Snow and Ice

We drove up the snowy winding road towards the cozy A-frame cabin.

The setting sun danced amongst a backdrop of mountainous evergreen trees as a deep wintry calm settled into my chest. Gone was the hustle and bustle of the big city. A whole weekend free of car horns, police sirens, fighting drunkards, and flashing lights laid out before us on a glistening white carpet. Snow crunched beneath the tires as I turned onto Cabin A’s private gravel drive. White smoke billowed out of the chimney ahead, and I saw that I was not the first to arrive.

“Maddy!”, Jess screamed as she jumped down the wooden steps and ran toward my jeep. “Hey, Kiddo”, she added once she saw Grace wide-eyed in the back seat.

“Auntie Jess, Yay!”, my six-year-old screeched back excitedly at her not really aunt, aunt.

Jess was my high school best-friend and the closest thing to family I had anymore. With smooth dark chocolate skin, petite in stature, and a natural afro to be envious of, Jess was my confidence in all things. Her green eyes narrowed as she took in my sombre face.

“Now don’t you dare, Maddy,” she warned, “This is a drama-free weekend, and I will not have my sister fighting with my husband.”

Sister. That’s what she always called me since the day she found me crying under the bleachers at gym class. You could say she adopted me. She saw a short chubby girl with no friends, and she decided, right then and there, we were mates. And when Jess decided something, that was that. No point in arguing. She was the hurricane in a rainstorm or the rainstorm in a drought, both disastrous and holy miraculous and sometimes both simultaneously.

I fumbled through several travel coffee cups and fast-food wrappers to grab the manilla envelope that sat on the passenger seat and moved to hand it to Jess.

She all but snatched it from my grasp. “Is this it, Maddy?” She actually whooped out loud pumping her arms into the air. “Oh my god, oh my god, YOU DID IT!”

“Okay, but wait ‘til you read it first. It’s probably just horse shit.”

“Mommy said a bad word!”, Grace scolded, as I unbuckled her car-seat. I knew she was probably big enough to transition to a booster seat, as most parents opted for, but she was my heart, and I was going to protect her for as long as possible.

“Yes, but mommies can. It’s little girls that can’t”, I say as I land a whole bunch of kisses on top of Grace’s curly head causing her to squirm and giggle.

By the time I had Grace and our weekend luggage removed from the vehicle I turned around to see Jess disappearing through the front door already. Thanks for the help sis, I mumble to myself as I heaved our bags onto my shoulder, and we made our way indoors.

Inside, sitting opposite Jess on a long grey couch was a man I had never seen before. He looked close to our age, mid-thirties probably, with dark brown hair and a lumberjack’s beard. He was reading a Jane Austen novel and for a moment I just watched his furrowed brows indicate concentration as his eyes raced across the page. A mountain man reading chic lit? Confused, I looked over to Jess who was pretendedly engrossed in the first page of my novel.

 “Maddy, this is Jack. Jack, Maddy”, she said dismissively waving her hand above her head.

 His looked up from the book and he gazed in my direction at Jess’s voice.

 “Hi, I’m Maddy”, I said foolishly.

 “And I am Grace”, my spunky child stated indignantly, apparently not amused to be left out of the introductions.

 “Well, hello, Grace. It is very nice to meet you.” Jack stood up from the couch and walked over to the door. He knelt down and shook Grace’s hand.

 “I am six,” she supplied.

 “Great age. I am thirty-six,” Jack countered. And standing up, he locked eyes with me. “It’s nice to meet you too, Maddy. I have been hearing a lot of good things about you. Thank you so much for letting me crash your cabin weekend. John’s an old friend and when he heard I was in town for a few days, he insisted I come out to catch up.”

 Of course, he did. And of course, he didn’t even consider asking if I minded. Why am I not surprised? I thought. What Jess sees in him I will never understand. He should have just stayed in the city to catch up and then us girls would have had a better trip. But, even as I had my grumpy thoughts, Jack’s piercing blue eyes gave me pause.

 “Oh, no worries”, I said, feigning prior knowledge. “The more the merrier.”

 As we settled into our room, Jess plopped onto the bed, my book still in hand. The men were cooking steaks on the cabin’s very high-end barbecue outside on the wrap-around porch. Snow be damned when men want meat.

 “So, what did you think of Jack?”, Jess asked quietly when Grace left to go explore the cabin, her eyebrow raised suggestively.

“Oh god, Jess, Is that the real reason he is here? You know I am perfectly comfortable with my current life. Grace and I are doing just fine on our own.”

 “You deserve to be happy, Maddy.”

 “I am.”

 “You deserve passion then.”

 “I had passion. Passion died.”

 Jess winced. She never could understand the way I spoke when I talked about Owen’s death. Being widowed at twenty-nine is no one’s happily ever after, after all, but I cope how I cope. No apologies.

 “I am sorry", I say when the silence drags on between us just a little bit too long. “Come, let’s go find Grace and eat some dinner. All I had on the way up was a grilled chicken burger and I don’t know about you, but I am starving.”

The warm woollen carpet gave my feet a little static shock through my equally warm woollen socks as I descended the stairs to the kitchen. I expected Grace to be found rummaging through the fridge, but the kitchen was surprisingly empty. I poked my head out to the guys on the deck.

 “Hey, have you seen Grace?” I asked.

 “Nope”, John answered quickly before turning back to Jack to continue whatever sports nonsense he was regaling.

 To my surprise, Jack stopped him mid-sentence with a hand held up. “She didn’t come out this way. Do you need help finding her?”

 “Oh no, I’m sure she is somewhere inside then.” I thanked him and turned back into the house and called out Grace’s name a few more times. No response. Weird. That kid loved dinner. I wondered where she got to?

 As I combed through the unfamiliar rooms, I stumbled upon Jack’s bedroom. More Austen novels were found on the light beige nightstand mixed in with some quality Agatha Christie mysteries. Huh, I thought. Good taste.

 It was when I reached the last room that I began to panic. Grace was not in the house. Where in the hell was she? I found Jess in the living room standing at the doorway with Grace’s bright blue coat in her hand. The front door was ajar and beyond it I could see little boot-prints imprinted in the snow moving in a straight line west around the house.

 “I told her there was a pond just down the hill that was frozen over. Oh, god, Maddy, I didn’t think she’d go check it out”, Jess whispered afraid.

 I darted out the door, snatching the blue coat as I passed, and began screaming Grace’s name over and over as I ran toward the pond. Time slowed and I imagined all the worst-case scenarios only a parent could conjure up. The wind was picking up and the snow blurred my vision in the growing darkness.

 “GRACE! GRACE! DAMMIT, ANSWER ME GRACE!”

 I reached the edge and fell to my knees as I watched my six-year-old laying on her belly in the middle of the frozen ice. Cracks radiated around her like a broken eggshell, and she was crying. Her tears froze on her bright red face.

 “Stay right there, Baby! Don’t you move an inch. You are going to be absolutely okay. Mommy is going to get you.” I cried out, searching desperately for a branch or twig or anything to grab.

 “I am sorry, Mommy”, Grace wept.

 “Huh now, Baby, It’s okay. You are a brave girl; you know that right? Everything is going to be okay.”

 I ran over to the nearest tree and began desperately pulling at the lowest branch. My fingers burned as I tugged and tugged but it would not come free.

 I looked back up the hill and saw no one. “Mommy is going to have to go back to the cabin and get some rope.”

 “NO! NO! MOMMY DON’T GO! DON’T LEAVE ME! I DON’T WANT TO DIE ALONE LIKE DADDY, PLEASE!”

 My heart broke into a million pieces. How could this be happening? I stared at my little girl and helplessness shattered me completely.

 “LISTEN TO ME. GRACE LISTEN, I MEAN IT. YOU ARE GOING TO BE FINE. I WILL SAVE YOU. I PROMISE; I WILL ALWAYS SAVE YOU. ALWAYS.”

 A dark shadow crept into my peripheral. I turned my head just in time to see Jack charging in front of John and Jess, jacket-less and with a face that could only be described as brazen. He had a rope in his hand, and he stopped just next to me.

 “Okay Grace”, he called out. “Now, I want you to grab onto the end of this rope and wrap it twice around your hand. Not your wrist okay, wrap it between your thumb and pointer finger, then around your palm two times, okay?”

 “OK”, Grace sniffled as she caught the rope Jack expertly tossed out.

 “Good girl. Now take your other hand and hold onto the rope just above the left, that’s a girl, hold on tight.”

 Grace did exactly as instructed, and then Jack was pulling her slowly over the ice. The surface cracked a few more times, causing my heart to frog leap in my throat but soon she was across. I grabbed Grace, shrugging off my sweater, and wrapped it around her shivering body.

 Behind us, Jess and John stood silent. I heard Jess crying softly, and even though I did not blame her, I did not move to comfort her. John had to be good for one thing after all, and I was busy. Surprising me, Jack moved to lift Grace into his arms. I did not protest, and we made our way back to the cabin, Grace’s hand still clasped tightly in my own.

 Later that evening, after Grace was tucked safely in our shared queen-size guest bed, I quietly sat in the living room staring at the dying flames that danced in the stone fireplace. John finally was able to pull Jess into their bedroom after she spent the last two hours apologizing. Our hug goodnight was long, and I did have to keep reassuring her that she was still my sister and I still loved her. My novel sat unread on the coffee table next to my laptop which was now opened to a blank page. Jack entered the room. Saying nothing, he handed me a new glass of red wine and sat down beside me.

 “I’m glad I met you, Maddy." He looked into my eyes earnestly.

 A sharp quip died on my tongue as I searched his face for intent.

 “I am glad I met you too.”