My Abandonment(50)

"We were in a hot springs the other night," Father says. "It's probably the minerals in the water or something."

"We spent a whole night in a hot springs," I tell Paul. "We kept getting in and out of the water so we wouldn't freeze to death."

He listens to me and I can't tell how much he even hears. I understand then that what makes it so hard to talk to him is that his face hardly makes any expressions and his voice doesn't hardly rise or fall when he does say something even if maybe he is just copying the way Susan talks. Also, he has no eyebrows.

"Don't you have anything to show me?" I say. "Where are you from? What are you carrying?"

"Caroline," Father says, overhearing, stopping me. "How about the two of you go outside for a little while?"

"Yes," Susan says. "We adults have to talk. There are some things we have to figure out and decide."

"I thought we were leaving first thing in the morning," I say.

"Caroline," Father says. "You could go sledding or something."

My shoes are still damp. I am thinking not to trust these people since I don't understand them and Father and I are fine by ourselves. Father sees something in them to trust, I can tell. He's not even looking at me as I scrape the door open.

Outside there's no sun but brightness comes from every direction out of the snow. The orange sled is frozen down where we left it so I kick it loose with my good foot. Paul just watches me, still wearing only his jeans and his T-shirt.

"Aren't you cold?" I say.

"Cold?" he says.

"You can borrow my jacket, if you want it."

"Sled," he says.

I reach out then and take hold of the striped cap and pull it off his head and drop it on the ground. His head is completely smooth without any hair at all. I can see the blue veins between his skin and his skull. He's not mad and doesn't say anything, he just bends down and picks up the cap and shakes the snow out of it and puts it back on.

"What happened to your hair?" I say.

"We don't have hair," he says. "That's all right, to not have hair."

"Who?" I say. "What is your problem?"

He is fast, already climbing up the slope. I step in his footsteps and pull the sled behind. The way the light is it feels like it's already afternoon and I can't tell by my watch how long we slept or what time of day it is.

From the top of the hill we can see the edge of the yurt's roof, some of the snow blown off. I think of Father and Susan inside there now. Talking and looking at maps and planning and maybe doing other things I don't know.

"You two are not like us," I say. "Just because we're all out here like this and there are two of us and two of you."

"Sledding," Paul says. "We're sledding, right?"

"Are you thirteen?" I say. "That's my age."

He sits in front and holds on to my legs and then I go in front. It's faster if we put the sled in the same path as before where it gets worn down and icy. We scream and laugh and fall off the sled at the bottom so it gets away into the air and bounces off trees. We keep doing it again and again.

He is breathing harder, now he's the one who can't keep up when we're climbing to the top. He never pulls the sled behind him. I wait there at the top.

"What do you think they're doing in there?" I say.

"Who?" he says.

"In the yurt," I say. "The adults. My father and your mother."

"My mother?" he says. "She's not my mother."

"Where's your mother?" I say.

"I don't know," Paul says. "That's all right not to know that."

His jeans and T-shirt are completely wet and crusted with ice but he's not shivering or anything. Next to us is a shallow puddle and both of us are reflected twice, once in the ice and another reflection balanced on the head of the first, a shadow on the snowy hillside.

"My mother is dead," I say.

He just points down at the sled. "We could try it with you on your front," he says, "lying down flat and I could lie on top of you."

"You're as big as I am," I say. "Why should you be on top?"

This time I'm in front and we're going faster than before. Halfway down Paul's not holding on enough and he falls off and I hang on. I just scream. At the bottom I look back and can't see him.

"Hey!" I shout. "Paul!" But he doesn't answer.

I'm pulling the sled back up the hill when the lady's voice starts. First I hear it and next I see Susan standing outside the yurt holding something red. She sets it down to hold her hands up to her mouth to shout louder.

"Paul!" she shouts. "You come down here now! Leon! Paul! Stanley! Paul!"