Chapter 2

The phone was gone. By 3:20, the shanty was dying. Derek got the spud bar. He didn’t say anything. He walked to the cut corner over the Black Spring and drove the chisel into the ice. The sound was wrong-too wet, too quick. He was cutting a ring around the shanty’s corner. I didn’t understand until the first slab broke loose and the floor inside tilted.

He was going to sink it. He was going to sink the whole thing with everything in it-the cot, the sandwich, the snowsuit on the nail. Maybe he thought the girl was still inside. Maybe he just didn’t care.

“Poppy,” I said. “Come here.” She was frozen on the cot. I reached in and got her under the arms. She was light, too light, and her body went stiff like I was a stranger. I dragged her out through the door. My cut hand left a red smear on the plywood.

Derek turned. “What are you doing?” “She’s a child.” “She’s not your problem.” The ice at the cut edge cracked. He shifted his weight. I grabbed the spud bar with my good hand and pulled. I don’t know why. Maybe to keep him from swinging it. Maybe to keep it away from her. He lunged for it. His boots found the ring he’d cut, and the ice gave like wet cardboard.

He went in to his chest. The water was black and immediate. His arms slapped the edges, and the edges broke off in plates. He made a sound I had never heard him make-high, surprised, like a boy. I could have helped him. For one second I thought about it. The spud bar was in my hand. I could have laid it flat and let him grab it. Instead I stepped back.

The shanty dropped. Not slow. The whole corner slid under, and the plywood roof tilted, and the stovepipe snapped. Water poured over the floorboards. The pink snowsuit on the nail went under. The paper plate floated once and was gone. Derek clawed his way out onto solid ice, coughing, his bibs sheeting water. The cold hit him and he started shaking.

“You,” he said. I had Poppy against my hip. Her one boot was gone. Her foot was bare in the sneaker. The wind was already pushing snow sideways, erasing the shanty, erasing us.

“The card,” I said. He wiped his face. “What?” “Nothing.” He stared at me. His lips were going blue. He looked at the open water, then at the shanty sinking, then at my face. I don’t know what he saw. Maybe a wife he could still handle. Maybe a problem for later. “Get to the truck,” he said. “We’re going home.” “No.” He took a step. I took one back. The ice groaned between us. Poppy’s fingers dug into my neck. “You can’t walk,” he said. “You’re nine months. You’ll kill it.” “Then I’ll kill it,” I said. My voice didn’t shake. I was surprised. He looked toward the truck, stuck in the slush at the edge of the pressure ridge. The engine was already coughing. He needed to get warm. He needed to get the water out of his clothes. He needed to decide what to do about me, and the cold was deciding faster.

“You’re not taking her,” I said. He laughed. His teeth were chattering. “She’s mine.” “She’s a little girl.” “She’s family,” he said. “You wouldn’t understand.” He started for the truck. His boots broke through the crust with every step. He was slow. The whiteout was coming down like a curtain. In another minute, I wouldn’t be able to see him. I grabbed Poppy’s hand and walked the other way.

The ice road was behind us, but I couldn’t see it. The wind had eaten the horizon. There was no up, no down, no shore. Just white and gray and the sound of ice ticking. My contractions had started in the truck, or maybe at the shove, but I hadn’t let myself feel them. Now they came in a band around my back, low and mean.

Poppy counted under her breath. One, two, three. One, two, three. “What are you counting?” I asked. “Steps,” she said. “Uncle D says the water is loud.” I stopped. “Uncle D?” She nodded. “Your uncle?” She nodded again. “Is Uncle D Derek?” She looked at me like I was stupid. “Yes.” The wind took the word and threw it. I had known Derek for two years. He had told me his sister died of an overdose in 2019. He had cried at the kitchen table about it. He had no niece. He had no one. “What’s your name?” I asked. “Poppy.” “Poppy what?” She didn’t answer. She was looking at my face and whatever she saw there made her go quiet again. I pulled her closer. The cold was in my teeth. The shanty was gone behind us. Derek was a shape in the white, and then he wasn’t. I had four numbers in my cheek, a child with one boot, and a baby coming. I had to find the rope line. My grandmother had taught me that much. In a whiteout, you don’t trust your eyes. You trust the rope.