“What do you mean, no WiFi?”
“I mean, I don’t have it.”
I blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t have it,” he said again, slower this time, punctuating each word. “Never have. I don’t have a need for it.”
“You don’t have a need to be connected to the world?” I asked, but then I shook my head, holding up a hand to stop him before he could come up with some smartass remark. “Whatever. Just let me use your house phone, then.”
“Don’t have one of those, either.”
“What?” I asked, incredulously and maybe a little too excitedly, since Moose let out a bark and started hopping around my feet again.
I was still staring at River with my mouth open like a trout when he chuckled, tipping his beer toward me. “No Internet. No phone.”
I blinked several times. “You have got to be kidding me. How the hell do you survive? Don’t you work? Don’t you need a way to get in touch with people?”
River shrugged. “I work, but I don’t need a phone or Internet to do it. And people know where to find me if they need me.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, letting out a sigh I hoped would give me a little patience to survive this interaction. “Fine,” I gritted through my teeth. “Can you just give me a ride up to Mom and Dad’s, please?”
“No can do.”
This time, I couldn’t help the growl that came from my throat. “You’re so maddening! Just take me home so we can both end this nightmare before Christmas.”
“Trust me, Eliza, I don’t want you here anymore than you want to be here,” he said, his voice low and rumbling so much it shook my own chest. His eyes were hard on mine when he crushed the can in his hand and chucked it into the trashcan next to him. “But there’s a fucking blizzard going on outside, and whether you planned for that or not doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening. I can’t drive anywhere, and neither can you, and neither can your dad, even if you could get in touch with him. That is the reality of the situation.” He threw his hands up. “Sorry if it doesn’t meet your storybook picture you had in mind.” Then, he pushed off the counter and dipped back inside the fridge, mumbling the next sentence so low I almost convinced myself I didn’t hear it at all. “Just like everything else in your life you left behind here.”
The wind howled outside, the wood cabin creaking against the pressure as if to hammer home the point River had just made. And I stood there by the fireplace, obstinate and frustrated, not wanting to take no for an answer.
“So, you’re telling me that I’m stuck here?” I deadpanned, gesturing toward him before I let my hand fall against my thigh with a slap. “With you.”
“Until the snow lets up and it’s safe for either me to drive you, get your car unstuck, or you to walk your happy ass the last dozen miles home?” He cracked open his new beer with a grin that told me he was more pleased than not. “Yep.”
The word popped on his lips, and I shook my head, wondering how this could possibly be my life. I hadn’t seen River since a week after we signed our divorce papers, on the day I left Wellhaven with a vow to never return.
A vow I stupidly broke, all in the name of being home for the holidays.
I sighed, looking down at Moose who was still wagging his tail furiously and smiling up at me like it was the best day of his life.
That makes one of us, pup.
A heavy sigh found my chest as I stared at my reflection in the small, dingy mirror of River’s bathroom.
As I suspected, the only door in the back corner of his cabin had the bathroom behind it, and it was small, but clean — as clean as an old cabin bathroom could get, anyway.
There was no counter space, save for the small edge around the off-yellow ceramic sink, and it held only River’s toothbrush and toothpaste in a little plastic cup. I tried my best to find space for my own toiletries, but ended up setting them on the back of the toilet, since that was the only place they’d fit.
I felt a little more like a functioning human after brushing my teeth and washing my face, changing into a pair of sweatpants and oversized sweater, and pulling on my thickest pair of wool socks. As much as I wanted to pull all my heavy black hair off my neck, I left it there for warmth, seeing as how the fireplace was the only thing warming the entire cabin.
My eyes were just as black as my hair, the brown of the iris so dark you couldn’t tell the difference between it and my pupil unless you really stopped to stare. I was uncharacteristically tan for this time of year, thanks to my time in New Zealand, and it made the cream sweater I wore blaze in contrast.
I hadn’t even been in Vermont for a full day yet, and already I could feel my lips drying out, so I ran a sheen of lip balm over them and rolled them together, taking in my appearance one last time before I abandoned the bathroom and rejoined my gracious host.
River was still in the kitchen, only this time he was holding his beer in one hand and a spatula in the other, browning hamburger meat on the stove.
That sight hit me like a semi-truck, because with just one blink I could see him ten years younger, doing the exact same thing in the first house we rented together as a couple. His eyes were softer then, younger, not as worn by life.
I’d loved that boy.
I’d loved him since I was twelve years old, before I could even truly understand what love was at all. I’d loved him through all the hell we put each other through, the ups and the downs, the other boys and girls we used mostly to make the other mad or jealous before always finding our way back to each other.
He was the one.
He was the one I’d married two months after high school graduation, the one I’d moved in with two months after graduation without a single hesitation or concern that it wasn’t the best decision I could have ever made, and the one I swore I’d spend the rest of my life with — going on adventures, having babies, growing old.
It seemed like another lifetime.
The man who stood before me now was nothing I recognized.
Nothing more than a stranger.
I cleared my throat once I’d shoved my airport clothes in my suitcase, and I held my hands in front of the fireplace, trying to get warm again. Moose had settled into a curled-up ball by the fireplace, too, and his tail wagged gently when I bent down to scratch behind one ear.
“Whatcha making?” I finally asked River after enough awkward silence to last me a year.
“Dinner.”
“Obviously,” I said as he drained the meat, setting it aside. He put the skillet back on the stove then and added a heap of butter, and I salivated a little as it sizzled to life. “But what?”
“Shit on a shingle.”
I let out a low, sarcastic laugh through my nose. “S.O.S. How fitting.” Then, my nose wrinkled of its own accord. “I can’t believe you still eat that stuff.”
River shrugged, adding flour to the skillet. “What, you too good for it now?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You might as well have.” He stirred the ingredients together with more force than necessary. “I didn’t expect company, alright? This is what’s for dinner. You can have some or not. Up to you.”