Nora
The cabin smells of roasting turkey, boiling corn, and baking bread. Holden shoots me a shy glance over his shoulder as he sugars the water for the corn. It is too early for dinner food. The sky outside is gray and the cabin feels chilly, despite the woodstove going.
“What is all this?” I ask. I’m hit with a wave of nausea. I bring a hand to my belly. I need to lie down, I think.
“Then you should,” Holden says. I whip around to face him. I didn’t realize I said anything out loud. Wiping hair from my forehead, I lean back against the wall and try to center myself. I start retching. Long, painful minutes later, nothing is left in my stomach. Even so, I’m still racked by dry heaves. Holden folds me into his arms.
“Do you have a fever?”
“No. It doesn’t feel like a cold,” I tell him.
He lays me down in the bedroom. Lotte brings me a glass of water. I use the time to write letters to Aubry. I burn them in the gas lamp flame when I am done. Some things are meant just for me. It is an hour or more until I feel better. I stand and stretch. In the mirror, I catch a glimpse of myself. I look away before it can sink in.
“Hello,” I say from the living room. Holden and Lotte turn simultaneously.
“How’re you feeling,” he asks.
“Better.”
“Good enough for a meal?” Lotte asks.
I grin. “What is all this?”
“Thanksgiving,” Holden answers.
I clap my hands together. “How could I have forgotten?” Lotte grins at me. A real smile. “Lotte, let’s make the table look pretty.” I hold my hand out to her. She takes it. “Holden, give me a few minutes.”
He nods as I lead Lotte out the door.
We collect red berries and twigs and fashion them into a wreath that will fit around the base of the gas lamp on the table. When it looks right, Lotte and I head back to the cabin. It smells divine inside. Holden has a big fat grin on his face. He has set the table and put out all the fixings for a delectable meal. I let Lotte present our wreath. Holden tells us he is grateful for us, his family.
My heart melts at his words.
“May I have my cell phone? I want to take a picture of us.”
Holden nods and leaves to retrieve my phone. I power it on and wait for it to boot up. When I have the camera open, I call Lotte over. The three of us pose together at the bountiful table. Smiling faces light up the screen, as I snap pictures of our holiday. I flip through the pictures quickly and smile. They are perfect. I power off my phone and hand it back to Holden. There is no telling how long the battery might last, if I keep it on too long.
Later, we lie in bed. Me staring at the ceiling, Holden resting his head on my belly.
“I am pregnant.” I wait with bated breath for his reaction. A baby means a doctor and more food and supplies for the winter.
“I figured,” he says, a slight smile on his face.
“Are you happy?” I ask. I am surprised when Holden only kisses me goodnight and turns off the light. No lecture. No punishment. No pleasure. Maybe this baby will be good for us. He holds me close to him all night long.
I wake with his arm heavy across my waist. I turn my body and kiss his neck. A contented groan escapes him as he wakes. “Good morning, mama.”
I smile. “Mama?”
His hand moves over my belly. “You’re having my baby, aren’t you?”
I nod, my grin widening. “I am.” He scooches down the bed and holds my flat belly between his hands.
“Good morning, little one. I promise to be a good father to you.” His lips kiss my navel and I laugh. I am full of love. A family. I am going to have a real family. I will be a great mother.
Holden rubs my feet at night. He dotes on me and there is no cutting. Only pleasure. His perpetual jolly mood causes us all to be in a constant state of euphoria. Lotte is lively and happy, I am always smiling and Holden is nothing but a romantic gentleman. He talks to our baby every day. He brushes my hair and braids it, while whispering sweet murmurs in the morning about my beauty.
I don’t want this to end. He is everything. He is love and flowers and passion. We make love in the middle of the night, slow and gentle. I am proud to be carrying his child and I am over the moon to shower it with love when it arrives. Lotte will be a big sister of sorts and even she has warmed up to the idea. She has been drawing pictures for the baby to hang near the bassinet that Holden is building.
I rest my hand on my belly and feel serene.
When I wake up in the middle of the night two weeks later, stickiness running down my thighs, the coppery smell of blood in the air, I already know my baby is gone. That day I only get out of bed to change the bedding. Holden is disgusted and does not talk to or look at me. Lotte curls up in bed with me and says sweet things in my ear until she is called away. I am vacant. Literally and metaphorically. What is left for me, now that I have disappointed Holden so greatly?
The next night, his lovemaking is rough. I do not comment on the tears in his eyes that I glimpse before he collapses on top of me. In the morning, he gets up early. I examine the hand-shaped bruises around my upper arms and wrists before stripping the bloody sheets off the bed.
I am cleaning the bedroom, when my hand punches something sharp and metal deep under the bed. I press my chest to the floor and peer under the bed. I pull out a box. I check the door but Holden hasn’t come in yet. I do not feel myself lately. I cry and mourn the loss of my baby. I clean the cabin like a maniac to keep busy. To not think. Holden does not make love to me. He does not cut me. He too is mourning. Lifting the lid, I gasp when the contents can be seen. My letters to Aubry are neatly stacked next to letters from Aubry to me. A cry leaves me. My license. My cell phone and the charm from Ang all sit in the box. My mind fractures. Little splinters of my life before stab me. I am Nora. I slam the lid of the box closed and slide it back under the bed. Standing, I wipe my hands on the front of my dress. The mirror on the dresser is waiting—calling to me. I have not looked at myself in weeks. There’s a ghost that wears my face. I reach out and touch the clouded mirror. Is this Nora? A shiver runs down to my bones. A buzz in my brain. A feeling that I am the only one to blame. I want to take this face off, it does not fit the person inside. It is not me. I am someone else. Or she is someone else. I can’t be sure. Days roll on. Dusk to dawn. There’s a silence deep down in my soul.
I step out into the cold morning air. The sun is just sending coral streaks across the sky. Winter creeps down from the mountains quickly, quietly closing an icy fist around us. Within weeks, days even, the forest would be white and frozen, and I will be cut off from any chance of escape. Escape. The very word makes me laugh. There is no escaping. The house, shut up for winter, is chilly and dark. Before it was just a cabin, now it seems to be a living thing, this cabin, this prison, and I feel its spirits plummet as it fills with his voice and the clattering of snow boots across its pine floorboards. I am depressed, I think. I mourn the loss of our baby. I mourn my old life. I just . . . mourn.
Holden is back.
“How is my lovely Nora?” he greets. I can’t react. I want Aubry. I want home. I want the creature comforts the modern world affords. I am falling slowly into a dark bottomless sadness. Moods take me. Warring emotions erase all traces of who I am. I have nothing left of my life. I do not answer. Sometimes I do not speak for days. Lotte hates those days. She does everything she can to make me speak or smile but there is nothing inside me to give. I lost our baby. My reality is bleak. What can I do?
“Nora, you’ve got to snap out of it.” Holden pushes his hair behind his ears. I stare vacantly ahead. Even his brutally handsome face cannot wake my senses.
“Let’s make another baby,” he says. My eyes snap up to his.
“You want that?”
“I want a family with you. Let me feed my demons to bring you back to me.”
I am hopeful at his words. “If I am pregnant, you can’t cut me.”
He nods. “I know. It is a sacrifice I am willing to make.” I am only ever his. He has changed since the beginning. He takes care of me now. When I am black, he lets me be. When I am tired, he helps me to bed. When I am happy, he rejoices with me.
I look at him. “Cut me, Holden.”
I hold him tight, like a child, against my chest. Our love breaks all the rules. Love with a glimmer of hate present. An end to romance. Two broken fools. But in these darkest moments, I still think that we are meant to be. He stares hard at me, as if he’s looking into my soul.
“What happens when you finish? What happens to me then?” I ask, as we lay in bed together, spent. My back is only so big. One day he will run out of space.
Holden seems to chew his words before saying it out loud. “I don’t know. I’ve never finished.” His words provide me no comfort. No reassurance. They do nothing to calm my racing mind.
“Holden, you can’t put me out there.”
“Out where?”
“With the others. At the rock. You can’t ever put me out there.” Irrational terror courses through me. Holden rolls on top of me.
“How do you know about the rock?” He grips my face hard. Too hard. There will be marks tomorrow.
“I was exploring, with Lotte. And . . .” my voice gives out. He shakes me. “And what, Nora?”
“I can’t be left there alone.” I don’t know if there is something in my eyes that speaks to Holden or not but he releases my face and kisses my forehead.
“You will never end up there. I can promise you that. You are too special.”
I breathe a sigh of relief.
The days are darker. Longer. Everyone has cabin fever. Holden’s moods are more mercurial. I think winter does not suit him. He is testy, for reasons I can’t fathom. After dinner, Lotte is sent to bed early and I am only allowed to read to her for a short period.
“I am sorry,” Lotte says.
“It’s okay, bug. It isn’t your fault.” Lately, Holden needs to cut more often. There is more darkness in his soul to expel.
Lotte sighs. “I know that. But, I’m still sorry. I don’t want you to hurt.”
“It doesn’t hurt that much and you are so good at making it feel better in the morning. Now,” I say and kiss her forehead, “sleep tight.”
Holden waits for me. He does not look pleased. I haven’t gotten pregnant since before. It is a shame I carry and a disgrace Holden does not like.
“Tell me who owns you, Nora?” His muscles bunch tensely as fury tightens his face. He narrows his eyes. Holden remains still, and doesn’t speak, but even so, I can sense the violence he is holding back. His cock stirs, pressing against his fly—pushing it outward, toward me. I put a finger to my lips and usher him into our bedroom. I do not like Lotte listening. When the door is shut, I face him.
“No one.” Immediately, I wish I could swallow every last syllable that left my mouth. He shakes with fury. The tense set of his jaw makes my stomach flip.
“I meant no one owns me. I belong to you. Willingly.” My back peddling only angers him more when he is this needy. I have made a mistake.
“Nora, now.” He points to the floor at his feet. I follow the direction, as if he has me on a leash. His hands move down my back as I kneel. He slides them inside the waistline of my skirt, until he is clutching my buttocks. I grin. He will not be gentle tonight. It is exactly what I need.