Chapter 5: The Hut

Remy's POV

I went out on the ice before dawn on the third day because I could not stand to be in the cabin with her sleeping.

I took the auger, a thermos and the old fishing hut a quarter mile from shore.

It was a plywood box on runners with a bench along one wall and a hole cut in the floor.

I had been in that hut a hundred times and never needed it as much as I needed it that morning.

Nine days ago I had found my brother under a skidder.

I had pulled the chain off and rolled the machine back by hand.

It was more than one man should be able to do, and he had already been gone.

I was the one who carried him down the hill.

Now I had his wife's taste on my beard and her marks on my hips.

I had slept in a bed with her beside me.

I had never been so happy in my life.

I had never been so ashamed.

I drilled the hole open, dropped a line and sat on the bench in my parka with my hands between my knees.

My phone buzzed against my ribs.

It was my father.

The message said: Day three, Remy.

I put the phone face down on the bench and did not answer.

My jaw ached.

All my life my father's voice had gone into my body and pulled.

I was thirty-eight years old, and I still stood up when he spoke.

The door of the hut opened and let in the cold and the light.

Mireille stood in the gap in my brother's old coat, with her hair loose and her cheeks red from the wind.

"You left without telling me," she said.

"You were asleep."

"I know." She stepped in and pulled the door shut. "I woke up and your side was cold."

She sat down on my lap.

She did it without asking, her knees on either side of my thighs and her arms around my neck.

She looked at me from a few inches away.

Her eyes were hazel, and in the gray light they had gone almost gold.

"Tell me why you're out here," she said.

I could have lied.

"Because I found him," I said. "I found Etienne. And every time I look at you, I see it."

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