The cabin is dark and cold. When I close the door behind us, I see a pile of blankets on the couch where she was clearly trying to wait it out. Something flickers across her face. It’s not annoyance. Relief, maybe. But whatever it is is buried under the reflex to say she's fine. I can see it forming.
"I brought firewood," I say before she can launch it. "And coffee."
She looks at the logs in my arms. Then at my truck, where the rest of the firewood is stacked in the bed alongside the camp lantern and the blankets. Then back at me.
"You drove up the canyon road. In this." She gestures at the wall of white behind me.
"Road's not that bad."
"James. I can't see your truck and it's fifteen feet away."
"I know where the road is."
She stares at me. The fogged glasses. The bare shoulder. She's shivering. It’s not dramatic. But it’s a constant, low tremor that she's trying to suppress by clenching her jaw. The sight of it makes something in me go very still and very focused.
“You’re freezing.” It isn’t a question.
She responds, but I don’t hear it. I’m busy carrying the firewood to the stove. The cabin is even smaller than I expected and she appears to be living out of suitcases. It isn’t cozy, but it’s familiar. Every base housing unit I ever occupied looked exactly like this, functional and temporary.
I open the woodstove and check the flue. “The damper's stuck. It’s rusted. Probably hasn't been used in years.” I workit loose with the heel of my hand while Evelyn stands in the kitchen doorway watching me.
"You don't have to—” She starts.
"It will just take a minute."
She goes quiet. But I feel her watching while I build the fire that'll burn slow and hot for hours. It only takes a few minutes. Then the match catches and the kindling takes. Smoke curls up into the flue and the draft pulls. Before I know it the stove is ticking with heat.
I close the door and stand up. “Come sit close until you warm up. I’m going to get the rest from my truck. The stove is in good shape. Once it gets going it will throw heat like a furnace.”
“I can feel it already. It’s so good.” She bounds toward it and puts her hands up to catch the heat. The firelight illuminates the side of her face and turns her skin gold. “James, thank you so much.”
“Anytime.” I have to look away for a second. The sight of her soft, cold and lit up by a fire I built for her does something to my chest that I can’t describe.
She tries to help, but I shoo her away while I make two more trips outside. I sit the thermos on the counter. I don’t stop moving until I’ve got firewood stacked by the stove, and a camp lantern on the kitchen table casting a warm circle of light. Then I toss a pile of blankets on the couch.
I should leave, but every inch of my body is begging to stay as close to her as possible.
But leaving is the right thing to do. She's warm, she's safe, the fire will last through the night if she feeds it.
“Okay, you should be all set for the night. I’m going to head back down the canyon while I still can.” I glance outside at the stark white blanket of snow and ice glowing in the moonlight.
She blinks a few times then looks up at me with those big, dark eyes. "James."
“Yes.”
I look at her. She's on the couch, wrapped in one of the blankets I brought, curls spilling over the edge. The firelight moves across her face. She's not shivering anymore.
"You have to stay with me tonight.”
9
james
She doesn't need to ask me twice. It wasn’t a request in the first place. The crack in her voice told me her ask was a plea from a woman who's been white-knuckling her way through life finally letting go of the wheel for five seconds.
So I stay.
I add two more logs to the wood stove and close the iron door. The fire catches fast. Within twenty minutes the cold has pulled back to the corners of the room. The center is warm and golden.
