Page 25 of Snow Creek

Regina peeled back her thoughts two years, to the last time she left the farm in the woods for town. She remembered how she felt. Alone. Strange. Different. She walked the streets of Port Townsend in a daze. It was as though she’d never been there. An alien. Everything and everywhere was so loud. So irritating. She wondered why she needed to be party to a stranger’s phone call as a young man passed by yacking about some woman he’d “boned” the night before, bragging that he’d already ghosted the “skank.” It made Regina grimace. A mother whisper-yelled into her phone about her child’s latest tantrum and how she was at her wits’ end and wished she’d adopted a Korean baby instead of a Russian one. A man in his seventies stopped in front of a girl, not more than twenty, selling seascape paintings and proceeded to tell her in no uncertain terms that the colors she had selected clashed.

“I don’t know if you’re going for realism or kitsch, but either way, you’re way off,” he said.

It was missing the mark. Unnecessary. Everyone seemed to trample over each other’s privacy as if they’d been invited to do so. Amy would hate the way it was out there. She really would. Regina knew that was truer than anything she could measure as she gathered supplies. She hoped that it would be another two years before she needed to make the trip to PT.

She ordered a mocha with whipped cream, and an avocado and cream cheese sandwich from a downtown deli. With each sip of the mocha, each bite of the sandwich, she vowed it was the last she’d have from another’s hand. She and Amy were self-sufficient. More so every day. They had a robust vegetable garden. A flock of chickens for eggs and meat. Goats provided milk, cheese and meat. They even grew their own wheat in a field behind the barn. Before she closed the trunk, she surveyed the results of her shopping trip, things that she and her wife couldn’t raise or grow but needed.

The list was quite small, yet in its own way, crucial—olive oil, cornmeal, tissue paper, some plastic piping, and a box of activated charcoal.

Satisfied, she snapped the trunk shut.

Regina started the car and turned on the radio. Seattle news filled her ears, and its droning newscaster made her resolve to leave the world behind even stronger. She pressed the pedal with the ball of her foot and watched Port Townsend’s pretty Victorian homes—painted ladies of every conceivable hue—and the façades of its quaint brick and stone downtown buildings fade from the rearview mirror.

Regina caught her own image just then. She cocked her head. She looked good. Tan, fit. Her eyebrows could use some shaping, though Amy didn’t complain about them, so why should she worry? Even her dead eye didn’t eat away at her sliding vanity. It was devoid of any expression, but so what? Her other eye was full of life. Full of hope. Wonderment, even.

You only need one eye to see the world clearly. To see what matters most.

Regina Torrance never felt better in her entire life.

She rolled down the window and allowed the soft sea-scented breeze flow over her face.

Life was so good.

No more drama.

Regina crawled under the covers. Amy was asleep. It passed through her mind that something was physically wrong with Amy, but she didn’t let the thought take root. It was too much for her. She’d done everything she could to help her recover from whatever it was that had been ailing her. For a time, she thought things were getting better. She prayed on it. She whispered in Amy’s ear that there was nothing that could keep them apart, not sickness. Not anything worse.

We belong together.

Amy murmured and stirred.

Regina whispered some more.

“I want to make love with you. My tongue misses you. Wants to taste you. Make you writhe like it’s the first time we’ve ever loved each other.”

There was no response for the longest time. Finally, Amy shook her head.

“I’m sorry. I love you. I don’t feel like that right now. Kiss me. Hold me. Touch me. I’m not ready for anything more.”

Regina leaned over and kissed Amy’s cheek. Every night had been like that for a very long time. Regina told herself that it didn’t matter, that loving Amy any way she preferred was good and if there was a barrier at the moment, in time they’d cross it. Real love prevails. The world survived only because of that singular truth.

The morning after staying in the barn, Regina went about her regimented routine. The only deviation were the thoughts in her head. She wondered if she’d done the right thing. If she’d have to pay for her deeds or if Amy would be made to pay. She patted her favorite goat.

“We’re safe, right?”

The goat looked at her with her devil-like eyes.

“That’s enough out of you,” she said.

She finished in the barn, collected the eggs from the coop and walked over to the firepit to examine the ashes for the umpteenth time.

It was clean.

We’re safe. We’re all safe.

Eleven

It was no real surprise when Jerry called me from the coroner’s office. He’d received the preliminary reports from the pathologist.

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