I liked the safe world behind my computer screen as chaos erupted outside of my window. My mother was an activist at heart, and I was a hermit. That’s why losing her had devastated me all the more. I hadn’t even been to see her in California. The last time I’d felt her hug was when she’d left me with dreams of adventure in her mind.
I felt like I’d failed her by not coming too, or not taking a bigger role in her life out West. So much of what made herherwas her passionate tirades, but I’d grown up with them and could only hear so much.
When the newspapers began to call and ask for statements and interviews from Reina Fremont’s only daughter, I’d caved in on myself.
I cut another tie with that life when I switched my phone number, but when special interest groups and activists that opposed her ideals began calling and leaving nasty messages about her burning in Hell, I’d had no choice.
Tav bought me a new phone in his name the very next morning.
I’d been forced into a brutal form of survival mode that didn’t allow for mourning and grief. I was tagged in posts online by anonymous posters that claimed my mother was drunk driving and having affairs with well-connected men and a fraud in every way they could think of. They were all lies, my mother’s only goal in life was to help women overcome the demons they carried as they healed and became independent. Her life was as exactly as she wanted it, until she ceased to exist.
Tav was my hero every step of the way, making arrangements so we could have a small ceremony in my hometown before sending her ashes into the wind and then driving me to my therapy appointment so I could sob for two hours about losing the only person that ever really loved me. It felt pathetic, I was embarrassed even now that I’d shown him that raw side of me, but I had no one else. I was truly alone.
Within weeks of my mother’s passing, Tav began to talk more about when we would get married. Where we might live, the kids we’d have and the vacations we’d take. I think he did it to cheer me up, but it left me drowning in more depression. She wouldn’t be there to walk me down the aisle like I’d planned, she’d never meet her grandkids.
I loved him more than ever and I wanted to marry him less and less every day.
I was sinking.
Nine
“I chopped ten bundles worth of wood and it’s probably not even enough to cook us a dinner.” Tav came into the house, swiping at the snow accumulated in his hair.
He looked angelic if not for the way he grunted his words.
He was agitated. I felt horrible that I hadn’t done anything more than clean the house and organize the pantry.
“Do you need help? Can I draw you a bath?”
“Drawing a bath.”
“You turned her back on?” I referred to the voice assistant.
Tav nodded. “Weather station is reporting mass outages for the next week or ten days for most of the Northeast. Turned on the broadcast radio too and heard a few old guys talking about the bridge shutdown this morning. I tried to radio them back but no answer.”
A shiver went through me at the thought of other people trapped on this mountain with us. “How close do you think they are to us?”
Tav shrugged. “Within a few miles. Depending on their vantage point they might be able to see us even though we can’t see them. Though I saw a plume of smoke coming out of the valley when I was walking to the car earlier, maybe it was one of them.”
“People live year-‘round up here by choice?”
Tav went back to work on his laptop. “I’m still trying to hack into the home system. As long as I’m still getting weather station updates, there’s a way. Every system is hackable, I just have to reverse engineer the setup in my mind and look for the loophole. There’s always a loophole, intentional or not.”
“You’re determined,” I commented, hanging his damp jacket on a hook above the fireplace. “Just one of the things I love about you.”
I moved behind him, encircling his waist with my arms and hugging him.
He stiffened awkwardly, turning and tossing an arm around my neck and placing a kiss at the crown of my head. I hid my cringe, wondering if love should feel so much like pretending. I wondered if that meant we were at the beginning of the end.
“Sorry I’ve been distracted. I’m at the end of my rope with this foundation and regular workload. It’d be too much if I knew it wasn’t ending soon.”
“You haven’t told me much about it, are you any closer to accepting grant submissions?”
He shook his head, eyes averted to his screen again. I tried to chance a glance, but he kept the screen lit at such a low setting with a black color scheme and grey text, I couldn’t make anything out.
“The most important thing is that I can hand it off to a manager and get back to my real life, myoldlife. You and me and our future.” He planted another kiss at my head and then unhooked me from his embrace. “Maybe then we can take a real vacation. Tahiti or Fiji, whatever you want.”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t think he’d meant me to.
