Lynn stood up, cracking her back. “All this talking is wearing me out, old man. You gonna stay or not?”
Stebbs got up and stretched as well. “I’ll stay, and thank you.”
Lynn nodded at him and crawled into bed beside Lucy, curling her body protectively around the little girl. “All right then, good night.” She left him to find his way to her cot by the stairs.
She felt tense with an extra body in the room. Stebbs drifted to sleep easily, and she found herself watching him by the waning light of the stove, tracing the fine lines of his face and the spiky grays of his hair, something she would never let him catch her doing while awake. Her affection and gratitude were too subtle and burned away under the harsh light of day. But in the familiar darkness of the basement she let her unspoken feelings pour out of her like water, and hoped that somehow the flow would reach him while he slept, and he would know without her having to say. Not long after, the slow, steady breathing of the three filled the basement, in stark contrast to the wild whipping of the wind outside.
Winter came viciously. The snow fell in slanted sheets, sticking to the trees and rocks. Lynn would run outside to deliver more wood down through the basement window into Lucy’s expectant little hands and come back inside with a coating of ice on her hair. Weeks passed where they saw no one else, and Lynn would anxiously peer toward the stream to be reassured by the puffs of gray smoke that rose over the trees. Stebbs she could see through her binoculars, when the cold was bearable enough for her to look.
Lynn taught Lucy to play simple card games and they spent many hours making up their own. Lucy demanded a bath, and so Lynn brought in buckets of snow from outside to warm on the stove so that the little girl could have a sponge bath at least. She caved into the temptation herself and even washed her hair, something that Mother had always warned against during the winter, fearing that Lynn would catch cold. But they kept the fire burning brightly and Lucy would hum quietly while putting tiny braids in Lynn’s hair and fixing them up with little bows that she’d found among some dolls in the attic.
The little fingers eased through Lynn’s hair, coaxing her into a doze that she fought against. Even with the chance of attack at a minimum, she kept her handgun within reach at all times. Lucy hummed a little song while she played with Lynn’s long hair.
“Have you ever cut it?”
“Every now and then Mother would, usually just to sprinkle in the yard to scare off the coyotes. Not often.”
“I like it long.”
“Me too.”
Their conversation dwindled off and each fell into their own thoughts as the short daylight hours drifted past outside. Lynn watched Lucy making shadow puppets in the firelight and wondered how Neva was holding up. If not for the little girl, it would’ve been Lynn’s first winter alone, and she wasn’t sure how she would have handled it. The long hours of the night could not all be filled with sleep, and the companionship of another was the only thing to alleviate boredom. But Neva had Eli, and Lynn quickly chased the question away of how they might be filling their hours together.
Her heart rejected her mind’s attempts to control her emotions, and she tossed without sleep for a long time in the dark. Lucy’s rhythmic breathing rose and fell, but the little girl’s peace didn’t extend across the room. Lynn tossed a few times before slipping her coat on and heading up the steps. At least on the roof she would be forced to be alert, and her mind couldn’t wander places she didn’t want it going.
The next day dawned cold, but clear. For the first time in a while there was a cloudless sky and the sun warmed the air enough for it to be bearable.
“Would you like to go outside?” Lynn asked Lucy.
Lucy bounced off her cot and dressed in layers in a second, eager to be out of the basement. Her thoughts were contagious; they had not been outside long when Lucy shouted up to the roof for Lynn and she saw Eli making his way through the snowdrifts toward them. The snow was sticking, bunching to his clothes in every place that came in contact with a flake, but he kept coming. Lynn climbed down from the roof and walked out with Lucy to greet their visitor.
“Hey, little lady,” Eli cried out when Lucy jumped into his arms. “You’ve gotten big!”
“Lynn says I’m growing,” Lucy said proudly. “She’s been checking my height on the wall, and I’ve grown an inch and a half. Do you know what an inch is?”
“I do,” Eli said seriously. “That’s good work.”
“Hey, I want to show you something, c’mon!” Lucy bounded away from them over the drifts toward the corner of the house where she’d begun a collection of bird nests that had been blown from the trees during the fall. Lynn and Eli followed slowly, pushing their way through the heavy snow that went past their knees at times.
“How are you?” Eli asked.
“We’re okay, we’ve got plenty of wood and food stored up. Water too.”
“I meant like, how are you? How’s your day?”
Lynn’s brow furrowed. “Well enough, I guess. I’m happy that we’ve got food to eat and wood to burn.”
Eli shook his head and smothered a smile. “It’s okay that I came, right?”
“Of course it is. You haven’t seen Lucy since you handed her off to me, and she’s family.”
“I came to see you too, you know.”
“Well, I’m here,” Lynn said, not able to find any other words.
Eli sighed and stopped walking, but Lynn kept struggling through the snow.
“Hey,” he called after her.
“What?” Lynn turned and was hit directly in the face by a snowball.
“That’s what.”
Lynn sputtered as the snow on her face melted and ran in icy rivulets down her neck, finding no words for her surprise.
“Snowball fight! Awesome!!” Lucy came flying at Lynn and knocked her flat on her face in a drift, shaking what was left of her composure completely. She grabbed the little girl by the ankles and pulled her up into the air, tossing her headlong into a fresh drift. Lucy emerged, soaked and laughing, with a freshly rolled snowball in each hand and revenge on her mind.
Lynn ducked the first one, but the second hit her square in the chest. She ignored it and began rolling her own arsenal until Eli knocked her on her side and hijacked her stash, pelting her with her own weapons at close range. She yelped and took out his ankles. Lucy landed on both of them with enough force to knock the breath out of them all. They laid in a breathless heap for a solid minute, soaked and laughing.
“Never thought I’d see one of them in your yard,” Stebbs said when he arrived later, motioning toward the snowman standing guard by the wood cord.
Lynn pushed her hair out of her face and shrugged. “Lucy wanted to, and I thought maybe if I put a coat on it, somebody looking might think there was a person standing out there, keeping watch.”
“I suppose the carrot sticking out of his face was a tactical decision too?”
“I got a well-stocked root cellar, and that one was not looking great. So don’t start thinking I’m as sentimental as you.” Lynn delivered a punch to his arm hard enough to penetrate the layers and make Stebbs wince.
“Easy, tiger, don’t go beating on the old man.”
“The old man needs to hold his tongue.”
“He’s been without anybody to talk to a long while. I see your pond’s found a new use.” Stebbs glanced toward the pond where Eli was gliding across the ice on his boots, Lucy perched precariously on his shoulders, hooting like a loon.
“Mother would roll in her grave if I’d been able to dig her one,” Lynn said, but there was a smile on her
