The Ice Sings Back, page 26
She turned, stepped away from his bed. Looked through the bedroom door to the open cabin door, out through the porch and lawn and darkness. Night had fallen. She looked back down at the lighter in her hand. Flicked her thumb, clicked the lighter awake. Stared at the little flame that sprouted up magically.
Ray grunted, clawed the air. “White throne,” he moaned.
Donna didn’t even look at him. She turned, leaned from the waist, a perfect hinge, held the flame glittering to the corner of Ray’s bed. The spark caught almost instantly, biting into the fiber of the dry comforter, spreading. A cotton blend. It simultaneously ashed and melted.
The fire crackled over the man in seconds.
Donna tossed the newspaper onto Ray, stepped away into the room’s doorway. Waited to ensure the flames were strong, moving across the mattress, the floor, the walls. She’d left the cabin door open to safeguard plenty of oxygen to drive the fire.
Flames engulfed the cedar logs, popping and sizzling and feasting, racing over moldering boxes of junk. A wall of heat forced Donna back from the room. She withdrew to the kitchen and out the cabin door, leapt down the porch steps, sprinted back across the clearing. Reached her car just as she heard the oxygen tank explode.
Panting, Donna leaned against the hood of her car, realized the heat and flames had singed her hair and eyebrows, felt her cheekbones ache from the stretch of her lips.
She inhaled deeply, smelled the linty, coppery scent of rot, of wood turning to ash, of plastic melting and fabric incinerating and her satisfaction incandescent and sharp.
She released a long breath. Pushed her green beads up her arm and thought briefly of Julene. Of the others.
Patted her hip and pulled the cigarette pack from her pocket. Drew the last smoke out.
Final one, she promised.
She lit the last cigarette, cupping her hand around the lighter’s tiny flame. Inhaled deeply, watched the grass around the cabin scorch. Eyed the fire’s progress. Watched as the roof caught, flames bulging around the edges, then up and through the tar-paper shingles. The porch was completely engulfed. The structure released a long-drawn-out cackle, then the walls fell inward, the cabin cremating itself.
Donna heard humming from somewhere, felt a deep calm contentment emanate in her core, noted the peace and power snapping up her spine.
She wiped tears from her face. Reached into her pocket, found her phone.
Consequences.
She was in control.
Dialed.
“Hello, 911?” she said. “I need to report a fire.”
15
THE
MEDIC
May woke abruptly. Her legs ached.
Her hamstrings and quadriceps and adductors felt like they were on fire.
It was dark. She had no idea what time it was. She rolled, muscles throbbing, tried to feel for her phone, but then, right on cue, the alarm started wailing and May knew it was five in the morning in the bunk room. She’d set her phone the night before as she was crawling in around one a.m.
Chief had told them they’d need to be ready to go back up to the search at six, and May had wanted extra time to get her SAR pack properly sorted. Make sure she packed all the things off-list, the supplies she apparently was just supposed to magically know she’d need. And extra food.
The previous day flooded into her brain, flattened May into the bed. The bodies. The cold leg under her fingers. The hike back. Jonas. His lies.
She closed her eyes, felt her body sink into the bunk like an anvil. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t get up.
But then remembered all the tragedies that Meredith Grey had faced. She’d been attacked by patients, lost her close friends, her father and mother had died, her husband had left her, then left her again, then died, she’d had a miscarriage, been shot, been in a plane crash, nearly drowned, had to hide from a guy shooting up the hospital. So many tragedies. Yet each day Meredith Grey got back up, saved people’s lives.
May yanked her eyes open. She could do this.
The wool blankets scratched her bare legs, and May glanced around. She was alone in the four-bunk room. She swung down from the top, hit the floor, and stepped into yesterday’s blue work pants with a practiced, easy motion.
Only after she was dressed did the smell hit her. Her pants stank like the floor of a cross-fit gym. She hadn’t washed her clothes. She typically did three or four days in her work pants before washing them. Usually it didn’t matter, but today, May shook her head. The stench was strong. She hoped it wasn’t anything from the glacier.
She hesitated, but just for a second. She left the bunk room, went down the hall, peeked into the break room. Empty. Thank god. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She had yet to make any sense of what happened last night with Jonas, Chief, all of them. May slipped through the door, headed for the coffee pot.
“Pour me a cup?”
May jumped, spun, saw Jonas coming through the door behind her. He must walk on cat feet, she thought. She hadn’t heard the slightest rustle. She closed her eyes, willed her mouth shut, reached down a second cup from the shelf.
“I take half and half. In the fridge.” His tone was brisk. He settled himself at the table, opened a beige file folder packed with papers.
Listening to his file rustling, May kept her back turned. She concentrated on pouring coffee, mixing in the half and half. She waited until her hands stopped shaking before turning, handing him the cup wordlessly, trying to creep from the room.
“Sit, Young,” Jonas commanded.
May honestly tried to resist. She faced the door, willed herself to take the knob, twist, exit, return to her bunk to sip coffee in peace and then repack. She realized she felt betrayed by Jonas, abandoned, manipulated. She’d thought they were friends but was now completely confused. She remembered finding the first body, and the second. Why had he lied?
She tried to leave the break room, but she couldn’t. Instead, May found herself turning, slouching into the chair across from him. Obedient to her core, she knew, thanks to her mother. A good girl. Deferent to anyone in a position of authority. Even as loathing flooded up into May’s mouth and seared the enamel off her teeth, she looked at Jonas with a neutral, slightly pleasant facial expression.
He was groomed neatly, hair glistening, likely fresh from a shower. His pale skin was faintly pink. She wondered if he’d slept. She could smell his shampoo. Fruity.
“Chief said he wants me to search with you again today, keep an eye on you.” Jonas smiled, a quick flick.
May saw a snarl. Was distracted by his teeth. They were pale white, slightly yellow, and she thought she saw gray lining the gums above his incisors. Did Jonas have meth mouth? Meth was acidic, and it caused the teeth and gums of users to gradually decay away into gruesome black holes. But May knew not all meth users got meth mouth. In season four of Grey’s Anatomy, when a man and his wife were cooking meth and triggered an explosion, they brought their baby into the hospital. No one suspected they were drug dealers because neither of them had meth mouth, but later, after Callie Torres did some quick thinking, the doctors were able to figure it out and save the baby.
Jonas coughed slightly. May jerked her eyes towards him.
“You know, I’m glad we have a moment before everyone comes in,” Jonas continued, sipping coffee, waiting.
“May?” Jonas tapped the table. “May? Good morning?”
She blinked, realized he was still talking to her.
“May? Isn’t this nice to have a moment together?” His voice was friendly, even.
May nodded as she wondered what she’d find if she emptied his pockets right then. His pupils looked a little dilated. Maybe that was why he’d lied. It had something to do with a drug habit. Compassion jumped in May’s throat.
“I was thinking we should get a drink together later, or something, to talk, but this is nice, right?” Jonas gestured at his coffee, then hers, and gradually his words sank into May’s churning brain.
Was he hitting on her? She sat up straighter, pushed a limp lank of hair out of her face. She hadn’t even put face moisturizer on. No one had hit on her, well, ever. Her mother had told her that they were looking into paying someone to marry her so they could guarantee grandchildren. She shifted in the chair, caught a whiff of her metallic stale sweat, ammonia.
“Sorry,” she murmured, felt the blush creeping up her collar.
Jonas tilted his chin, raised an eyebrow.
“I reek.” The words fell like damning lodestones from May’s lips.
“Those the same clothes as yesterday?”
May nodded, wished her other uniforms weren’t in a pile on the floor of her bathroom at her apartment. She looked at the coffee in her cup, thought she could pretend she’d drank it all and stand, leave. She didn’t want to be around Jonas, didn’t want to think about him. She felt confused, on the verge of tears. Again. Why did she tell him she smelled? He looked like he’d just been professionally groomed. May hated that she ceded ground so easily. She knew next to him, she looked like a grease trap posing as a human.
“Huh,” Jonas responded. “Don’t your parents run a dry cleaners?”
“What?” May asked, confused. Her parents owned a real estate company.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, flashed a big grin. “The people who run the dry cleaners by my place are Asian. For some reason I thought they were your parents.”
May’s mouth went dry, numb, her tongue flicked into a knot.
“Well, I can give you the address if you want to get your uniforms cleaned there, in the future.” He leaned back, smiled at her.
May didn’t know how respond, had no idea what to say. She thought she should point out the overtly racist nature of his comment, but even when she tried to come up with a sentence her mind just froze.
“I’m glad Chief is having me help you, May,” Jonas continued, soft-like and quiet. “You’re going to be an excellent medic.”
May gaped at him.
“And I’ll do anything to help you succeed,” he said, his fingers tapping the tabletop. “That’s why yesterday I stepped in and briefed Chief for you. I didn’t think you would want to be besieged by all that paperwork, especially being so new and going through everything you went through yesterday.” Teeth out, yellow as Ritalin pills.
May tried not to get distracted again by his mouth. Maybe he just had gum disease, or light tooth decay. Didn’t mean he had a meth addiction. May studied him, saw his hand twitch, his thumb drum against the ceramic mug. Focus, she told herself. Looked around the room, noted how the paint on the walls was watery, strained thin.
She churned Jonas’s words over in her mind. Paperwork? Did he not think her smart enough to fill out paperwork explaining that she’d uncovered human remains under snow?
“But…” May muttered, then trailed off. She had no idea what to say. Again. Where had all her words gone? The image of a leg sticking out of the snow flashed in her mind. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. The slightest thing since she’d joined this department, and she cried. She hated it. She squeezed her eyelids, forced her face under control.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw Jonas was watching her. His nostrils flared, eyes tightened, and both his hands gripped and ungripped the coffee mug.
She realized that Jonas had definitely not been hitting on her.
She took in a ragged breath, rubbed her lips together. Chapped. She could feel flakes of skin catching.
She opened her mouth.
Forced the words out.
“You lied.”
She tried to sound firm, to pin Jonas to the chair with a hard tone. But all she could manage was a whisper and a brief flick of her eyes.
“No, I did not,” he replied flatly. His aspect shifted. He sat stiff, crossed his arms. “I was there. I know what happened.”
May’s mouth fell open, and anything she might have said vanished. Sweat glowed rancid across her body. Was she not remembering accurately? Who had found the bodies?
Closing her eyes, she pictured the day before. Walked herself down the scree slope again. She was remembering correctly, she told herself. She found them.
“Young, let me give you some advice,” Jonas enunciated carefully, leaned forward, set his fingertips on the table. “Keep your mouth shut. This is me helping you and has nothing to do with you being this department’s diversity hire. I want you to succeed, really, and I will help you. But don’t accuse people of lying.” He pushed the chair back, stood abruptly, leaned over the table at her.
May shrank back, flattened by the competing veins of indifference and vehemence in his tone. Felt the room swing. Couldn’t blink, tucked into herself, stared wide-eyed at him.
“Morning guys!” Baker called as the door swung open and he rushed into the break room. “Thomas says we’re off like prom dresses in fifteen.” He commandeered the coffee pot, tilting the remaining liquid into his travel mug.
Jonas looked once more at May, shook his head, then turned and left the break room. May’s heart pounded, and she could feel blood rushing in her ears. She felt like she was going to vomit.
“Young? Hello? Did you hear me?” Baker waved a hand in front of her face.
She jerked her chin, met his eyes.
“You okay?”
Nodding, she coughed, cleared her throat. “Tired,” she lied.
“Well, you’re with me today. Thomas switched the roster up. You and me are going to man the medic tent, take care of any searchers that get cut up on the lava. That should be fun, eh?” He smiled, held out a fist for May to bump.
She gently pressed her knuckles into his, looked down at the murky reflection of her face on the plastic table. What the hell was wrong with her? Her whole arm was shaking.
“Sorry,” Baker said. “Should have said we’re going to man and woman the medic tent. Didn’t mean to be an ass.”
May shook her head, tried to focus.
“Coffee with Jonas, huh?” Baker continued, sipped his travel mug, leaned against the counter.
May squinted at him, took in the mug. It was plastic, had an 80’s retro design of Crater Lake on its side.
“None of my business, Young, but well, careful there. Jonas is a bit of a snake pit.” Baker shrugged his shoulders dismissively.
Fury erupted in May. Her humiliation compounded with the last two days, her lack of sleep, her profound disappointment with herself, and her exasperation with always being on the receiving end of unsolicited advice, the images flicking in her eyes of human remains carelessly piled on top of one another. She knew that she remembered exactly what had happened yesterday, the exact feel of the body she’d found. She’d found. Regardless of what Jonas claimed. Just because she was new didn’t mean she was blind, confused, oblivious. Just because she doubted the hell out of herself, did not mean she was making up the day before. Just because she felt alone and withdrawn and unskilled, didn’t mean she was imagining touching a dead leg. Just because she felt like her closest, most stable and safe relationships at present were with television characters, none of it meant she was a liar.
May stood up from the table, balled hands shaking, legs trembling.
Sparks pounded up and down her veins. She twisted her face at Baker, eyes wide.
“I liked you better when you talked less,” she whispered.
Turning, she fled the room, down the bay and outside, leaned behind the building against the siding, drew huge wet breaths into her mouth.
Minutes ticked by as confusion and anger and sadness swirled inside of her. Why did she snap at Baker? What was wrong with her?
She leaned her head back, thought about leaving the department. Calling up Lou or Jamal. Ask them for a job. Tears eroded her cheeks. How could Jonas lie so openly?
A wet nose smeared across her hand, and May jerked, looked down at the stray dog. It had snuck up beside her, was sitting patiently, tail lightly thumping. She gazed into its friendly gray eyes and something shifted inside of her. She knelt, stroked the dog’s thick ruff. It nosed her neck, tickling, and May laughed quietly.
“Ahh Foxface,” she whispered. And then cried.
Throughout the rest of the day, into the next, and the next, May zombied through her shifts. She worked the medical tent, avoided Jonas, interacted minimally with Baker, and allowed her mind to churn in circles strong enough they emitted their own gravity. No one seemed to notice how withdrawn she was, and, for once, she was glad of her invisibility in the department.
The only highlights of her days were at their close. She drove back to the department and snuck out back behind the building to feed the stray dog. She’d give the creature bits of sandwiches she’d saved. The dog was simultaneously dirty and soft, and May felt distracted and soothed when examining the dog’s markings as it ate. She lingered on the pale white patch on its front paw. She was comforted by its presence, by its apparent affection for her and happiness at the food she snuck it. It was sitting each day with the dog in the only place she felt safe at the department that she came up with a plan forward. While the dog wagged its tail and chomped down the food, May would pull out her phone and open her Notes app. She typed away each day, sentence by sentence. Inspired by Meredith and Cristina and Izzy and the courage those women had shown in the most terrible of circumstances, May decided to write her own report to the chief.
She didn’t know when she would turn it in to him, and she sweated as she played out different scenarios of walking into his office and handing over her words. In one, she was vengeful, stomping in, slamming fifty pages of paper onto his desk, saying over her shoulder as she left that he’d be hearing from her lawyer. In another, she handed him the report and told him she would be on NPR that night, describing what she’d found and how Jonas had taken it away from her. Or, another, when, as she handed Chief the report, he waved it away, told he knew already that she’d been telling the truth all along.
