Breaking the Ice

by Kim Baldwin

  Wolves and grizzlies? The huge stuffed bear at the entrance to the Den was intimidating enough. She couldn’t imagine coming face to face with one in the wild.

  “Maggie can be kind of particular,” Bryson continued, still staring out into the night. “Wants everything in its place.” She grinned to herself. “But not so much, these days.”

  “Why? What’s different ‘these days’?”

  “Don’t think I should answer that. Maggie and Lars are like family to me, and I don’t feel right volunteering a lot of private information about them. Especially since I don’t know why you’re here, why you want to know all this in the first place.”

  Bryson probably wouldn’t answer most of her other questions, either, but she had to try. “Okay, I can respect that. Can you at least tell me how to get to their place?”

  “I’ll tell you this much. This time of year, only two options. Boat and plane. By skiff, it’s a good two or three hours or more. And that’s not a trip you’d ever try to make alone, unless you really know the territory. Lars usually gets here and back hitching a ride with me. I live a few miles downstream of them, and he boats from there, which is an easy trip.”

  “In other words, I can’t exactly just drop in on them and say hello.”

  “No. Not so much.” Bryson tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn.

  “I’ll let you go get some sleep. I guess you can’t really answer my questions, anyway. But I appreciate you staying.”

  Bryson got to her feet. “No problem. Can I offer you some advice?”

  “Sure.”

  “Lars is stuck here until I get back from Fairbanks tomorrow, probably some time in the early afternoon. He should be easy to find, either downstairs or hanging out with Skeeter in the FAA hut at the edge of the airstrip. Be a good time to talk to him.”

  She followed Bryson to the door. “Thanks. I’ll do that.”

  Bryson met her eyes. “Good luck. Hope you find whatever you came here for.”

  Chapter Seven

  Karla woke to the faint sound of an engine, a steady but choppy cadence that took several seconds to recognize as Bryson’s plane. The room was dark, but she could dimly make out the silhouette of the chairs and table. She threw back the covers and shivered; it was several degrees cooler in the room than the seventy degrees she set her thermostat at home. Her thin flannel pajamas were inadequate and she hadn’t packed a robe, so she put on her down jacket and an extra pair of socks, and went to the window.

  Dawn hadn’t broken yet, but it wasn’t far off. A thin line of faint gold light illuminated the eastern horizon, to her left. Far below were the runway lights, stretching nearly parallel to the horizon. A white aircraft, slightly bigger than Bryson’s and with a painted tail logo that read Bettles Air, was parked on the first half of the airstrip beneath an overhead light.

  Bryson’s red Super Cub sat at the beginning of the strip, poised for takeoff, its propeller a faint gray blur. Its large tires began to turn, and the plane gained the sky seconds later, not yet sixty feet down the runway.

  A life that entailed facing down the weather and deadly terrain of Alaska every day, year round, in such a fragile aircraft was unimaginable. Like a sparrow trying to navigate the perimeter of a hurricane. Bryson Faulkner was certainly a braver woman than she was. Or more foolhardy. She headed toward the door, desperate to pee, and was shocked to discover it was already nine forty-five. Back home it was already full light out by eight, when she left for work.

  A male singing loudly off-key already occupied the bathroom at the end of the hall, so she retreated to her room cursing under her breath. The first time in ages she was able to sleep like a rock would be the morning she didn’t have a private bathroom.

  Her annoyance faded instantly when she opened her door. The scene outside the window stunned her. The rising sun cast a vivid pink light across the mountains that filled the glass, highlighting their sheer facades and snow-peaked tips, and painting the shadows at the base of each one an ethereal shade of blue, almost turquoise. The sunrise looked like a watercolor painting. She walked slowly forward until her face was inches from the pane. The mountain range, some ten or fifteen miles distant, defined the northern horizon, extending as far as she could see in either direction.

  Karla held her breath briefly. The light had a magical quality, a photographer’s dream. She rummaged through the dresser drawers for her pocket digital camera and took a few shots, knowing they would never capture this splendor.

  Bryson’s words came back to her. “Have to be able to breathe fresh air, see the stars, hear the wolves howl at night. Wake up to a view that always stuns me.”

  She was beginning to understand at least some of Bryson’s reasons for choosing to live in Alaska. What were Maggie’s?

  It was time to tell the Rasmussens who she was and why she was here, but how to begin? After she learned that Maggie existed, she was able to keep her grief tolerable by preoccupying herself with planning, organizing, and researching. Tying up all the loose ends so she could travel halfway around the world, return date undetermined.

  But she was here now, and the challenge ahead was suddenly all too real. Imminent. Ominous. Ordinarily, she planned life in detail to minimize surprises.

  This time, though, she hadn’t allowed herself time to consider exactly what she would do and say. Perhaps if she’d thought about it too carefully, she wouldn’t have come. It was completely out of character for her to just drop in unannounced on anyone—even a good friend, let alone a long-lost sibling—armed with a bombshell.

  But she couldn’t stand to be rejected and abandoned again. If she’d told Maggie she was coming, she’d have had to say why. And if Maggie didn’t like the idea, she could simply cut her off, then and there, without explanation.

  She had to do it in person.

  As if answering her resolve, Lars came out of a small building at the edge of the runway, near where the planes parked. He was headed toward the Den.

  Karla gathered a change of clothes and returned to the bathroom. If Mister Off-key wasn’t out of there yet, maybe she could persuade him to hurry. She didn’t want to waste this opportunity to talk to her brother-in-law.

  *

  Karla found Lars sipping coffee in a booth, alone. She’d showered and spent several minutes putting on makeup and styling her hair, as she usually did, at least on her working days, and she especially wanted to make the best impression possible today. However, the majority of the women in the Den, Bryson included, apparently didn’t bother with cosmetics and curling irons.

  Gathering her courage, she crossed to the booth and waited for Lars to look up. “Do you mind if I join you?”

  “Sure thing.” He smiled and extended his arm toward the seat opposite. “Want some coffee?”

  “Desperate for some.”

  “Oh! Desperate, eh? Calls for extreme measures, then.” He winked and slid out of the booth, ran comically across the wood-planked floor, to the applause and laughter of the Den’s half dozen other patrons, and back behind the bar, where he poured a mug full from a fresh pot. Snatching a couple of creams from a basket, he hustled back over to the booth, holding the mug well in front of him in case it spilled.

  “What service. I’ll have to leave a big tip.” She brought it to her lips to take a long sip and realized her hands were trembling.

  Lars noticed, too, and frowned. “Are you okay?”

  “Nervous.”

  “Nervous?” His forehead creased in confusion. “About what?”

  She glanced around to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard. “Lars, I came here to see you and Maggie. My name is Karla Edwards.”

  “Karla? The Karla from the e-mail?”

  She nodded.

  He leaned back in his seat, his face registering confusion and curiosity. “Okay. What’s this about?”

  “I should’ve probably given you both some notice I was coming. I really didn’t mean to blindside you, but…” Her heart was drumming so l
oud in her ears her voice sounded oddly muted.

  “What is it? Is something wrong?” She could see in his expression that her evasiveness alarmed him.

  “No. I mean, hopefully you’ll both like my news, though there’s part of it I know you won’t want to hear. God, this is difficult.” She wrapped her hands tight around her mug to keep them from shaking.

  “Please.” He leaned forward and met her eyes. “Just tell me.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out. “Maggie is my sister.”

  Lars let the news sink in. “I don’t understand. Maggie’s an only child. How is that possible?”

  “Maggie was adopted. I gather she doesn’t know that?”

  “Adopted? Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “Our mother had to give her up when she was a baby. The Van Rooys were family friends. They moved here with Maggie right after the adoption.”

  “Maggie doesn’t know anything about this. I think she always wanted a brother or sister, but to find out her parents lied to her, that’s not gonna sit easy with her.” He studied Karla’s face as if to find some trace of his wife in her features. “How do you know all this?”

  “My mother…our mother, died three weeks ago.” Tears sprang to her eyes, and she wiped them away.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Lars said. “I know how awful it is to lose a parent. Both of mine are gone.”

  “Still kind of raw. It was sudden. A heart attack.” She steeled herself to tell him the rest. “She’d been sick for a long time with Alzheimer’s.”

  “Oh, that’s gotta be the worst. Can’t say I know much about it, but it sure has to be tough on the person who has it and their families.”

  “Tough doesn’t begin to describe it.” Karla remembered the many phases her mother had gone through. Denial. Anger. Frustration. “Those who have it are aware they’ll lose their memories and their ability to function a little more every day and there’s not a damn thing they can do to stop it. The disease shatters their dreams for the future. And, most painful of all, they know their loved ones will have to watch them and most likely put their own plans on hold to deal with all of it.”

  “I can’t imagine.” Lars seemed sympathetic. “But I don’t understand something, Karla. If your mother was bad off for a long time, like you said, how did she tell you all this stuff about my wife?”

  “Mom never actually told me anything about Maggie. But she left a letter that she wrote many years ago, before she got sick, explaining everything. I found it among her things last week.”

  “So that explains the e-mail.”

  “Yes. The last Mom knew, you and Maggie were in Fairbanks. I did searches on the Internet to find you. You’re the only family I have left now.” Karla was so nervous about Lars’s reaction she had been ripping her napkin into little pieces beside her mug. She glanced at her unconscious evidence of her state of mind. “And once I did find you, I decided on impulse to come out here and tell you all this in person.”

  Lars took both of her hands in his, smiling at her small pile of shredded paper. “I have a new sister-in-law, it seems. Let me be the first, then, to welcome you to the family.”

  She wanted to relax under the sincere gesture, but she had to tell him everything. “Lars, how much do you know about Alzheimer’s?”

  His smile faded. The look on her face must have told him that he’d missed something important, and she could almost see the wheels turning as he tried to figure out what it was. “I don’t…” Then he apparently realized what she meant. “Shit. Alzheimer’s. It’s hereditary, isn’t it?”

  “They don’t know for sure about most cases. But a rare type, called Familial Alzheimer’s, or early-onset, is conclusively hereditary. The doctors weren’t sure, but they think that’s what my mother had.” Karla had accepted this news long ago, but was sensitive to the impact it would have on Lars. She couldn’t sugarcoat it. “If they’re right, Maggie and I both have a fifty-fifty chance of getting it too. My mother started showing symptoms when she was in her early forties.”

  He exhaled loudly and ran his hand through his hair. “Jesus.”

  “I’m sorry, Lars.” Working at the hospital she had to be able to deliver and discuss such news with clinical detachment, but in this case, she couldn’t help but grieve and be anxious about the prognosis.

  Lars cradled his head in his hands and didn’t speak for several moments. When he finally looked up at her, his eyes were wet with tears. “Do you know Maggie’s pregnant?”

  *

  Fairbanks

  After Bryson secured the cargo door of the Cub, she stood in the doorway of the hangar staring toward the terminal. Should she go inside to track down Sue Spires and set up a time they could get together for a few hours of fun?

  She wasn’t as tempted as she was last night, and not because she’d been sexually satisfied in the interim.

  Geneva hadn’t tried very hard to coerce Bryson to rekindle their affair. She pouted a bit when Bryson repeated that she wanted to remain friends, and only friends, but soon curled up on her side of the queen-sized bed and went to sleep.

  Bryson was the one who somehow managed to drift over the invisible line between them as they slept, for when she woke she was spooning Geneva from behind, their bodies tight together and her hand cupping Gen’s ample left breast.

  She lay like that for a long minute, listening to Geneva’s deep breaths and imagining she was waking at home in the arms of a loving partner she was madly passionate about. Her series of transient liaisons satisfied her less every day, and as much as she tried to tell herself she was comfortable with her life, at moments like this she couldn’t keep her loneliness at bay.

  She longed for a woman to wake up to every morning, to share coffee with as the sun rose over the mountains, to laze with drowsily in bed on stormy days. Someone who would worry if she was overdue from a flight and welcome her home with kisses and caresses. Lately the prospect of spending the rest of her life alone left her feeling incomplete and not as happy in this wilderness as she had once been.

  We all have to make choices, and you’ve made yours. She couldn’t be happy somewhere else, and sharing her days with someone she wasn’t in love with wouldn’t fill her inner void. She gently withdrew from Geneva and dressed, ignoring her small groan of protest.

  The whole experience with Geneva had dampened her desire to spend an evening with Sue, and she needed to get back to Bettles to deliver the rest of her supplies. As she towed her plane back out of the hangar, she discovered one more reason she didn’t want to linger long in Fairbanks. She was curious about Karla Edwards and why she’d come to see Maggie and Lars.

  Chapter Eight

  Bettles

  “Pregnant? Oh, God. I had no idea.” Karla knew Maggie would already have plenty to deal with—the revelations she was adopted, had a sister, and had just lost her biological mother without ever meeting her. And especially that she was at high risk for one of the most insidious and awful diseases imaginable. But to learn that the child she was carrying might suffer the same fate, and that she might lose her mind before that child even started school… “Lars, I’m so sorry. I knew all of this would be difficult enough. I shouldn’t have come.”

  “Don’t say that.” Lars put one of his hands over hers again. “You did the right thing.” He took a deep breath and straightened, setting his jaw. “I need some time to think how best to tell Maggie. Oh, she’ll seem to take it well. She always puts on a brave face when the going gets rough. But she’ll be afraid, inside. She’s a worrier.” He gave a half-hearted smile. “At least that’s her normal reaction. But these days, her hormones are goin’ nuts. No telling sometimes what she’s gonna say or do next.”

  “When is she due?” She was going to be an aunt. That is, if Maggie accepted her the way Lars seemed to have. But even if Maggie embraced the idea of suddenly having a sister, she certainly wouldn’t welcome all of Karla’s news. That worried her most.

  “Less than th
ree weeks left. November sixteenth. The baby’s a girl.” The softness in his eyes told Karla how devoted this man was to her sister and how very much he wanted this child. “We haven’t decided on a name yet. Maggie wants to see what suits her when she arrives.”

  “I love the idea I have a niece on the way. When Mom died, I didn’t think I had any family left at all.”

  “You’re not married? No children?” Lars asked.

  “No. I live alone.” And hate it. She considered telling him about Abby. She’d felt married, even if their union hadn’t been legal or even the mutually devoted commitment she’d thought it’d been. But the last thing she needed right now was to voluntarily unearth those memories in vivid detail. She thought about Abby too much as it was, and the recollections just depressed her and made her feel inadequate. Time, she hoped, would help her understand what had gone wrong, and why. Lars’s question had given her an opening to tell him she was gay, however, and she didn’t mind getting into that. From the way Lars acted around Bryson, she was pretty certain he wouldn’t have a problem with it. “I’m not seeing anybody right now. But I have had one serious relationship…with a woman.” She watched for his reaction.

  His eyebrows lifted in surprise, but his expression showed no hint of disgust or disapproval, only curiosity. “You’re a lesbian?”

  She nodded.

  “Bryson is, too. And Geneva, one of the waitresses at the Den.”

  “Yeah, I gathered that.”

  He laughed. “You got that gaydar Bryson talks about? I swear, how you can all recognize each other is beyond me. I’d never be able to tell with any of you.”

  “So I gather you and Maggie don’t have any problem with it?”

  “Oh, hell no. Bryson’s family. And hey, we may live out in the sticks and all, but that doesn’t make us narrow-minded. We live in Alaska partly because people here are generally more tolerant of each other’s lifestyles. You get all kinds.”