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  "Really?" My father asked, sounding nearly overcome with excitement.

  "You, too?" My mother asked.

  My little sister nodded, smiling so hard her blue eyes were nearly shut. Another round of hugs and kisses commenced with questions about due dates and morning sickness and birth plans and all manners of other things that I felt I had nothing to do with, taking over the dinner table conversation. I was thrilled for both of my sisters and content to sit back and watch their lives unfold in front of me. Both of them had taken the path that was expected of them, and neither looked like they could possibly be happier. I had taken another path, but I felt like I was making progress, taking steps towards finding a place in my life where I might find that type of happiness.

  "So, Charlotte, when are you going to have news for us?"

  All of the happiness and levity that had filled me from the moment that I saw my mother trying to prepare dinner drained out of my body. I felt cold and my stomach turned. I looked at my mother, incredulous that she would ask me that question.

  "Didn't we just have this conversation?" I asked, fighting to keep my tone calm.

  "Well, yes," she said, "but I thought that hearing your sisters' news would motivate you a little more."

  "Motivate me?", looking between my parents and then to each of my sisters. "What's that supposed to mean? What is it supposed to motivate me to do?"

  "Maybe it should motivate you to grow up and have your own life," my mother said.

  "I have my own life,” I protested. “I did grow up. I live in my own house. I have my own career. I have my own life. Just because I don't have a husband and children that are a part of it, does not mean that my life is not my own. In fact, maybe that means that I have more of my own life than either of them do. Or that either one of you do."

  I heard one of my sister's gasp, but I didn't turn to see which one. My father held his hand out over the table as if trying to create a barrier between me and my mother.

  "Alright," he said, "maybe we should all just calm down. Violet, I thought we agreed that we would bring this up more delicately."

  "Bring it up?" I asked. "So, I was right. You actually did plan this whole Thanksgiving week trip as some sort of bizarre intervention."

  "Now, Charlotte, don't think of it that way."

  "How else do you want me to think about it?" I glanced over at my sisters who were both leaned on their husbands, their hands rested protectively over their bellies in mirrored displays of maternal concern. I gestured at them. "You two are just mad that I didn't get married in time to be a part of the gestational hat-trick. Well, I'm very sorry that I ruined any plans for a triple baby shower. I'll make sure to keep everyone's social calendars in mind the next time I contemplate making decisions about my own life and own future."

  I stepped away from the table and stalked down the hallway and into my tiny bedroom. I was nearly trembling with anger, but there were tears stinging in my eyes. This was exactly what I didn't want to deal with when my parents suggested we spend the holiday in this cabin. I was proud of how far I had come. I was proud of myself for pulling out of Daniel's clutches and finally claiming exactly what my parents thought that I didn't have: my own life. They claimed that they loved him, but they didn't know him. They didn't see the person that I did. They didn't understand what I went through with him every day. I had tried to tell them. So many times, I tried to find the right words, to explain to them the pain that I was in or the terror that I faced whenever I knew that I would see him at the end of a bad day. Even when I was able to tell my mother, she seemed to filter it out, as though she wasn't processing what I told her. Now that I was finally away from him, I looked back on those days and wondered what could have kept me there, what could have allowed me to let the years slip past.

  I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders resolutely. This was the same thing. I was just continuing to give Daniel power over me, and I didn't want to give him another minute. I wiped the tears from my eyes and walked back into the living room. My family was talking in hushed tones and fell quiet as I approached. Their eyes turned to me and I paused just inside the doorway.

  "I apologize for my behavior," I said. "It's the holidays and we shouldn't be fighting."

  My father stood up and wrapped his arms around me for a hug, then guided me back to the table. I sat down, and we slipped back into our meal, all of us skilled at the art of glossing over unpleasant moments and moving on.

  Chapter Two

  Micah

  I stayed inside long enough for the chill to leave me and to swallow down another cup of black coffee. It tasted like licking an ashtray, but it warmed me deep in my belly and kept me pushing through the long days. I had tried other types of coffee, looked for one that wasn't as harsh, but I didn't find it as satisfying and always ended up back with the bitter brew. The cold air outside had settled deep into my bones and ached in my leg, sending a sharp, intense pain through me that was as familiar as the smell of the wood burning in the stove. The stove pumped heat through the lodge, but it wouldn't take away the pain. Not yet. That would require a long soak in hot water and a few hours of rest, and that meant that the ache was going to be with me for quite a while. The sun was still high in the sky and that meant that I had to keep moving. There was still much too much to do to even think about the relaxation that only came at the end of the day.

  I gave myself just a few more seconds, then pulled my thick gloves back on and stepped back outside. The temperature had dropped sharply from the day before, telling me that the forecasts that had been steadily streaming through the radio were accurate. Over the last couple of hours that forecast had shifted from just letting the inhabitants of the mountain know that the winter weather was on its way to warnings of a severe storm that would soon be bearing down. The people in the valley down below would experience cold temperatures and maybe some wind, but up here in the thick woods of the mountain the snow would soon be falling, and the temperatures would continue to drop unbearably low. That meant that I had a tremendous amount of work to do before even the first flurry made its appearance.

  Gripping an axe in one hand and the leather strap of a sled in the other, I started away from the clearing that surrounded my lodge and into the woods. Scout burst out of the treeline and rushed toward me, his eyes shining and his mouth open, tongue flapping around his face. He seemed thrilled by the cold, as though he could feel the anticipation of the fierce weather that was on its way. He was like a little child getting excited for the first snow of the year while completely oblivious to any dangers that it might present.

  "There you are," I said, reaching down to pat the dog's thick black and white fur. "I wondered where you got yourself off to. Did the squirrels want to play with you today?"

  He looked up at me as if to complain that they didn't. I loved my dog, but a hunting companion he would never be. He would much rather romp through the trees trying to engage the squirrels, rabbits, and other little animals in rousing games of tag than try to take down a deer or even carry home fowl. Not that I hunted very often. In fact, I hadn't actually gone into the woods on a hunt in a couple of years. There were plenty of aspects of self-sufficiency that I readily accepted and even relished, but hunting down my own food turned out to not be one of them. I would rather source my meat from the providers closer to the base of the mountain and know that my freezers were full before the cold weather hit. That might make me lose a bit of my mountain cred, but frankly it was only Scout there to judge me, and he thought that I was pretty impressive even without chasing animals around hoping for a burger.

  I made my way into the woods and found the downed trees that I had been working on. I made sure that Scout was a safe distance out of the way and went to work chopping the massive trees into smaller pieces and stacking those pieces on the sled. I secured them in place as I went, making sure that I fit as much on to the sled as I could without compromising the structural integrity. The last thing I needed when I was dragg
ing it back to the house would be for the straps to break or one of the pieces to fall loose and let all of them tumble off the sled. That would only mean doing my work over again and expending more energy. My years on the mountain had taught me that when it came to preparing the lodge and the land around it for severe winter weather, every moment was important. Every bit of energy that I expended needed to be as useful and effective as possible. When the snow began to fall, and the wind began to whip through the trees and batter down on the lodge, I didn't want to feel that it was a morning that I slept in or an afternoon of work wasted that meant I wasn't prepared. I had already been working to prepare myself for the winter for several weeks and I felt confident that I would be ready when the storm began.

  The axe swung over my head and I let out a grunt as the wedge of metal blade bit into the tree in front of me and split it. Soon the two halves were reduced to 8 smaller pieces that I would use to fuel my stove and to make fires in my fireplaces. They would keep the lodge warm and in the event the electricity went out, I would still be able to cook and melt down snow. This was a major part of why I enjoyed living on the mountain so much. Nature was the great equalizer. It didn't care who I was or had been. It didn't recognize my name or have any assumptions about me based on it. It didn't care how much money I had in the bank. The billions that I made in software were nothing when I was standing in the woods. When it came down to it, nature treated everyone the same. Either you put the work, the sweat, and the energy into preparing and protecting yourself, or you were at the mercy of the mountain.

  Being out here working in the woods was also a good counterpart to the years that I had spent working in an office. Being outside and using my body this way spoke to a primal part of me, a part of me that I had not been able to indulge in those years. The work that I did in the city might have brought me my success and my wealth, but now that I was up on the mountain I felt that it was real life. Up here, I wasn't constantly bombarded by people and things were never just handed to me. I put everything of myself into my work or nature would prevail. It was that simple.

  When I finished chopping as much wood as would fit on the sled, I secured it with the last of the leather straps, called to Scout, and started dragging the load toward the smokehouses. They had been billowing constantly for a couple of weeks now and the smell of the meat inside laced the cold, pine scented air. I reached into the first smokehouse and began cycling the meat, moving pieces from the hooks on the bottom up to the top so that each piece within the house would be smoked equally. I had been considering building a larger smokehouse that would allow me to smoke all of the meat for the season in one place, so I didn't have to attend to several fires or move the meat inside multiple different structures. Any construction on a new building, however, would have to wait until the spring and there was something to say for being able to use different wood for each of the different types of meat. Having gotten no closer to making a final decision about the smokehouses, I cut a chunk off of one of the pieces of meat from the final house and tossed it to Scout before securing the door and heading on toward the lodge with the remaining wood. This would be added to the growing pile that I kept easily accessible for my stove and fireplaces.

  I was piling the wood in place when wisps of smoke across the mountain caught my eye. They seem to be coming from one of the cabins lower down on the opposite side of the mountain from my lodge. Those cabins didn't have full-time residents, but rather people who would rent them for a week or two at a time for vacation. Usually those people came in the spring and summer months to take advantage of the warmer weather and what they saw as a rustic experience. The cabins generally lay quiet and empty during the winter, with most people not interested in facing the potential of serious weather. This was so much the case that I sometimes forgot that the cabins were there at all. Now that I noticed that there was smoke streaming out of one of the ridiculously tall chimneys that protruded from the roof of the cabins, it seemed that I had neighbors for the Thanksgiving holiday, whether they realized that I was there or not.

  The thought of the holiday brought a somber feeling. It had been many years since I had celebrated an actual Thanksgiving. Not since my mother's death had I had a feast or even really considered the day much different than the others around it. In the years before her death she would cook lavishly for both of us and we would spend the day together, ending the evening by putting up the Christmas tree. It always felt as though she were trying her hardest to make up for lost time, to make as many good memories as we could to cover up the ones that we wished we didn't have. After she died, I didn't see much point in continuing to go through the trouble of celebrating the holiday. Since moving up to the lodge I hadn't had any visitors and there was no one who I could think of who I would really want to share the holiday with, except for Scout. He was always there, right by my side, and I had to admit that he was one of the things in my life for which I was the most thankful. He didn't have the best table manners, however, so going through the effort of preparing a large meal to share with him wouldn't have much impact.

  I was walking back into the house when the thoughts of my mother faded and were replaced by ones of Helen. My jaw set, and I willed my mind to push the image of her face away, but she seemed stuck there, unwilling to give me even a day's respite. I had gotten to the point when thoughts of her came less frequently, but they grew more intense during times when I imagined that we should have been together, like the holidays. I hated that she still had the hold on me that she did. It had been so long since we broke up and it seemed ridiculous that I couldn't put her behind me.

  Broke up.

  That made it sound so simple. So easy. Like the petty fights that teenagers have that result in the two of them getting back together or crawling in bed with new people within a week. That wasn't what Helen and I went through. I thought that she was going to be it for me. We had been together for years and she had been so happy to ride the wave of my popularity and success as my college football career soared. But then…

  I shook away the thought, refusing to give her another minute of thought. She had already taken so much from me. She didn't deserve anything else.

  My thoughts drifted back to Thanksgiving. I had the same plans for the day that I did every other year. I would work in the morning and then sit down to watch the football game, even though it tortured me to see it. I reached into the refrigerator and pulled out everything I needed to make a sandwich for lunch. Maybe this would be the year that I tried to have some semblance of a celebration. I knew that I had a chicken in the freezer. I could pull that out and let it thaw over the next couple of days. It wasn't quite a turkey, but roasted up with some vegetables and potatoes, it would be a more elaborate meal than I would usually sit down to and maybe it would give the day a bit more of a Thanksgiving feel. I didn't know why I was even thinking that way. It was as though there was something inside me telling me that this year needed to be different.

  I built my sandwich on the kitchen counter and put it on a plate with a handful of potato chips and a large scoop of potato salad. My mother had always teased me for my taste in food. It was one of the few things about me that hadn't changed even after the injury, even after my focus in school changed. Even after the money started rolling in. I went into college eating like a teenage boy at a family picnic in the middle of the summer and I still ate like a teenage boy at a family picnic in the middle of the summer. I always felt like Mama thought that I should have let my wealth affect me more than it did. It wasn't that she didn't like who I was. I was her only son. She just wanted me to separate myself from the darkness that chased both of us. It was almost as though she thought that as soon as my software career took off or when I finally sold the program that brought me enough to disappear into the woods, I should be eating nothing but lobster and caviar and washing it all down with swigs of champagne. I had never been able to develop a taste for that stuff. I stuck to my sandwiches, potato salad, and beer.

&n
bsp; The pain in my leg was getting worse, but I continued to stand, knowing that if I sat down, even for a few minutes, the pain would be much worse when I stood again. It was better to just push through until the end of the day. As I leaned against the counter eating, occasionally tossing a chip or piece of meat down to Scout, I peered out of the picture window and wondered about the smoke coming from the cabin down the mountain. I wondered what kind of people had decided to rent the cabin. Was it a family? A couple on their honeymoon, wanting some privacy and dreaming of the romance of snowflakes drifting gently around them? I sincerely hoped that wasn't the case. Unless they were very familiar with the mountain and the dangers that it could present, they weren't going to think that the snow was so romantic after the first couple of feet fell.

  When I finished my lunch, I rinsed the plate and tucked it into the dishwasher. Sometimes I felt guilty for even having a dishwasher. Scout didn't use many dishes, which meant that I often ran the appliance when there were only a couple of plates, bowls, and utensils inside. It wasn't the most efficient use of energy, but no matter how long I spent on the mountain, washing dishes by hand was just something I couldn't stand. There were still a few hours left of daylight and I had work to finish. I turned to call Scout to come out with me, but I found him curled up in front of the wood-burning stove, sound asleep. He was all the family I needed now. I smiled at the little deserter and walked back outside into air that was already feeling distinctly colder.

  Chapter Three

  Charlotte

  I wish I could have slept later the next morning, but just as I always did, I was up when the sun had barely lightened the horizon. I laid in the narrow wooden bed and stared at the ceiling for several minutes before I moved. I didn't want to climb out from the warm cocoon created by the quilt. The frost creating a beautiful sparkling pattern across the window panes told me that the temperature had dropped overnight. I dreaded emerging into the chill of the cabin, but even more, I dreaded facing my family. Even though they had spent the rest of the evening acting as though the argument had never happened, I knew that I needed to make my apologies. I had overreacted to the situation and I knew that my sisters didn't deserve to have their joy dampened by my sensitivity. Finally, I braced myself and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My toes touched the wooden floor and I felt them recoil. The planks were like ice and sent a sharp, stinging shiver through my body. I held my feet up for a few seconds, then took a deep breath and jumped out of the bed. I immediately scurried over to my slippers and bathrobe and wrapped myself tightly in them. I knew that the rest of the family was still sleeping. Unlike me, their bodies weren't unshakably tied to their sleep routine. If they didn't have a specific reason for getting up early, they didn't. I knew that the little ones would be waking up soon enough and that would mean the domino effect of wakening for the rest of the adults, so I cherished the few moments of solitude that I had.