Stony River (64 page)

Sevana remembered how she’d once planned to spend Christmas with Fenn. But now with the reality before her, it seemed no accomplishable feat: taking one bus to another, to a town where she would be dependent upon Fenn coming to pick her up—something he would not be happy to do, even if he happened to check his mail in time to learn she was coming. She sat in the pew pondering the futility of it, with Joel’s Bible open on her lap. When David had congratulated her on getting a Bible the first time she’d brought it to church, she’d had to confess it was Joel’s, feeling a trifle ashamed that obtaining her own copy had not been one of her priorities. Now, when David asked her at the door if she was coming to the dinner, she hugged the big book in her arms and heard herself telling him she’d be there.

Willy also broached the subject of Christmas as they hung up their coats next morning. He was driving to Cardston to spend the holidays with his mother and grandmother, and would close the shop and give her the week off as well. Sevana promptly offered to keep it open in his absence, but Willy said he didn’t want to be perceived around town as a hard taskmaster who wouldn’t give his employee a holiday. Sevana didn’t relish the thought of so much time off, and wished she also had somewhere to go.

When the shop mail came in, there was a beat-up postcard among the business letters. Willy glanced at the photograph of an otter on a snowbank and tossed it her direction. Sevana’s sudden intake of breath was audible as she snatched it up and avidly scanned the handwritten lines. Joel had made it to Mammoth Creek with as few mishaps as could be expected driving the Alaska Highway in winter, but the timing hadn’t allowed him to call before heading out to the claim. His father was in bad shape, worse than he’d anticipated. He was busy looking after him, besides trying to keep the shack warm—not an easy task with the temperature below zero now for two weeks running. He had snowshoed to town to call a doctor in Dawson for his opinion, and was writing this to mail before he went back. He asked her welfare, and at the bottom—out of room—crowded in his name.

When she finished reading it, she read it straight through again where she stood, then sat down without strength. None of it escaped Willy. “You know, Sevana,” he observed mildly, “if you don’t mind me saying so…for a friend who’s about to marry somebody else, you might be taking him a little too seriously.”

“I’m just glad he’s safe,” she said defensively. Willy was right, of course. But that didn’t change the way she felt.

She couldn’t wait to tell David that she’d heard from Joel. But when she gave him the report Sunday morning, he had news of his own. “I didn’t tell you he called last week, did I? I’m sorry, I forgot to mention it.”

“What did he say?” she asked, wanting to know too badly to be polite.

“Well, it seems his father is going through fire and water without the hard stuff, and Joel is getting the worst of it. He called for my advice. Actually,” his eyes twinkled at her, “I think it was my prayers he wanted, more than my advice.”

Sevana’s own eyes had grown wide at the news. She walked home feeling very bad for Joel indeed. She whispered to God to please help him, but the words seemed to go nowhere. She hoped David would have more success with his prayers, or Joel would have no help at all.

Now that she had an address, she wrote Joel a letter and a Christmas card. She knew he might not get it for months but she sent it anyway. But she limited the content to general news, conscious she was writing to a soon-to-be-married man.

The days began to run together; they seemed all the same. The weather was dull and gray. Occasional storms left powdery snow on the ground, but it never seemed to accumulate. She didn’t see how there ever could be much, for the wind always blew it away.

On Christmas Eve at closing time, Willy bid her farewell for the week and gave her a number where he could be reached, along with a tiny package with strict instructions not to open it until Christmas morning. Sevana had a wrapped gift for him as well, a handsome wristwatch to replace the one he’d scratched a week ago while trying to install a display light, before he’d given up and called a handyman.

She went up to her apartment, made a rather more elaborate dinner than usual, and ate it without notice while she wondered how she could endure an entire week without even the diversion of the art shop or Willy’s carefree company. Her eyes fell on Joel’s Bible on the couch. She’d always meant to read it, or at least the underlined verses, instead of just following the passages David read from the pulpit. She could make it her project for the holidays. As the rising wind announced the advent of another cold front, she began perusing the marked lines. The cadences sounded like poetry, but their meaning was oblique to her.

By chance she came across the passage Joel had read to her by Avalanche Creek. She read the words again and thought about the conversation they’d had. It seemed so long ago, like another life.

Her mind slid away, carried by the wind. What was the difference between something that had existed, and something that had never existed? One had been real once, and one never was. But when the thing that was real no longer existed, was it any more real than the thing that had never existed? The question whirled in her head like the storm outside, and she could find no answer.

She closed the book with a snap. All that was real was her job, the painting, the emptiness. How different she felt from the idealistic way she had viewed life when she set out to conquer it a few months before! In that short span, she had gone from one supremely confident of what she wanted, to one who knew nothing at all.

She tried to remember what Joel had said about looking beyond the surface of life to find reality. But how could she look past the familiar world into life’s mysteries, perceiving what was neither visible nor readily apparent, and grasp what it meant for her? That was what she didn’t understand.

Christmas morning she opened Willy’s present, a tiny locket in which he’d painted a miniature flower. Touched by the sweetness of it, she hung it proudly around her neck. Then she opened the card from her father. He had written a few lines regarding his forthcoming move to Stockholm and enclosed a large check. Her first thought was that it was enough for an older-model car, and felt a humble gratitude for his liberality. If she had a vehicle, she wouldn’t feel so stranded. Even David had come out and voiced his opinion that a car would be a good idea—for while he had run her home several times after night service, he was often too busy or had other plans…or else she had outright eluded offers from him or others. But of course no car lots would be open on Christmas, even if it hadn’t been snowing with blizzardlike intensity. Pushing down a surge of impatience, she made a pot of tea from a random combination of herbs, and settled at the table with a cup of the unpalatable stuff to write her father a thank-you letter.

In the afternoon, with fresh snow settling underfoot, she walked to church carrying a wrapped box and a plate stacked with cubes of homemade fudge. Krysta had bedecked the basement in fir boughs and ribbons, with the questionable help of the two Cree orphans. She welcomed Sevana and made room on the laden table for her contribution, while Sevana furtively stashed the present with her coat. Then Krysta introduced her to Talmo and Sascha, a boy of five and a girl of three. Sevana, herself taken with their silken rose-tan skin and shy, black-onyx eyes, could tell that Krysta had fallen hard for them. And she looked again at Talmo with his semi-long, ruffled dark hair—seeing Joel in him, finding it easy to imagine how he had looked as a boy.

She sat by Krysta at dinner, whose considerable talents were on display as she carried on an extended conversation with Sevana, paid attention to David, watched over the two children, and kept an eye on the party to make sure everyone was having a good time. Sevana thought her in every way an asset to David. He even acted differently when she was around, more relaxed and settled. He was making wisecracks while he carved slices of turkey and roast beef, and Sevana laughed with those around her until she had to wipe her eyes.

There was a group of bachelors who did their best to see that Sevana wasn’t left alone in the time after dinner, when the grown-ups were mingling and Krysta had all the children in one corner playing games. She tried to keep up her end of the conversation, even though she was having a hard time concentrating on what they were saying. But her attention was caught at one point when one young man mentioned that he had been working out at Ownbeys’ ranch over the holidays. The fact was, she’d been thinking for some time about visiting Joel’s sheep. With interest no longer contrived, she asked where the ranch was located. The man gave a general description of going out one road and then another, but Sevana listened carefully and tried to remember. It would be so splendid to see Goldthread and Hawthorn and all the rest again.

At one point she found an opportunity to slip her present to David and Krysta. Then David said flatly he didn’t know what Sevana was learning in art class, when it was obvious she knew everything already; and Krysta said she ought not to have done it—but her whole face was alight with pleasure. For one who had not particularly wanted to attend, Sevana walked home happy over the way the afternoon had gone.

She was about to venture out next morning on a car-buying expedition, when Jillian appeared at her door accompanied by Ralf and Len—all of them dressed warmly and looking at her expectantly. Willy may have skipped out on them, Jillian said, but in a spur of the moment decision they were going to go have fun without him at a ski resort, and did Sevana want to come with?

Sevana did, and throwing together a bag in record time, piled with them into Jillian’s carryall. Ralf took the wheel—his station wagon having been voted untrustworthy for the long distance, even if Jillian was a tolerably good mechanic. The trip proved to be a delightful holiday with no dull moments, for nothing was ever serious to Ralf and Len—who, considering their antics on the hill, were lucky not to be carried off the slope in traction. Jillian, watching their initial race down the slope as they dodged trees and skiers in the effort to beat each other to the bottom, murmured from long association with Ralf:
“Two Skiers Return from Hill with Four Broken Legs.”
Ralf won the race by a split second; Len immediately initiated a rematch.

Sevana and Jillian were about equal in ski ability—not very good—and the two of them provided a support group for each other’s mishaps and time-outs. They spent one whole afternoon at the top of the highest skill-level slope with no intention of skiing it, just soaking in the panoramic views and brilliant sunshine. Finally there was time to get to know each other better.

Jillian told Sevana how much she liked Ralf, maybe even loved him; but even after going with him for three years, she was still afraid to give up her independence to marry him—not that he’d asked her, mind you, but if he did. She had never been sure just how deep his feelings were for her, thought maybe he found her too eccentric to put up with on a fulltime basis. Sevana wanted to say she found Ralf somewhat eccentric in his own right, but kept it back. Maybe it showed they were made for each other: Jillian was obsessed with old cars, and Ralf drove one.

Jillian asked how Sevana felt about Willy, since he was so clearly smitten with her. When Sevana said she enjoyed his company but nothing more, Jillian looked relieved and said it was a good thing, because even though Willy was such an appealing character, he was something of a casanova—although Sevana doubtless knew it already. That was not to say she didn’t like him, because she genuinely did; but Sevana would do well to stay on her guard. She also offered the surprising and confidential information that Len was similarly smitten with Sevana, but out of respect for Willy had never tried to move in on what he considered his territory. Sevana felt sorry for Len, but Jillian said not to: he had recently gone out with the daughter of Frank Larkin and was thinking of taking her out again.

At first Sevana would not talk about Joel, determined as she was never to reveal her forbidden feelings for him. But Jillian had heard from Willy about a dark-haired stranger Sevana couldn’t take her eyes off a few weeks ago at the Roadhouse; and when Sevana was asked point-blank about it—despite her initial attempts to pass carelessly over it—more probing questions revealed the essence of the story. Jillian was sympathetic, promised absolute silence, and became so generally involved in the conundrum that they missed the last chairlift and were forced to ski down the heart-stopping slope, sitting on their skis and dragging their poles for all they were worth, and shrieking in unaffected terror the whole way.

After finding out how Len thought about her, Sevana felt a bit different around him as they ate dinner by the lodge’s immense stone fireplace—especially since the two of them made such an automatic pairing to Ralf and Jillian’s couple; but he was so brotherly and natural it was impossible to feel awkward for long. Jillian relayed the terrifying trip down the slope for Ralf and Len’s edification, but it backfired on her; for Ralf promptly launched into a lecture on the dangers of being on a slope of that degree without adequate skills—in the authoritarian tones of someone who had not been shimmying around a cliff outside the permitted ski area less than two hours earlier.

Len came to Jillian’s rescue, muttering to Ralf, “Who died and made you ski patrol?” But Sevana could see that Ralf’s gruffness was in direct proportion to how much he cared about Jillian, and wondered why she was so slow to see she meant the world to him.

After dinner the three drinkers went to the bar, but cut their time short in deference to the fourth member of their party, who preferred to wander the little shops lining the hardwood hallways of the hotel. Rejoining forces, they watched a movie in their room, for the four of them were sharing one suite to cut down on cost—Ralf, in particular, ever mindful of the money he was spending. Jillian had given up her time zone for the compatibility of the group and stayed up as late as everyone else; but since they were all so tired out by so much outdoor exercise, it really wasn’t much of a concession.