Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London, SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Harper 2015
Copyright © Seré Prince Halverson 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Cover photographs © Irene Lamprakou/Trevillon Images (girl); Plainpicture/Pictorium (window)
Seré Prince Halverson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007438945
Ebook Edition © January 2015 ISBN: 9780007438952
Version: 2014-10-29
Dedication
For Daniel, Michael, Karli and Taylor
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part One: Breakup 2005
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Part Two: Land of the Midnight Sun and the Prodigal Son 2005
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Part Three: The Fall 2005
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Part Four: Winter Tracks 20052006
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Part Five: Breakup 2006
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Acknowledgements
Q&A with Seré Prince Halverson
About the Author
Also by Author
About the Publisher
PART ONEONE
This: her nightly ritual. She took the knife from the shelf to carve a single line in the log-planked stairwell that led from the kitchen to the root cellar. Shed carved them in groups of four one-inch vertical lines bisected with a horizontal line. So many of them now, covering most of the wall. They might be seen as clusters of crosses, but to her they were not reminders of death and sacrifice but evidence of her own existence.
There were other left-behind carvings too, in the doorjamb on the landing at the top of the stairs. These notches marked the heights of growing children, two in the Forties and Fifties, and two in the Seventies and Eighties, one of whom had grown quite tall. She saw the mother standing on a footstool, trying to reach the top of her sons head to first mark the wood with pencil, while he stood on tiptoes, trying to appear even taller. She almost heard their teasing, their laughing. Almost.
Six stairs down, she dug the tip of the knife into the wall. The nightly ritual was important. While she no longer lived according to endless rules and regulations, with all those objects and gestures and chants, she did not want her days flowing like water with no end or beginning; shapeless, unmarked. So she read every night, book after book, first in the order that they lined the shelves, turning them upside down when she finished reading and then right-side up for the second read and so forth, now returning to her favorites again and again. And during the day she did choresforaging, launching and checking fishing nets, setting and checking traps, gardening, tending house, feeding chickens and goats, canning and brining and smokingall in a certain order, varying only according to the needs of the season. Her days always began with a cold-nose nudge from the dog and not one, but two enthusiastic licks of her hand as if to say not just good morning, but Good Morning! Good Morning!
Then, there were the mornings when she ignored the dog and unlatched the kitchen door so he could let himself out while she returned to bed to stay, dark mornings that led to dark days and weeks. During those times, only under piles of blankets did she feel substantial enough not to drift away; they kept her weighted down and a part of the world. But eventually her dogs persistence and her own strong will would win over and shed drag herself up from the thick bog and go back to her chores and her books, carving the missing days into the wall so they did not escape entirely.
It was surprising, what a human being could become accustomed toa lone human being, miles and years from any other human being. She balanced two more logs and a chunk of coal in the woodstove, and with the dog following her, crossed the room in the left-behind slippers, which had, over time, taken on the shape of her own feet. Shed been careful to keep things as shed found them, but those slippers were another way shed made her mark, left her footprint, insignificant as it might be.
Now she sat in the worn checkered chair and picked up one of the yellowed magazines from 1985. Across the cover, Cosmetic Surgery, The Quest for New Faces and BodiesAt a Price. A new face, this would help, she once again reminded Leo, who thumped his tail. Unlike the people in the article, she said this not because she was wrinkled (she wasnt) or thought herself homely (she didnt). It would give us much freedom, yes? A different life.
She opened the big photography book of The City by the Bay, and took in her favorite image of the red bridge they called golden, and the city beyond, as white as the mountains across this bay. So similar and yet so different. That white city held people, people, people. Here, the white mountains held snow. And their bridge, she told Leo, closing the book. We could use that bridge. He cocked his head just as she heard something scrape outside.
A branch. In her mind, she kept labeled buckets in which she let sounds drop: a Branch, a Moose, a Wolf, a Bear, a Chicken, the Wind, Falling Ice, and on and on. Leos ears perked, but he didnt get up. He too was used to the varied scuttlings of the wilderness. She drew the afghan around her shoulders and opened a novel to the page marked with a pressed forget-me-not.
Yes, she knew a certain comfort herecompanionship, even. How could she be truly alone when, outside her door, nature kept noisy company and at her feet lay a dog such as Leo? Then there were the books. Shed traveled inside the minds of so many men and women from across the ages. And she had such long, uninterrupted passages of time to think, to ponder every turn her mind took. For instance, there was the word loneliness and the word loveliness. In English, one mere letter apart, and in her handwriting the words looked almost identical, certainly related. This she found consoling, and sometimes even true.
But now, another sound, then many unmistakable sounds; determined footsteps coming toward the house. Leos ears flipped back before he plunged into sharp barking and frantic clawing. She froze. All those years practicing what she would do, but she only sat, with the book open in her trembling hands. Where did she leave the gun? In the barn? How had she grown so careless? She remembered the knife on the shelf in the stairwell and finally bolted up to grab it. She flipped off lights, took hold of Leos collar, tugging him from the door and up the stairs to the second floor. She pulled the window shade and it snapped up, but she yanked it back down because she couldnt see anyone, though the moon was full. With all her strength she dragged Leo, pushing and barely wedging him under the bunk bed with her, and clamped his nose with her hand just as the loose kitchen window creaked open below. A male voice, a yelling, though she didnt hear the words over Leos whining and the blood pum-pumming in her ears.
It was him, she was sure of it. Shaking, shaking, she squeezed harder on the handle of the knife and wished for the gun. But she was good with a knife, she was sure of that too.
TWO
There he was, Kachemak Winkel, sitting upright, on a plane of all things, finally headed home of all places. Yes, his fingernails dented the vinyl of the armrests, and the knees of his ridiculously long legs pressed into the seat in front of him, causing the seat to vibrate. A little boy turned and peered at Kache through the crack between B3 and B4. Kache motioned to his legs with a sweep of his hand and said, Sorry, buddy. No room. But he knew that didnt account for the annoying jittering.
Afraid of flying? the man next to him asked, peering above his reading glasses and his newspaper. He wore a tweed blazer and a hunting cap, which made him look like a studious Elmer Fudd, but with hair, which poked out around the ear flaps. Scotch helps.
Kache nodded thanks. He had every reason to be afraid, it being the twentieth anniversary of the plane crash. But oddly he was not afraid to fly and never had been. If God or the Universe or whoever was in charge wanted to pluck this plane from the sky and fling it into the side of a mountain in some cruel act of irony or symmetry, so be it. All the fear in the world wouldnt make a difference. No. Kache was not afraid of flying. He was afraid of flying home. And that fear had kept him away for two decades.
He shifted in his seat, elbow now on the armrest next to the window, his finger habitually running up and down over the bump on his nose that hed had since he was eighteen. The plane window framed the scene below, giving it that familiar, comforting screened-in quality, and through it he watched Austin, Texas become somewhere south, just another part of the Lower 48 to most Alaskans.
He had spent most of those two decades in front of a computer screen, trying to forget what hed left behind, scrolling column after column of anesthetizing numbers, and getting promotion after promotion. Too many promotions, evidently.
After the company had laid him off six months ago, he replaced the computer screen with a TV screen. Janie encouraged him to keep looking for another job but he discovered the Discovery Channel, evidence of what hed suspected all along: Even the world beyond the balance sheets was flat. Flat screen, forty-seven inches, plasma. That plasma became his lifeblood. So many channels. A whole network devoted to food alone. He learned how to brine a turkey, bone a turkey, smoke a turkey, high-heat roast a turkey. The same could be said of a pork roast, a leg of lamb, a prime rib of beef.
Branching out, he soon knew how to whisper to a dog, how to de-clutter his bathroom cabinets, how to flip real estate and what not to wear.
Then he came across the Do-it-Yourself network, and there he stayed. Winkels, his father had liked to say, long before there was a DIY network, are Do-it-yourselfers exemplified. Kache now, finally, knew how to do many things himself. That is, he could do them in his head, because, as Janie often reminded him, head knowledge and actual capability were two different animals. So with that disclaimer, he might say he knew how to restore an old house from the cracked foundation to the fire-hazard shingled roofwiring, plumbing, plastering, you name it. He knew how to build a wood pergola, how to install a kitchen sink, and how to lay a slate pathway in one easy weekend. He even knew how to raise Alpacas and spin their wool into the most expensive socks on the planet. Hell, he knew how to build the spinning wheel. His father would be proud.