The Strong Ones

We drove up the snowy, winding road towards the cozy A-frame cabin. Maisy whimpered as we made turn after turn, carsick and clutching the soup pot Mom had managed to grab before we left. We were packed like sardines in the back of the car, with bags of clothes at our feet, blankets stuffed between and around us. Maisy held the soup pot in case she needed something to be sick into. I’d been holding Petey on my lap the whole way up, a bag of his dog food jammed in next to my elbow. He’d been uncharacteristically good for most of the drive, but even he was starting to whine.

“Almost there,” Mom called from the front seat. “Everybody hang on.”

I closed my eyes and whispered into Petey’s bristly fur. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.” The words fell into a soothing patter. Grandma had tried to teach us to pray before we went to bed, but I could never remember the words. Instead, I hung onto, “It’s okay,” repeated until I started to feel better. It seemed to work as well as anything else. Petey’s claws dug into my thighs as Mom whipped around another corner. I felt the road shift from asphalt to snow-crusted gravel, marking the end of the drive.

The cabin looked asleep for the winter, shuttered and snowed in. Mom parked, then turned around to Maisy and me.

“It’s okay, girls. We’re safe up here. Dad can’t get to us. I’m going to need your help to get us in and set up for the night. Can you be brave and strong for me, just a little while longer?”

She always asked us to be strong for her. I was eleven and Maisy was only six, but we were supposed to be the strong ones, the quiet ones, who said “Yes Mom,” and never cried and never fought and did what we were asked the first time. But what choice did we have?

I nodded. Next to me, Maisy took a quivering breath and started to say, “Yes,” but lost the words to a sob.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Mom said, reaching over a box and through a pile of stuff to try and stroke Maisy’s head. “It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you. Ella’s got you. Petey’s got you. Nobody is going to ever hurt us again, okay?” She reached to wipe Maisy’s tears with her thumb. Maisy took a deep, ragged breath and tried to get herself under control, but instead burst out.

“That’s what you said last time!”

Mom’s face clouded over. She looked like she was about to cry.

“I know, Maisybelle,” she said, her voice quavering over the nickname. “But I mean it this time. We are never going back, and he is not going to find us. We’re just going to stay here for the night, and then we’re going to go to Aunt Cilla’s.”

Maisy just kept crying and shaking. Mom looked at me helplessly, repeating, “It’s okay, I promise, baby, please don’t cry” as she tried to wipe Maisy’s face. Finally Petey crawled out of my lap and leaned over to lick Maisy’s face. That was enough to make her stop, a small giggle slipping out as she fended off Petey’s tongue. Mom sighed with relief, then got out of the car.

After that, nobody spoke much. Mom slipped and staggered down the steep icy steps, using her cell phone as a flashlight. The lockbox where we kept the spare key was frozen shut. I saw her close her eyes and bend over for a moment, like she was in pain. Then she straightened up and called, “Ella? Bring Maisy down here. BE CAREFUL on the steps.”

Maisy and I sat down and slid carefully from one step to the next, trying to keep our bottoms dry and unbruised. As soon as we got down to Mom, she had us follow her around the back of the house, where the snow was deeper. She lifted Maisy onto her shoulders and pointed her to the window.

“It’s never locked,” she said. “Maisy, sweetheart, I need you to open it and climb in. I need you to be my big strong girl, come on.”

I thought for a horrible moment Maisy was going to start crying again, but just then Petey came down the steps and followed our tracks to find us. He yelped and jumped, twisting in the snow, trying to bite it, getting stuck in it. We all had to laugh, watching him. After that, Maisy stuck out her hands and managed to get the window open. Mom shouted instructions through the window until we heard the porch door open.

Maisy looked triumphant, grinning and waving as we made our way back around. Mom whooped and hollered, scooping her up into her arms. “Look at my little hero!” she crowed. We stomped the snow off our boots as best we could and made our way inside.

The cabin smelled musty, but familiar. It smelled like the memories of summer, safe and free and fun. There was dust on all the furniture, but Mom didn’t seem to care. She made her way to the fireplace we barely ever used and studied the pile of wood next to it. We hadn’t lit a fire in a couple of years, but she liked the way it looked to have a woodpile next to the fireplace. She knelt and started stacking wood, digging a lighter out of her pocket.

“Ella,” she said. “Go to the bookshelf and bring me something that looks really boring. Something big and old. Quickly!” She handed me her cell phone and I used the light to scan the shelves. I grabbed a book I’d never seen anyone read, something old with thick pages, and brought it to her. She looked at it and gave a little chuckle.

“I’ve always hated Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” she said. “Perfect choice, Ella.” With that, she opened the book and began tearing pages out of it. Each rip made me flinch a little bit. She balled up the papers and stuck them in the fireplace, then lit them with her lighter, anxiously looking up the chimney to make sure it was clear enough to light a fire. When the smoke started to draft upward and out of the living room, she signed with relief and sat back on her heels, putting an arm around each of us.

The light made everything seem warmer, even before the fire’s heat reached us. Mom waited until the logs began to catch, then headed for the circuit board to turn on the electricity and gas. She rummaged in the cupboards and found some butterscotch candies for all of us. With sweetness on our tongues and warmth in our cheeks, we went back out to unload the rest of the car, Petey cheering us on as we went.

After a real dinner of Spaghettios (heated up in Maisy's puke-free soup pot) and marshmallows toasted on the open fire, Mom sat down on the couch and curled up with us under the thin summer blankets we kept in the cabin. We watched the fire and snuggled. Petey stretched out in front of the fire and yawned, resting his head on his paws. Maisy tucked herself into Mom’s side and fell asleep as Mom stroked her hair and kissed her head.

“You okay?” she murmured into my ear, trying not to wake Maisy.

I shrugged. “Are we really going to Aunt Cilla’s?”

I felt Mom stiffen against me. “Yeah,” she said. “I promise.”

I couldn’t let her get away with that. “You promised last time.”

I could hear the fight in her starting up, and I shied away from her, waiting for the sternness, the tears, the scolding to come. If it did, I’d have to apologize for making her upset, smooth things over. Be strong for her. But the anger didn’t come. Instead, she took a shuddery breath, and let it out smoothly.

“You’re right,” she said. “I did promise. And we went back. And I’m sorry, baby. But not this time.”

“How do you know?” I asked, knowing I was pushing my luck.

Though still in a bare whisper, her voice was firm and warm. “Because I promised myself I’d never let anyone hurt you and your sister,” she said. “As long as you were safe, it was too hard to leave. I was too scared to be on my own. The minute he -” her voice broke off, and she cleared her throat. “The minute he started yelling at you, I knew this time would have to be different. It was my turn to be strong for you.”

At those words, I started to cry - silently, the way I’d taught myself to under the covers when I heard them fighting at night. Mom wrapped her arm tight around my shoulders and kissed my head, and I could feel her crying, too. It wasn’t the same as the way she cried when she was scared and frustrated and angry. It was a softer crying, a sadder one. One that made room for me to be sad, too.

We fell asleep like that, on the cozy cabin couch. I woke up once in the middle of the night to find the fire nearly burned out. I was wrapped in my winter coat, my wool hat slipped over my ears, Maisy curled against me, snoring softly. Mom was sleeping on the floor next to us in her own coat, next to Petey. I turned to look out the cabin window at our footprints in the snow. The moon was bright, hanging low in the sky like something out of a storybook.

I yawned and snuggled deeper into my jacket, sleep coming back easily. Tomorrow, the journey would continue, and Mom would lead the way.