Caribou Island

Irene pulled the hood of her raingear back on, turned away from the wind, and shivered. It should be visible. You should be able to see the wind. It had weight and heft, an intent born purely into the world, unforgiving. It would blow until all the world was smooth and nothing left in its path.

The six-gallon water jug was heavy, so Irene only tipped it, filled a pot, placed the pot on the stove and put a lid on. The water should come to a boil in about two hours. That was her guess. Another impossible part of their stupid plan. Why don’t you make some pasta, Irene? Sure thing, big daddy, coming right up. Wouldn’t want to slow down your pile of sticks.

Irene hunched over as low as she could, her face close to a patch of horsetail, thin spindles, segmented. Only a foot high now, she said to the plants, but you used to be higher, didn’t you. They looked frail now, on their way out, but once they had grown as tall as redwoods, in a time when other plants hadn’t yet figured out how to grow above two inches. First with a vascular system. The lives of plants like humans, full of struggle and domination, loss and dreams that never happened or happened only briefly. And that was the worst, to have something and then not have it, that was certainly the worst by far.

Irene ripped out all the horsetail, tossed it aside. Time to move on, she told the plants. You’ve stayed past your time. Then she stood up, braced against the blast, and tromped over to Gary, to the hovel.

Gary was sawing down through the front wall, a jerky motion, stops and starts.

Can you push out against the wall? Gary yelled. The saw’s jamming up.

So the wall was folding back already, pinching the saw. What would it be like when he removed a section? Irene knew he hadn’t thought that far ahead, though. She leaned into the wall beside him. Smell of sawdust even in all this wind, huff and puff of Gary beside her, sound of saw teeth ripping. He liked this, she knew. And maybe she shouldn’t grudge him. She held on to the top log, rough bark, laid her cheek against it, and could feel the whole wall moving.

A concentration again behind her right eye, a fault line, the bones of her skull like tectonic plates moving, grinding at the edges. Her only goal each day now was to get through the day, her only goal each sleepless night to get through the night. Reduced to existence, to bare survival, and there was something good about that maybe, something honest. But she still felt other things, too, light drifting notes somewhere out there: loneliness, for instance. She missed Rhoda. She hadn’t stopped feeling entirely.

Irene wondered if this was what had made her mother’s end possible, the fading away of feeling. She had always imagined the opposite: her mother in a fit of passion, distraught at losing her husband to another woman, unable to imagine her life without him. But what if she simply hadn’t felt anything anymore, after losing everything? That was a new possibility, something Irene couldn’t have guessed. And it felt dangerous. You could end up there without having noticed the transition at all.

Lean harder, Gary yelled. It’s still jamming up.

Sorry, Irene yelled back, and she pushed harder into the wall, her feet slipping on the ply. She doubted any cabin had ever been built like this, having to push at the walls, walls so frail they bent in the wind. Even the first pioneers, with their rough tools, would have done better.

Pushing harder pressurized her head, brought the pain to a new intensity, the cold and wind and exertion a perfect combination. That was the other possibility: suicide to end the pain. A very simple equation. Not worth living if you only felt pain, so if the pain seemed unending, the logical thing was to end your life. But she would never forgive her mother for that. Her mother should have loved her, and that should have been enough. Irene would never do that to Rhoda.

Irene had to stop pushing for a moment, the pressure in her head too intense, the entire thing a balloon.

Keep pushing, Gary yelled.

I can’t, she told him. My head.

Gary stopped sawing, the saw left jammed in the wood, hanging there. He straightened up and had to grab the wall with one hand to keep from blowing over. Irene hunched against the wind.

You can’t work? Gary’s lips pulled back a bit, angry, impatient. But then maybe he realized how that sounded. Closed his mouth, looked away. Sorry, he said.

Yeah, me too.

Sorry, what? he asked. Couldn’t hear you over the wind. The wind buffeting, pumping in blasts, a rising howl each time it accelerated.

I said, Yeah, me too.

Oh.

She could tell he was afraid to ask what that meant.

Gary looked down at the wall, at where he was sawing, the wall curving back, pinching the gap. I think I have to brace this better first, he yelled. If I get the braces ready, can you push while I nail?

Yeah, she yelled. Why not.

Gary climbed over the back wall, going for the pile of two-by-fours. Irene slumped down inside the cabin, out of the wind for the most part, ducked her head down, her chin inside her jacket, folded her arms, closed her eyes.

A fair representation of her three decades in Alaska, slumping down in raingear, hiding, making herself as small as possible, fending off mosquitoes that somehow managed to fly despite the wind. Feeling chilled and alone. Not the expansive vision you’d be tempted to have, spreading your arms on some sunny day on an open slope of purple lupine, looking at mountains all around. This was her life, and she wanted it to pass. At least right now. Thick rain came down again, and she remembered the pasta water but didn’t want to get up.