeding between your legs, when you felt like you'd been broken from the inside out, when free will was taken away from you.
“Is that why you ran away?”
Trixie shook her head. “He's dead.”
Willie didn't ask her if she was responsible. He just nodded, his breath hanging on the air like lace. “I guess sometimes,” he said, “that's the way it works.”
* * *
It was bingo night at the village council offices, and Laura had been left alone in the tiny house. She had read every Tundra Drums newspaper twice, even the ones stacked in the entryway for disposal. She'd watched television until her eyes hurt. She found herself wondering what kind of person would choose to live in a place like this, where conversation seemed abnormal and where even the sunlight stayed away. What had brought Daniel's mother here?
Like Annette Stone, Laura was a teacher. She knew you could change the world one student at a time. But how long would you be willing to sacrifice your own child's happiness for everyone else's?
Maybe she hadn't wanted to leave. Daniel had told Laura about his wandering father. There were some people who hit your life so hard, they left a stain on your future. Laura understood how you might spend your whole life waiting for that kind of man to come back.
It was a choice Daniel's mother had made for both of them, one that immediately put her son at a disadvantage. To Laura, it seemed selfish, and she ought to know.
Was it tough love, putting your child through hell? Or was it the best of parenting, a way to make sure your child could survive without you? If Daniel hadn't been teased, he might have felt at home on the tundra. He might have become one of the faceless kids, like Cane, who couldn't find a way out. He might have stayed in Alaska, forever, waiting for something that didn't come. Maybe Annette Stone had only been making sure Daniel had an escape route, because she didn't herself.
Outside, a truck drove into the yard. Laura jumped up, running out the arctic entry to see if Daniel and Trixie had returned. But the truck had a bar of flashing blue lights across the top of the cab, casting long shadows on the snow.
Laura straightened her spine. You'd do whatever it took to protect your child. Even the things that no one else could possibly understand.
“We're looking for Trixie Stone,” the policeman said.
* * *
Trixie fell asleep on the ride back to Akiak. Daniel had wrapped Trixie in his own balaclava and parka; she rode the snow machine with her arms around his waist and her cheek pressed up against his back. He followed the setting sun, a showgirl's tease of pink ribbon trailing off the stage of the horizon. Daniel didn't really know what to make of his daughter's confession. In this part of the world, people believed that a thought might turn into an action at any moment; a word held in your mind had just as much power to wound or to heal as the one that was spoken aloud. In this part of the world, it didn't matter what Trixie had or had not said: What Jason Underhill had done to Trixie did count as rape.
He was also painfully aware of the other things Trixie had not said out loud: that she hadn't killed Jason; that she was innocent.
In Akiak, Daniel revved up the riverbank and past the post office to reach Cane's house. He turned the corner and saw the police truck.
For just a moment, he thought, I have reinvented myself before, I can do it again. He could drive until the gas ran out of the snow-go, and then he would build a shelter for himself and Trixie. He'd teach
her how to track and how to hunt and, when the weather turned, where to find the salmon.
But he could not leave Laura behind, and he couldn't send for her later. Once they left, he would have to make sure they could never be found.
He felt Trixie stiffen behind him and realized that she had seen
the policemen. Even worse, when the officer got out of the car, he understood that they'd been seen, too.
“Don't talk,” he said over his shoulder. “Let me take care of this.”
The Tenth Circle
Daniel drove the snow-go toward Cane's house and turned off the ignition. Then he got off the vehicle and stood with his hand on Trixie's shoulder.
When you loved someone, you did whatever you thought was in her best interests, even if - at the time - it looked utterly wrong. Men did this for women; mothers did it for sons. And Daniel knew he'd do it for Trixie. He'd do anything. What made a hero a hero? Was it winning all the time, like Superman? Or was it taking on the task reluctantly, like Spider-Man? Was it learning, like the X-Men had, that at any moment you might fall from grace to become a villain? Or, like Alan Moore's Rorschach, was it being human enough to enjoy watching people die, if they deserved it?
The policeman approached. “Trixie Stone,” he said, “you're under arrest for the murder of Jason Underhill.”
“You can't arrest her,” Daniel insisted.
“Mr. Stone, I've got a warrant”
Daniel didn't take his eyes off his daughter's face. “Yes,” he said. “But I'm the one who killed him.”
* * *
Trixie couldn't talk, she couldn't breathe, she couldn't think. She was frozen, rooted to the permafrost like the policeman. Her father had just confessed to murder.
She stared at him, stunned. “Daddy,” she whispered.
“Trixie, I told you. Not a word.”
Trixie thought of how, when she was tiny, he used to carry her on his shoulders. She, like her mother, got dizzy up high - but her father would anchor her legs in his hands. / won't let you fall, he said, and because he never did, the world from that vantage point stopped being so scary.