The Edge of Winter

by Luanne Rice

  Only you can do that, Joe had just said. Only you can get better.

  Richard felt his whole body start to shake—not tremors like before, but something else, quiet sobs—and he sat in the corner of his jail cell and wept.

  26

  That night Mickey felt the world change again. It had started about two hours ago while she was sitting at her mother’s desk at the gallery, with strangers strolling past the paintings, drinking champagne. So many people had come from such great distance to see Berkeley’s art, and sitting very still at the desk, Mickey watched the emotions in all of their faces, everyone moved by the delicacy of the work.

  The lights were warm and glowing; the buzz of conversation was exciting. The old members of Damien O’Casey’s crew were so happy to be together, here to celebrate their friend’s great talent. But as Mickey watched them move slowly around the gallery, two of them on canes, her heart opened to the fact that he wasn’t here anymore. Damien wasn’t here to see all this—all the people who loved him.

  But they loved him anyway! Whether he was in the room or not, whether he lived on earth or in heaven, their love followed him. She’d heard from her mother that he had had problems after coming home from the war. Bad problems, enough for him to stop painting—but they didn’t matter. People loved him anyway.

  It was probably just two minutes after that revelation that Shane walked in. He was with Mr. O’Casey; they were both dressed in jackets and ties, a sight that in and of itself made Mickey smile. Shane in a tie? She’d never thought she would see the day. When he saw her, he came right over. His long hair was damp, as if he’d just taken a shower. His blue eyes were solemn, and his shoulders came forward, as if he was ashamed or afraid of something.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” Mickey said. She stared at him. If he had arrived two minutes earlier, before her great realization, she might still have been too upset to talk to him. She was still mad at him, but the worst of it, the hot rage, had spiraled out of her like a ghost.

  “Mickey, I’m really sorry about what I did.”

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  “No, it’s not,” he said. “I know how much you love your dad, and it must feel rotten to have seen him taken away like that.”

  “Almost the worst thing ever,” Mickey said. Just thinking about it made some of the anger and hurt come back, and in spite of how glad she’d been to see Shane walk in, she had to turn away now.

  He came up behind her, put his hand on the small of her back. She shivered to feel the pressure of his fingers, but still she wouldn’t look at him. He steered her gently away from the desk, to stand by a painting of a flock of swans. She glanced at the painting, recognized the location, looked down at her shoes.

  “You look so pretty,” he said.

  “I didn’t even change,” she said. Even though her mother had rushed her home from the jail, Mickey had stayed dressed in the clothes she’d worn to school: black capri pants, pink shirt, jean jacket. She glanced up at Shane, who looked amazing.

  “It doesn’t matter what you wear,” he said. “You’re beautiful no matter what.”

  She shook her head, and tears welled up. If she was so beautiful, why did her father drink? Why did he abandon her? Fathers with lovable, pretty daughters didn’t do that.

  “What’s wrong?” Shane asked.

  “I didn’t want you to see him that way,” Mickey whispered.

  Shane didn’t reply right away, and Mickey was glad. She didn’t want him to pretend he hadn’t seen anything, or that it wasn’t as bad as it was. She shuddered slightly, and she felt his arms come around her. They stayed like that in spite of all the people standing around.

  After a while they broke apart. Old Mr. O’Casey came over to talk to them, and then he left. A bunch of Frank O’Casey’s friends from high school showed up, and Mickey watched her mother and Ranger O’Casey talking to them. The crowds began to dissipate. Chris Brody went home. Even Dominic di Tibor left—sweeping away in his cape, calling Mickey’s mother “Bella” and congratulating her on a great show.

  Now, at the end of the night, Mickey and Shane began to move around the exhibit. Not talking, but just looking at the paintings. They looked at all the birds: egrets, blue herons, kestrels, sharp-shinned hawks, barn owls, screech owls, and then, the most beautiful and disturbing painting of all, the snowy owl.

  It was almost horrible to behold: the owl had just swooped down on a brown bird—beak hooked, claws extended, blood dripping on the snow from the kill. It was the most fierce and brutal of all Berkeley’s paintings.

  “This one seems different,” Shane said, stepping closer to look.

  “In so many ways,” Mickey murmured.

  “Why do you think he’s showing the owl that way?”

  “Because it’s real,” Mickey said. “Because owls are predators.”

  “The place looks far away.”

  “It does,” Mickey agreed. All of Berkeley’s paintings seemed so local—there were many defining Rhode Island landmarks in the background. The Point Judith Lighthouse, Hanging Rock, Cliff Walk, Mansion Beach, the jetty at Refuge Beach. But the painting of the snowy owl was clearly of the arctic tundra.

  “Do you think Damien went there?” Mickey asked. “Traveled to the Arctic?”

  “He must have,” Shane said. “That’s definitely a snowfield, not a beach.”

  “I don’t even recognize that species of bird that it’s holding,” she said, moving closer, so her face was right beside Shane’s. The snowy owl had captured prey, a small grouselike bird—and was flying over the snow with it in its talons.

  “I don’t either,” Shane said, but when Mickey glanced up, he wasn’t even looking at the painting—he was staring at Mickey with such intensity, it made her shiver. “I wish I could find out for you,” he whispered.

  Mickey nodded. She thought she knew a way. She looked across the room at her mother, standing with Mr. O’Casey. Her heart had felt so hard all night—especially toward her mother and Shane, the two people she loved most in this room. She knew that it had been because of what happened with her father: they had seen him in such terrible circumstances. And although those circumstances weren’t exactly their fault, Mickey couldn’t quite separate them out. Shane had called the police on her father, and her mother had left him at the police station.

  Mickey’s mother was watching her now. In fact, with all the evening’s excitement, Mickey knew there hadn’t been a five-minute stretch where she hadn’t been. Holding Shane’s hand, Mickey took a deep breath and started pulling him across the room. When she got there, she saw that her mother had the tired, excited glow of knowing it had been an amazing opening, or maybe it was the fact that Mr. O’Casey was right there with her.

  “Hi, honey,” her mother said, hugging her. Mickey let her, too. It felt good to make up. “Hi, Shane.”

  “We had a question,” Shane said. “About the snowy owl painting.”

  “We did,” Mickey said. “What’s the other bird—the one the owl is carrying away?”

  The four of them drifted over to the painting. By now the gallery was really clearing out. The last viewers called their goodbyes, and the caterers were busy cleaning up in the kitchen. Mickey stood between her mother and Shane, as they all stared at the canvas.

  “I think it’s a ptarmigan,” Mr. O’Casey said. “But I’m not sure.”

  “They’re not native to Rhode Island,” Mickey said. “And besides, doesn’t the landscape look like the tundra?”

  “I believe it is,” her mother said. “When I was researching this painting for the catalogue, I noticed that this was the only setting that wasn’t obviously local. What do you think, Tim?”

  “I think there’s only one person who would know,” he said.

  Mickey watched as he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. It took a few rings, and he must have gotten an answering machine, because he started leaving a message:

  “Hi, Dad. We’re sti
ll at the gallery, looking at the snowy owl painting. Mickey wanted to know whether it was done in the Arctic—and we were wondering what species the prey—” A look of surprise crossed his face, and he said, “Oh, hi, Dad—did I wake you?”

  He listened a few moments, starting to smile, his eyes widening.

  “Wow,” he said. “Really? Okay—we’ll be right there.” He hung up the phone, turned to everyone’s expectant faces.

  “It’s a ptarmigan,” he said. “And the painting is of the Arctic, a spot up near Hudson Bay.”

  “But why did you say ‘wow’?” Mickey asked. “What happened?”

  Mickey saw the look that passed between him and her mother. Mickey’s heart bumped; she felt as if she’d just gone over a cliff, was free-falling through the air. This day had been a shock to her, and she was afraid if someone didn’t catch her now, she’d crash and never be the same again.

  “Is it the owl?” she asked, grabbing Mr. O’Casey’s sleeve. Her father was in jail; if the owl had died, she would die herself.

  “My father says it’s a miracle,” Mr. O’Casey said. “And he doesn’t use that word lightly.”

  “What kind of miracle?” Mickey’s mother asked.

  “The owl is flying,” Mr. O’Casey said.

  So of course they had to go see. Mickey’s mother paid the caterers, locked up the gallery. Mr. O’Casey’s truck didn’t have enough seats, so they all piled into the Volvo. Mickey’s mother drove north, along the windy, wooded road that led to the barn.

  Mickey and Shane sat in back. They pressed close together, holding hands. Thick trees lined the roadsides, their branches meeting overhead. Blotches of orange streetlight splashed on the narrow road at quick intervals. Shadows fell into the car, making everything dark and quiet. Looking between the two front seats, Mickey saw Mr. O’Casey take her mother’s hand; the sight made Mickey happy and sad, all at once.

  When they got to the barn, Mickey’s mother parked where she had that first day, when they’d delivered the owl here. He had been so badly injured—his beak broken, his wing dangling as if it would never work again. Mickey felt the weight of so much pain—not just the owl’s, but her mother’s and father’s, the solemn mystery of the U-boat, and her own. Holding Shane’s hand, she realized that she didn’t believe that anything really good could happen anymore—the owl couldn’t possibly fly, the U-boat would be taken away by the big yellow crane.

  The four of them entered the barn. The space was completely dark, just as it would be in the wild. Old Mr. O’Casey greeted them, an enormous grin on his face. He led them in without a word—and no words were necessary, and no words could explain what Mickey was seeing.

  The owls were flying.

  It was night—Mickey’s first time here in the darkness, the time when owls were awake and came to life. The flight corridors leading between cages had been empty and quiet before, and Mickey had believed they were probably forever unused, just an optimistic architectural detail. But tonight the corridors were alive with owls.

  Their yellow eyes flashed like shooting stars. Great wings beat with such a rush of energy, everyone ducked, momentarily forgetting the owls were contained in wire mesh. Mickey looked overhead, seeing brown feathers everywhere. She saw screech owls swooping in one corridor, the barn owls in another, the great horned owl diving down to a lower branch. And there, in the last corridor, high above the cage where it had appeared so close to death just weeks before, the snowy owl was soaring.

  “He’s flying,” Mickey whispered.

  “How did he heal so fast?” her mother asked.

  “What’s that other snowy owl in there, flying with him?” Shane asked.

  “That’s his mate,” Joe said.

  “His mate?” Mickey asked. “He didn’t have one….”

  “He met her here,” Mickey’s mother said quietly.

  “Someone found her hurt on Block Island,” Joe said. “Brought her to me a while back. She was surviving, that’s certain, but now she’s like a wild bird again. And so is he.”

  Mickey gazed up. The female’s plumage was duller, not so brilliantly white as the male’s. But she flew with such zeal, she exhibited such ferocity, it was as if she was wearing her heart on her wing. The male owl had brought her back to life, and vice versa. She knew, staring into the sky of the barn, that this was what Joe had meant earlier by “miracle.”

  “What will happen now?” Mickey asked.

  “I never would have thought this,” Joe said. “But we might be able to release them.”

  “Do you really think so?” Tim asked.

  “I think it’s possible.”

  The five of them stood still, watching the owls fly with such force and energy, Mickey was afraid they might reinjure themselves against the sides of the corridor. It ran like an open heating duct along the ceiling, the entire width of the barn, then took a turn and continued the length. Mickey saw that it was the biggest flight corridor in here, but even so, the snowy owls were almost thrashing with the sheer joy of even restrained flight.

  “Let them out now,” Mickey said suddenly.

  “Mickey,” her mother said.

  “Please,” Mickey begged, turning to Joe. She felt almost desperate, thinking of beautiful beings locked in a cage, thinking of her father in a jail cell, thinking of the German ghosts in the U-boat. “Please, let them go.”

  The old man looked deeply into her eyes. His face looked so like his son’s, but with even more wisdom and sadness etched into the sun-weathered lines and angles. He had changed out of his uniform, into jeans and a plaid shirt.

  “Mickey, we have to observe them long enough to make sure that would be a wise decision, that they can survive.”

  “I can’t bear to see them flying in captivity!” she cried.

  The old man hugged her. She felt the energy of someone who really understood, and she let herself cry against his shoulder.

  “I think I know what you’re feeling right now,” he said. “I saw your father tonight.”

  “My dad?” she asked, pulling her head back to look at him.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “At the police station?”

  “Yes,” he said again.

  “I didn’t want to leave him there,” Mickey cried. “I just thought if I could have waited with him, been there when he got out, then maybe he would be all right. I thought maybe he’d go home and be safe!”

  “Mickey,” he said, “we want to help the ones we love so much. And it isn’t always easy. Sometimes the best thing we can do is wait. That’s what Tim had to do for me.”

  “He’s right,” Tim said. He was standing so still, his arm around Mickey’s mother. Mickey looked over with tearstained eyes and saw him gazing at her with such care, it was almost as if they were part of the same family.

  “When I was your father’s age,” the old man said, “I was in bad shape. I was trying to drink the war away, drink my brother’s downfall away. Wouldn’t come home, wouldn’t talk when I got there. I put Tim and his mother through the wringer.”

  “Not you,” Mickey whispered, not wanting to believe that such a wonderful man as Joe O’Casey could ever have done that.

  “Yes, me. Good people do stupid things, Mickey. Sometimes they grow out of it. Let’s count on your father finding his way, all right? You couldn’t wait at the police station all night, but maybe—if your mother says it’s okay, and if Shane calls home and his mother says it’s okay—the two of you can wait here with me.”

  “With you and the snowy owls?” Mickey asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “We’ll observe them through the night, and consider the possibility of release. Shane, will you call your mother?”

  “Sure,” he said, and Mickey’s mother handed him her cell phone.

  The call was made. Mickey’s mother made her promise to call her cell if she needed anything. Tim went with his father into the house to dig out some old sleeping bags. Overhead the squawking and tumult continued, and Mickey
hugged her mother.

  By the time Shane hung up, they all knew he’d gotten the go-ahead. He was grinning as if he’d never been happier.

  “She said it’s fine,” he said. “She’s leaving for North Carolina next week, and she said she likes knowing I have friends; makes it easier to leave for a while.”

  “How long will she be away?” Mickey’s mother asked.

  Shane shrugged. “I guess she’s going to see how things go with the major.”

  And then it was time for Mickey’s mother and Tim to leave. Mickey kissed her mother goodbye, and she gave Tim a hug. They took a last look up at the owls, then walked out to the Volvo. Mickey waved as it drove away, then returned to Shane and Joe.

  “Can I ask you a question?” she asked Joe. “Your brother’s painting of the snowy owl: why did he make it so terrible and bloody?”

  “That’s a very good question,” Joe said. “And as far as I know, you’re the only one ever to have asked it.”

  “But what’s the answer?”

  Joe was silent. He gazed up into the barn’s ceiling, at the two snowy owls flying back and forth along the corridor. For a moment, Mickey imagined him watching airplanes, and she remembered the long flights his brother had taken from England to Germany, while Joe was patrolling the New England shore.

  “It’s my brother’s antiwar painting,” Joe said quietly. “It shows the brutality of death in the sky.”

  “But he was such a brave airman,” Shane said. “Such a war hero, just like you…”

  “A war hero who lost everything,” Joe said. “He has daughters, you know. I’d hoped they would be at the show tonight, but they weren’t. My brother stopped painting, and he stopped being able to love his family.”

  “How could a man who painted like him stop loving?” Mickey asked.

  “I think because he knew what could happen,” Joe said. “The terrible things that people in this world can do to each other. It made him give up hope.”

  And that was all he said. He walked away, to stand by his workbench, where the single Berkeley painting hung. Mickey imagined him thinking of his brother. She huddled closer to Shane. If she held on tight enough, could she stop terrible things from happening to him?