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THE SHOVEL HISSESand scrapes on the ground as I drag it behind me. I keep my head bent, the sound of the rain against my hood constant and inescapable.
Bo walks with me. He can’t possibly know why we’re out here in the night, in the rain, but he looks at me with trust and hope I never earned.
I go to the cabin first; I don’t know how to cut straight through to the grave. I have to orient myself in the ruins first. I glance at where the notebook still lies. When Griff comes back in the summer, he’ll surely look around. He’ll find it. He’ll know.
I hope he won’t be offended by anything I wrote. I almost go back to get it, to write him a note telling him how much I liked him, how none of this was his fault, but I didn’t bring the pens with me and I don’t have the time anyway.
The sound of the rain has muted, only a soft, shushing patter now. It takes me a moment to realize the silence is because it isn’t rain anymore—it’s snow, drifting down in fat, loosely spun clumps.
I brush the snow off my sleeve and set out for the grave as the sun comes up over the trees.
I count steps as I walk. A trick to keep myself from thinking about how far there is left to go. Not half a mile, just a hundred steps. And then a hundred steps after that, uneven, punctuated by the thump of my walking stick against the ground.
I don’t know how many hundreds I count before I come to the place where my father is buried. I stop. This is it; I’m sure of it. A mound on the forest floor. And there’s the wide tree I hid behind, the fallen log, its side ruptured by the rapid growth of a sapling.
This is where he has been, this whole time. And I never even came to say good-bye.
I can’t do it. It’s too much. Too hard.
A cold wind rises, raking my cheeks and pricking at my eyes. The winter is going to get deeper. This isn’t even winter yet. This is fall, and early fall at that. It will get so much worse.
If I can shoot one deer, I can live for a week. A month. Long enough to catch a few fish. Long enough to catch another deer. A rabbit. A fox.
Long enough to survive.
Baby bear, I hear. Not a voice in my head; I hear it and I suck in a breath, cutting off a sob I don’t have the energy for.
“You left me,” I say. The voice doesn’t answer.
I know it was my imagination. It was the wind, an animal, the hunger, the isolation. But still I tip my face up to the snow to listen for it.
“I left you,” I say. “I left you here all alone.”
I want to hear his voice again, even if I’m imagining it. I want his forgiveness. I want his apology. I want his permission.
Bo’s nose bumps my hand, cold and dry. I look down at him. He pushes his head under my fingers, leans against my leg.
I dig.
It’s slow, painful work. But I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. Even with the constant hunger, I’ve been working all the time, building muscle. Building strength. Just a little bit faster than I’ve lost it.
The damage I did to myself the day Dad died has almost healed. Even my leg is getting stronger. Instead of watching TV or reading books, I’m always moving, always working. There’s no fat on my body. I haven’t even had my period since getting to the lake. And when I strike the ground with my shovel, it slices right in.
But the ground is hard and the wind is cold. Soon I’m sweating. I’ve learned the danger of hard work: sweat makes you wet and hot, and then you rest and get wet and cold as the wind bites at you.
I keep working, afraid to stop and freeze. One load of dirt after another. There are no thoughts in my mind anymore, just the next strike of the shovel, the next thin scoop of dirt, my new strength fighting against my hunger-weakness.
My arms get tired and I keep going.
My legs get tired and I keep going.
The makeshift handle sinks splinters into my palms. I dig the shards out and keep going.
Bo paces, then lies down. He lifts his head from time to time to watch me. Waiting for me to do something that makes sense, maybe. He gives up and sleeps after a while.
Daylight comes. Strengthens, wavers, fails. I take a few breaks. I drink—I have water, at least, and I drink all of it. When I turn up a pair of squirming worms, I rinse them off and eat them whole.
I keep going.
