Alaska

by Sue Saliba

  mia waited. there was a sense of an answer to come. she stood on the driveway, the day was still cold, although the air was full of sunshine, she looked at the sky, nothing but blue. and then she heard terrence’s voice from the side of the shed. he was approaching.

  ‘where is she?’ he said. ‘where the hell is she?’

  the pair stopped by the side of the shed.

  mia froze.

  ‘she gave the keys back,’ em said at last.

  ‘it’s not good enough.’

  mia stayed still. she could feel herself alert and instantly aware of everything around her. it was as if everything was suddenly separate and distant from her, and she stood out in stark relief ready to be discovered.

  slowly, slowly, she crept on silent feet to the front of the shed. there was a door half-open just to the left of her. if only she could make it there quickly, without sound, and slip inside, if only …

  and then em and terrence came towards her. she heard them, and she darted desperately to her left. the door let her in without any resistance, without any sound to betray her. she pressed her back to the wall of the shed and the room was dark and comforting. she was safe.

  what a relief. she’d never been inside the shed before. it was a square building that ended the driveway. she’d never asked herself about it and it was never mentioned in household conversation, it was as if it existed separate and unknown to the house and the family’s life, a sanctuary, that was it.

  mia looked around. her eyes could make out shapes as she adjusted to the light, it was dim inside, but there, she could begin to see the bits and pieces within the shed. an abandoned lamp with its shade broken, an old mattress propped against the wall, the usual discards of a house really. a collection of tools were piled together in the far corner: shovels, hammers, an axe, and an electric chainsaw with a ribbon tied around and around its handle. mia moved closer, yes, it was a deep green ribbon, she moved further around the shed, guiding herself now with her hands as much as her eyes. she touched wire. it was a cage sitting on the floor, perhaps it was a fishing trap. she moved away from it.

  casting reels, a metal hook. a poster on the wall said: military spitzer bullets. you’ll only need one.

  suddenly mia wanted to stop, to reverse things. to walk back to the door and the time when she had just slipped through it, that moment, but she couldn’t. something else was saying, go, go deeper into what is here, right here with you.

  she paused. she thought of the night-time sky. it was beautiful and terrifying all at once, seductive like standing on the edge of a truth where everything thought impossible was instantly and completely available, she moved forward.

  there, at last, a little chink in the wall of the shed that let in some morning light. sunshine, she looked directly into it. for a moment, she was blinded and couldn’t see where she was heading as she tripped on an object on the floor, her hand went out, but didn’t stop her entirely as she fell against something wet and soft. as she recoiled and turned again to the light, she saw she was streaked with red.

  blood.

  she pushed back into the dimness, away from the place of her fall, but it was too late. she could see it hanging there – new, unmistakable.

  it was as simple as a rifle and a man on a saturday morning, and as crude. a full stop to everything.

  mia let herself collapse amongst the mess and rubble of the shed. and she thought, let him come and find me, i don’t care. although she had no idea what she would do if terrence did discover her.

  she waited.

  she imagined him pacing the lounge room questioning em. well, where do you think she is, then? she couldn’t have just disappeared.

  they might search her little room – open the wardrobe and look inside, squat on the floor and peer beneath the bed. for a moment mia panicked as she imagined seeing terrence pushing the pillow aside, discovering ethan’s two messages – and reading them. but then she remembered, no, she had taken the notes from their hiding place, she had slipped them inside her shirt as she had left to follow the night-time sky.

  she felt for them now and was surprised, the notes had not moved at all.

  she remembered ethan’s words as he gave her the note with his telephone number on it. call me, whenever you like.

  mia felt the panic leave her. she looked at the deer. the young animal, it seemed, knew of her presence and laid claim to her; that’s what she felt, as if it said, you are part of me now.

  and she left the shed, not stumbling or scampering madly into the shelter of the trees, but walking surely, steadily, as if her feet were hooves and she was made in the forest and she would return to it.

  and she knew ethan would understand. ethan of the night-time sky and the fish in the forest and a world beyond earth.

  she would go to ethan.

  and she did. she made her way through the moss and peat of the undergrowth and came out at a road, black and silent. and she waited. there was nothing but the wind and the icy air until she stood long enough to hear an eagle slip on a branch behind her, a squirrel shift in a pile of leaves, what could have been scenery became part of her, or more precisely what was dead in her awakened to know she was a gesture of nature.

  a truck was coming along the road.

  she waved at its driver and he was already past her before he could bring the vehicle to a stop, so she ran quickly to catch up with him.

  she climbed in beside him and felt herself suddenly high above the ground, his arm brushing her chest as he reached across to lock the door.

  ‘it swings open around the bends,’ he said. ‘where you heading?’

  ‘just past town,’ she answered, ‘but maybe i could …’

  she was turning to unlock the door but he had already shifted the gear stick into place and the truck was lurching forward, smoke rushing from the chrome pipes on its sides.

  the truck driver smelled of wood and sweat. she saw black oil streaked on the thigh of his jeans.

  ‘where you from?’ he said.

  ‘melbourne … australia.’

  he turned to look at her now and mia felt his presence pressing in upon her, his huge bearded face and his pinpoint eyes.

  ‘i mean, i’m living just across the forest there, with my sister. up the hill, not far from here.’

  he seemed to retreat.

  ‘ah, with terrence hancock.’

  ‘yeah.’

  and not another word was spoken until they reached the town.

  ‘i’m going out to gracie’s sawmill, over the old bridge,’ he said. ‘anywhere you want me to drop you?’

  mia thought of water. she remembered the sound of a stream nearby as she’d lain awake against ethan in the night.

  ‘you can drop me at the bridge,’ she said.

  the truck slowed down, mia unlocked the door and as she slid to the ground from the height of the cabin, she felt an instinct return to her.

  i’m here, she thought.

  the truck moved away from her with its cargo of sawn-off trees and mia raised her face to the sky and almost sniffed the air. it’s just beyond the bushes, she thought, and she moved towards the path that she knew led to ethan’s house.

  there it was. his almost-built house amongst the trees. she stopped and as she stood there quietly, a car came towards her along the driveway, it was leaving ethan’s house and mia slipped behind one of the bushes to shield herself from its driver, slowly it passed her and as she moved at last from her hiding place she caught a sudden glimpse of its sole occupant – a young woman with dark, dark hair.

  ‘it’s so wonderful to see you,’ ethan said when he opened the door, and mia should have been relieved. after all, she’d felt unsteady as she’d climbed the steps to his verandah.

  ‘i’ve been thinking about you,’ he said. ‘i’ve been sitting here all morning thinking about you.’

  he didn’t ask how she got there. it didn’t seem to matter, instead he touched her arm and drew her inside, the borderles
s windows, the feather she’d found beneath a pillow on the couch, she remembered it all now, and she remembered something else – a shameful thought that she might one day live here with ethan. how frightened he would be – he hardly knew her. and yet, as she walked in now and descended the steps into the kitchen, she had that feeling again, that wish. she kept it like a guilty thing close to her.

  ‘tell me about your life in melbourne,’ he said. he’d led her to the table that doubled as his desk, he was making her some tea. ‘you’ve hardly talked about it at all.’

  ‘it’s pretty much the same,’ she said.

  ‘the same?’

  ‘the same as anybody else’s.’

  ‘no,’ he said. ‘i don’t believe that.’

  ‘but it is,’ she said. ‘i grew up with my mother and sister and my father and, well, my sister was so sad to leave melbourne and my mother and father in our family home that we all lived in. it’s filled with all kinds of photos of birthdays and anniversaries and things.’

  ‘you all sound close. i know what that’s like with family. you must miss them.’

  ‘who?’

  ‘your mother and father – you being here helping em with her child.’

  ‘yes, yes … that’s true.’

  she paused. it was true. ‘yes, i do miss them,’ she said.

  and she did. mia thought of her father who she remembered from when she was eight years old and she wondered where he might be now. would he recognise her if he saw her, ten years later? would there be some mark that attached them? and her mother. yes, she missed her. she missed remnants of her. that was the trouble, she couldn’t accept her mother in her entirety and yet she still remained bound by moments or fragments, by certain pieces of her mother.

  like the delight her mother took in mia’s first childish poems, or the bluebird brooch – a gift from em and mia – that she kept as a precious thing inside layers and layers of tissue paper. and night-time, when mia knew as she lay awake in the endless dark that her mother did too – a prisoner with no energy to believe in anything else.

  mia knew that entrapment. em didn’t, although perhaps she experienced a different variety of it. but mia knew the weight that said nothing will ever be any different from what it is now, that the world has lost all dimension and has turned to stone.

  ‘god, how difficult is it just to wash some dishes?’ em would say as she rolled up her sleeves and turned the tap above the kitchen sink on. mia and em would have just come home from school. it would be four o’clock on a weekday afternoon and the sink would be full of last night’s plates.

  ‘she just lies in her room all bloody day.’

  mia would pick up the tea towel and silently dry, em would wash and jam the soapy dishes into the rack. sadness and anger beside each other, and fear.

  ‘i can’t wait to leave this place,’ mia would hear em say, and mia’s heart would catch. what would it be like here in the house without em, alone with her mother? mia tried not to think about it, but if she did – if she thought deep enough – she realised that without any support, or at least distraction, she would be left to face herself.

  ‘i know how she feels,’ mia said aloud and she forgot that she was no longer in the kitchen of her childhood but in the house of a stranger – a wonderful stranger – here in alaska.

  ‘how who feels?’ ethan said.

  he was beside her, his head tilted to one side.

  she was suddenly startled, afraid he might find her strange.

  ‘the tea smells gorgeous,’ she said, focusing on the cup in his hand. ‘what sort is it?’

  he didn’t answer her – not at first. he simply turned away and said, ‘you are unusual.’ then he turned back and kissed her.

  there they lay, hours later, on the floor not far from the table but amongst blankets and cushions that ethan had dragged from the nearby couch. mia turned her head to look through the long window, she saw the road she had travelled along in the distance. she saw ice against the ground and sunlight shining on it and she smiled at the strange combination of things. how just in that moment, as she looked out, with the comfort of ethan beside her, she could accept the unlikeliness of the world.

  ‘what are you thinking about?’ he asked her.

  she turned her face towards his.

  ‘i saw a deer today,’ she said.

  he touched the place beside her mouth. ‘was she beautiful?’

  ‘she was just a child.’

  and then she said, ‘what does a deer stand for? i mean … what does the soul of a deer represent?’ he thought for a minute and then he answered, ‘it stands for transformation, for things changing in the most unlikely of ways.’

  and she closed her eyes as if this might help her maintain his knowledge. no, as if this might help her make it hers, that was it.

  she felt it rest inside her body.

  and then when mia opened her eyes again, the world had shifted. ethan was lying on his back, staring above him. the room felt colder. and someone was knocking at the door.

  ethan jumped, mia felt that. he scrambled quickly to get out of the mess of blankets, dress himself and rush to the door. he stopped only as he was about to open it to make sure that mia was up and, like him, almost dressed.

  she’d buttoned the top of her shirt to the wrong hole and so she stood there with her hand across the gap.

  he opened the door.

  there she was.

  mia knew it would be a woman because of the fine firmness of the knock.

  but she hadn’t expected em.

  ‘we heard you were here,’ em said.

  ethan stepped back.

  ‘come back, mia. we … i … need to talk to you.

  i want to talk to you.’

  mia looked at ethan, but he was motionless and impossible to read. em looked straight past him.

  ‘come back, mia. i can … i can drive you here later on, if you like, just come home.’

  home? mia hadn’t thought of em’s house as home, not her home.

  ‘what about terrence?’ she said.

  em looked at ethan for the first time since the door had opened to her.

  ‘you need to come home,’ she said.

  and instinct – that surefootedness of the deer – deserted mia and instead something else arose. that part of her from childhood that wanted so much to be close to em.

  ‘what will terrence say?’ mia said.

  ‘it doesn’t matter what he says. i want you to come home,’ em answered and she lifted her hand to mia so that mia stepped closer to narrow the distance between them and took her sister’s hand.

  ‘i’ll be back,’ she said to ethan as she walked across the verandah behind em. ‘i’ll call you.’ but already she felt at a distance from him.

  he watched her from the doorway.

  ‘don’t forget the deer,’ he said.

  but she was already in the car, beside em, pulling her seatbelt tight around her and clicking it into place.

  how securely em drove. mia had forgotten what a cautious driver her sister was. every rise, every fall in the road was navigated calmly.

  they passed the town and then the place at the side of the road where the truck driver had stopped to pick mia up.

  ‘how do you know ethan?’ em said at last.

  an eagle arced in the space of the windscreen and then disappeared from the frame.

  ‘i told you i met him in the forest one day.’

  ‘you didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘maybe not all at once, but i told you … in bits and pieces … i thought you would have put it together.’

  ‘mia, i don’t have time … i mean right now … i mean …’

  ‘with christian.’

  ‘it isn’t just christian. there’s something more.’

  ‘with christian and terrence.’

  ‘it isn’t just christian and terrence. i mean … it’s not …’

  ‘it’s not what? just the sum of the parts?’r />
  ‘what?’ em took her eyes from the road for a moment to look at mia. she was clearly confused.

  in the past, mia would have built a bridge for em to her thoughts – she would have explained, she would have let em in. but this time she didn’t. instead she stared ahead, willing the deer to return to her.

  yes, for em it wasn’t just the sum of the parts, it wasn’t just christian and terrence like bits of an equation that made a sum no bigger than themselves. mia had read that a living entity was more than its bits and pieces, it was also an invisible force, an energy held together and given life, defined and made separate from everything else.

  ‘i’m alone,’ mia said. ‘you have your family, your new family.’

  ‘you’re part of …’ em began, but mia interrupted.

  ‘no, i’m not,’ she said. ‘i’m not part of your new family.’

  mia looked out at the road as they drew closer to em’s house. the trees were almost sticks. winter was approaching. change was relentless.

  ‘everything moves on,’ em said.

  mia felt herself gripped by pain, dread. she’d pushed em to this point. she’d made her say it. why hadn’t she stayed quiet and continued to live undisturbed in some half-lit world? now she braced herself for something more, she knew em had something to tell her.

  ‘mia,’ em said.

  they were slowing to turn left into the driveway.

  ‘mia, there’s something you don’t know, and i need your help. i’m really not sure what to do …’

  it wasn’t at all what mia had expected. for one thing, she was the younger sister. she was the one who had always gone to em for help, whether overtly or not. they stopped at the front of the shed. mia knew the crumpled form of the deer was inside.

  ‘i’ll try, em,’ she said. ‘i’ll try to help.’

  together they walked into the house. terrence and christian were somewhere in the corners of it, but it was as though they were a million miles away. mia watched em put the kettle on and searched through the bottom cupboard to find the special blue mugs she knew mia loved the colour of. she watched em pull out hot chocolate, sugar and milk, and place each container on the bench, one perfectly beside the other, before she came to the table and sat beside her.