My Abandonment(51)

While I watch and listen Paul is plowing down through the snow toward her without making any noise so I see his head rise up into where I'm looking and then his body standing down there close to hers.

When I reach them she's already buckled my red plastic snowshoes onto his feet.

"Those are mine," I say. "What are you doing?"

"I worked it out with your father," she says. "This red pack, too." She is wearing Father's snowshoes buckled tight to her sneakers. She looks different than before since her hair is now straight and black but then I see that it's that she's wearing a black wig on top so the blond hair shows out one side.

"What is happening?" I say.

"We traded," she says. "It's all right, dear."

Paul lifts one snowshoe then the other. He looks up at me.

"We were sledding," he says.

"Away from here, now," Susan says. "It was very nice to meet you. Goodbye."

"Goodbye," I say.

"It was very nice to meet you," Paul says and then they are walking away with the snowshoes making scratching sounds in the snow. He is not as fast and stumbling, learning to walk in those things. She has Father's red frame pack on her back and her head looks too tall with both those wigs.

I push the door of the yurt scraping open. The air smells like burnt plastic and worse. I can hardly breathe. I turn my face to the open door for a moment before I can go inside.

"Father?" I say.

All I can tell is that the wires are torn loose from one wall. None of them are glowing any more at all and it is hard to see since there's not much light from the window. I kick the headlamp and then find it and shine it across our scattered things and then see the edge of Father's shirt. I shine it up and across him and right to his face. His teeth are biting together and his lips are pulled open. All his hair is burnt down close on one side and his beard is not hair I see but blackened burned skin. I cannot see his ear on that side very well.

"Father," I say. "Don't worry. Rest."

He jerks once and kicks his leg then like sometimes he does when he's asleep and then he doesn't move again. There is no breath, no heartbeat in his throat. If I ran after Susan and Paul I might not catch them and if I did they wouldn't help me since she is the one who did this to him. The town is down the valley, Father said last night, so if I keep going down I'll find it. Sisters. If I go alone, can I find my way back to him? Will I get back too late?

I try to move Father and can't. He's not snared up in the wires, he's just so heavy. I've always been proud of how big he is. The best thing I can do is open the door and kick snow inside, and then put the orange sled on top of that. I roll Father and pull him out the door and then I can see him better.

All the buttons and snaps and zippers of his clothes are broken or gone. His hair is breaking off like ashes against the snow. Around his throat there's black burnt lines heading beneath his undershirt. His right sleeve is gone and that arm is black and red with the sharp white bones at the elbow. That hand is so burnt it doesn't look like a hand. His left boot has been blown all the way off even if his bare foot looks fine. I find the boot inside and it's shredded and useless. Instead I put one of his wool socks on that foot. It's then that I see the sole of his foot is all blackened with a hole in the middle.

"Hey!" I shout, standing and turning in a circle.

It's getting darker. With the headlamp on even in that small space I have to find everything one at a time and my clothes and papers are all scattered too. I'm coughing. I fit everything and Randy and our food which they took none of into my small pack with the broken zipper.

Now that I don't have them I see how much help the snow-shoes were. Still, the snow has frozen a hard crust that I can walk on top of but Father's weight on the sled keeps breaking through and I have to strain harder. He slips halfway off. His head catches the snow and holds and the sled slips out from under him. Shifting him up it feels like his one arm is just loose and only held on by the sleeve of his shirt.

It's impossible to go uphill and going sideways is not easy and the deep hollows around the trees try to pull the sled in. Downhill it's hard to keep control and really the only way I can go. Only downhill is toward the town of Sisters and now I am not so sure that it's a good idea to go there.

"I don't know what to say," I say. "I don't know what to do. You're the one who taught me everything."

And I know as soon as I say that that he did teach me everything, that even if Father is burnt up and not talking, he would say, "Caroline, think. You are the sharpest girl. You like a challenge and anything you can handle. Think, Caroline."