She’d spent so much time since her father’s death resenting the way he’d crushed her dreams, so much emotional energy shifting the blame away from herself. But the time for blame was long past. Wasn’t this the moment—here in these lonely woods, face-to-face with all her failings—to reclaim what was rightfully hers?
Her feet made creaking sounds as she high-stepped into the forest, but otherwise the mountain was utterly silent, more silent than usual, in that post-snowstorm way, when the whole world is wrapped in cotton batting and even children lower their voices. Her boot caught on something and she stumbled, then slipped sideways, one foot skidding straight downward and leaving her in a sort of half split. She sat back on something sharp, yelping in pain.
Matt would have a good laugh at her now, she thought furiously, shifting to one side and pulling up her knees. This was where her artistic pretensions had led her—to a desolate, frozen hillside, no galleries or museums or parties for miles around. Fine. So he’d been right to make fun of her. He’d seen through Justine’s hollow aspirations and correctly identified Mary Ellen’s fascination as a short-lived schoolgirl crush. What had he called it? “Trying on a costume.”
And what would really change once she got back home? Even if she found her camera and somehow managed to use it again, she would still be Mary Ellen and Matt would still be Matt and the girls would still be leaving home in the fall. And the two of them minus the girls would be…what?
And Mary Ellen without her father’s expectations would be…what?
She hiccupped and swallowed a sob, kicking at a mound of snow with sudden, impulsive force. The mound gave way, and she went sliding downward in a mini-avalanche, her feet pedaling frantically until they came up against a fallen tree. She sat there for a moment, catching her breath and pressing the backs of her gloves to her eyes. She sighed shakily and looked around for a sturdy trunk to grab hold of. Then she saw, off to her left, caught among the inner branches of a berry-speckled bush, her camera bag.
It took a bit of downward sliding and sideways inching, but eventually Mary Ellen managed to pull herself level with the bush, which, it turned out, was covered with thorns. She grappled briefly with the branches, which bit savagely into her coat’s nylon shell and the thin skin of her exposed wrists, finally looping her fingers around the strap and yanking the bag toward herself with an angry yelp.
She slung it over her shoulder and looked for a route back up to the level path, but here it was so steep that even the snow had lost its grip on much of the slope and there was no clear way upward. Below her, though, was a clear leveling off, and then a short descent to the wide, flat bank of the creek, where she could easily rejoin the staircase. Mary Ellen tried scooting carefully toward it on her rear end, but this quickly turned into an uncontrolled slide, and soon, she was sitting in deep snow with her feet resting on the creek’s icy crust.
Some narrow streams of water were still moving, but most of the creek had frozen mid-tumble, curling translucently over rocks and boulders, enveloping every stick and leaf in swollen, glassy bulbs. Off to her left, a fallen tree was laced to the stream with strands of ice that started off spindly but widened as they dropped, pooling voluptuously where they met the water’s surface. In another spot, a whip-thin branch had been caught in its slide over some rocks, ice bubbling and frothing aggressively over its reddish skin. And in the shallows of the creek’s edge, right at her feet, she could see silver-white pearls of air hovering patiently beneath the icy shell.
Mary Ellen sat transfixed, fingering the latches on her camera bag as she cataloged the varieties of time stoppage all around her. It was like a photograph, she thought, like the creek had made a photograph of itself, and the result somehow transcended real life, becoming simultaneously more solid and more ethereal. Justine would say it was too pretty, but was it? To Mary Ellen, there was something inexpressibly sad locked inside the scene, something dark, the way every ice cube or icicle, no matter how clear, was larded with streaks of black when you really looked at it.
As the snow slowly soaked through her pants, Mary Ellen felt another sob rising in her chest. It was just too sad, all of it: her wet pants, her scratched wrists, the indifferent passage of time. Her girls, her sweet girls, waiting for the call that never came. Her father, waiting for the daughter who wouldn’t visit because she was too busy with her job, her meaningless job that contributed exactly nothing to the world. Her father, who died waiting, naked and freezing in the bathtub that became his deathbed.
Mary Ellen scrambled to her feet and brushed the snow from her pants and the tears from her cheeks. She slung her camera bag over her shoulder, then decided to inspect her equipment before heading back up the slope. On first glance, nothing seemed to be cracked or dented. She took out her camera, stripped off her gloves, and took a few shots, checking them on the LCD. It seemed to be working fine; at least there was that. One of the pictures happened to catch the morning light coming through the ice
