Joseph sank back down on the mat. “You'd be surprised,” he said.
* * *
“It's not too cold to keep me from going for a walk,” Aurora Johnson said to Laura in perfect, unaccented English, and she stood there, waiting for Laura to respond, as if she'd asked her a question.
Maybe Aurora wanted someone to talk to and didn't know how to ask. Laura could understand that. She got to her feet and reached for her coat. “Do you mind company?”
Aurora smiled and pulled on a jacket that fell to her knees but managed to zip up over her swollen belly. She stepped into boots with soles as thick as a fireman's and headed outside. Laura fell into step beside her, moving briskly against the cold. It had been two hours since Daniel had left, and the afternoon was pitch-dark now - there were no streetlamps lighting their way, no glow from a distant highway. From time to time the green cast of a television set inside a house would rise like a spirit in the window, but for the most part, the sky was an unbroken navy velvet, the stars so thick you could cut through them with a sweep of your arm.
Aurora's hair was brown, streaked with orange. Long tendrils blew out from the edges of her parka's hood. She was only three years older than Trixie, yet she was on the verge of giving birth.
“When are you due?” Laura asked.
“My BIB date is January tenth.”
“BIB date?”
“Be-in-Bethel,” Aurora explained. “If you live in the villages and you're pregnant, you have to move into the prematernal home in the city six weeks or so before you're due. That way, the docs have you where they need you. Otherwise, if there's some kind of complication, the medical center has to get the anguyagta to fly in a Blackhawk. It costs the National Guard ten thousand bucks a pop.” She glanced at Laura. “Do you just have the one? Baby, I mean?”
Laura nodded, bowing her head as she thought of Trixie. She hoped that wherever Trixie was now, it was warm. That someone had given her a bite to eat, or a blanket. She hoped that Trixie was leaving markers the way she had learned ages ago in Girl Scouts a twig broken here, a cairn of rocks there.
“Minnie's my second mom, you know,” Aurora said. “I was adopted out. Families are like that here. If a baby dies, your sister or aunt might give you her own. After Cane died, I was born and my mom sent me to be Minnie's daughter too.” She shrugged. “I'm adopting out this baby to my biological mom's cousin.”
“You're just going to give it away?” Laura said, shocked.
“I'm not giving her away. I'm making it so she'll have both of us.”
“What about the father?” Laura asked. “Are you still involved with him?”
“I see him about once a week,” Aurora said. Laura stopped walking. She was talking to a Yup'ik girl who was heavily pregnant, but she was seeing Trixie's face and hearing Trixie's voice. What if Laura had been around when Trixie had met Jason, instead of having her own affair? Would Trixie have ever dated him? Would she have been as crushed when they broke up?
Would she have been at Zephyr's house the night of the party?
Would she have gotten raped?
For every action, there was an opposite reaction. But maybe you could undo your wrongs by keeping someone else from making the same mistakes of misjudgment. “Aurora,” Laura said slowly, “I'd love to meet him. Your boyfriend.”
The Yup'ik girl beamed. “Really? Now?”
“That would be great.”
Aurora grabbed her hand and dragged her through the streets of Akiak. When they reached a long, low gray building, Aurora clattered up the wooden ramp. “I just need to stop off at the school for a sec,” she said.
The doors were unlocked, but there was nobody inside. Aurora flipped on a light switch and hurried into an adjoining room. Laura unzipped her jacket and glanced toward the gymnasium on the right, its polished wooden floors gleaming. If she looked closely, would she still see Cane's blood? Could she retrace the steps Daniel had taken all those years ago, when he ran away and into her own life?
Laura was distracted by the sound of... well, it couldn't be a toilet flushing, could it? She pushed through the door that Aurora had entered, marked Nas'ak. Aurora was standing in front of a serviceable white porcelain sink with running water. “That one's sitting on my bladder,” Aurora said, smiling.
“There's plumbing here?” Laura glanced around. On the upper lip of the bathroom stall, various items of clothing had been draped: bras and panties, long-sleeved T-shirts, socks.
“Just in the school,” Aurora said. “On any given day, the line'll be out the door with girls waiting to wash their hair. This is the only place it won't freeze solid.” She gave Laura a chance to use the facilities - use wasn't really the word as much as relish or give thanks for - and then they struck outside again. “Does your boyfriend live far away?” Laura asked,
wondering what might happen if Daniel returned to find her missing.
“He's just over that hill,” Aurora said, but as they crested the rise, Laura didn't see any homes at all. She followed Aurora inside a picket fence, careful to stay on the trodden path instead of hiking through the drifts that were hip-high. In the dark, it took her a moment to realize that they were walking to the far end of a tiny cemetery, one scattered with white wooden crosses that were almost entirely buried in snow.
Aurora stopped at a cleared grave. A name was engraved on the wooden cross: ARTHUR M. PETERSON, June 5, 1982-March 30, 2005. “He was mushing, but it was the end of March, and he went through the ice. His lead dog chewed through the lead and came to our house. I knew the minute I saw the dog that something was wrong, but by the time we got to the river, Art and the sled had both gone under.” She faced Laura. “Three days later I found out I was pregnant.”
“I'm so sorry.”
