“Get up already, it’s late…” she mumbled into the neighboring mass, then covered her head with the patchwork quilt.

She could feel the slim landscape of bone and muscle of the man who somehow took up most space every night. She nudged again with her toes, contacting on a thigh. Nothing. Eyes opened, she reached out and felt for the light growth of beard, the heated skin of slumber. His feather pillow surrendered to her touch. Marnie sat bolt upright and rubbed her dry eyes, looked again. Not a body in the spot it should be. A haphazard gathering of two firm pillows took his place instead, the ones they didn’t like but kept on hand for propping if they read.

So Chris had left already, early for once. She always said it was late right after the alarm went off, it helped motivate him. Marnie glanced at the extra pillows and a tiny fear snaked along her spine. Maybe he had left earlier and didn’t want her to know at first. She got up, fumbled with her robe and padded downstairs–no coffee fragrance enriched the crisp air.

The quietness was the same if quieter since it didn’t hold his presence. But she persisted, checking living and dining rooms, bathroom and a guest room. She scanned the laundry room she had wanted upstairs but he’d said to keep downstairs so she lugged overflowing baskets up and down every time. She knew it was foolish but she ran back upstairs, peered in the updated huge bathroom–there was no white (always white) towel tossed over the edge of the oval tub–and the pleasant second bedroom that one or the other of them used when at times if nights were marred by sleeplessness. She admired the “bluets in a meadow” strewn over the coverlet, tapping her nails on the door frame. She needed a new dust ruffle, maybe to match the flowers.

“Think,” she muttered, “and remember: did he have a dental appointment? Is he working overtime at the forestry office and I forgot–or maybe there’s a special meeting? Was he going to meet up with the guys for breakfast despite it being Monday, not Saturday?” She gave this thought and shook her head–not likely any of those.

Back in their bedroom, she stripped off pajamas, picked fresh underwear, grabbed her robe and entered the bathroom that was finished four months ago. She stepped into the luxuriant shower with double shower heads. The white subway tiled walls might have been watercolor blue with dove grey accents in an elegant pattern, not this stark area that blinked at her each morning, threatening to trigger a headache from light reflection. But Chris only thought of resale value every step of the renovation they’d begun a year ago. Plus, he preferred white over any color. She huffed as suds covered her face. He was definitely not a guy to wear bright or soft hues; not a man who’d tolerate daisies on an accent wall of the guest bathroom; not even one to complement her on a silky coral shawl she wore with a standard black dress for their eighth anniversary last summer–he liked the clean simplicity of it, the sharp silhouette, why distract from that? He liked to admire her, not see the clothes. He’d grinned and she had relented.

Marnie looked at the soap-on-a-rope he used, brought it to her nose: spice and smoke was how she thought of it. It suited Chris. Basic maleness with hints of danger glimpsed when it seeped through his usual calmness. She knew things others did not: angry flash from nowhere, a growing craving for sex, how he took chances when driving in the country, ones no one should–you never know what might show up on those roads, person or beast. But most of the time Chris was the man she married, caring, she thought, a dedicated worker who supervised seven others and ripped out kitchen counters–the one counted on in any crisis, for sure. He was careful and neat. He folded his socks in such a way that when she looked into the drawer they looked like little white boxes nicely aligned. It made her think of the small rectangular bank check boxes she’d buried dead parakeets in as a child, settling each in the dirt with a pat, then forgetting it until the next burial.

The shower’s temperature was turned up so steaming, rainy rivulets coursed over her chest, back, legs. She closed her eyes, imagined waterfalls in faraway places, bright birds and swaying palms. Or desert cacti and sand, shocking blooms. What she wouldn’t give for a holiday far from this town in such distant north woods. She switched the water to cool before getting out, rubbed down reddened skin, careful of more tender areas.

After she checked smoldering remains of burnt logs in the wood stove–Chris usually did this first thing– and made instant oatmeal breakfast, Marnie checked her phone messages for the second time, but still none from him. She put on her warm jacket and boots, looked outside, front and back, checked for his car because he could be lingering in the garage, maybe checking the oil–couldn’t he? But he wasn’t and crows fled overhead, broadcasting commands,and startled her. The sky weighed down on dirty snow and leafless treetops, still held a darkness, and it was eight-thirty already. Was it to be more and more snow again, plunging temperatures after they’d just had the saving sunshine? The bitter cold could make her cry sometimes, she was so tired of it.

Back inside, the coffee maker delivered coffee into her mug with sunflowers on it; she drank it black for once, hoping to wake up faster. Her head felt as if someone had drawn curtains over her analytical mind, the one she valued most and enabled her to teach mathematics at a community college three nights a week. It was her emotional mind trying to get a grip on her, but she was stuck between, wavering, at odds with facts, uneasy with implications, sharply aware of his presence despite his being elsewhere.

Her cell phone rang. Dana.

“Got some time today? I’d love a huge cobb salad at Grace’s, what d’ya say?”

“I don’t think I can, Dana, not today.”

“Working on a teaching plan? Come on.”

“No, I… don’t feel that great, not good enough to go out for lunch.”

“What is it?”

“Just an off morning. I’ll call you tomorrow after I get more rest, okay?”

Silence fell between them; Marnie could hear Dana’s little black terrier skittering around.

Dana released a short sigh. “I see, okay then. You’re usually too busy or something, Mar. Call me if there’s anything I can do. Or when you are up to it!”

Marnie could hear her breathing heavily, as she tended to do, but imagined her friend’s thin lips clasped into a line. She liked Dana partly because she knew just when to say less, not more. No questions meant no lies forthcoming.

Take me to Las Vegas with you next week-end, that’d be helpful! Marnie thought and pressed fingertips to temples. But Dana had a husband, too, and they went places like that.

They hung up, and for a minute Marnie wanted that lunch, just an hour out of the claustrophobic house. But it passed.

She knew she could call his work but she puttered. Got the feather duster and knocked the dust off every last surface. Washed a load of laundry, then another. Snacked on dried, spiced mango slices until she felt a bit sick. Wrote a grocery list: cheese, crackers, creamer, pork roast, carrots, cheese. Crossed off the second cheese, looked at the items, wadded up the paper and started over. Who cared…? Eye wandering, she picked up a book Chris was reading on wildlife management programs in the UK. Saw his well-worn hiking boots at the back door, so she cleaned them up and rubbed in mink oil.

Before she knew it, noon arrived. Marnie called his office.

“Oh, hello, Dennis! Isn’t Chris at his desk–or is he at lunch?” Likely only their forestry office had a landline, Chris had said, a weird throwback to the good ole days, they all kind of liked that, black phone with clunky handset on his desk and at times the guys called him on it with their cells. Like she was, a habit.

“Hey there Marnie. I’m not sure, he left a bit ago, didn’t say where he was going, probably the Rooster…ya wanta leave a message?” He wheezed a little; Dennis was not in great health–so many Camel cigarettes– but still a hard worker. He apologized as he coughed. “Dang cold.”

Marnie didn’t answer a moment. So he had gone to work, that much was certain. Of course. She thought of going to the Rooster to see if he was there, why he’d left like that in a hurry, and said nothing more. She wondered if he was in a booth, that one they liked with the best window view, or if it was jam-packed and he was at the counter shoveling food in as he thought about more work.

“Marnie, you there, girl?” There was a tapping of a pencil or pen on wood.

She noted how quiet it just got in the office, as if everyone had suddenly left. Or someone important had walked in.

“Sorry, Dennis, just thinking. No, that’s fine, I’ll try his cell. Thanks.”

But she didn’t try his cell. She got a glass of red wine and sat on the couch, listening to the radio Chris had saved from items unsold after the estate sale for his father. Gus had unexpectedly died last year. She liked the radio, too, and missed Gus. More than he did, perhaps; they weren’t real close then, but she’d become fond of the irascible man.

Then she thought how men in their fifties or later still called women “girls”, like Dennis had, yet wasn’t sure if she hated it or found it irrelevant. But it bothered her right then. She was his boss’ wife, but also she was a professor and none of them seemed to appreciate that. Even if she did teach online now. St. Ignace was so far from contemporary ideas and changes that she felt it wedged between times. Most just hung on to what they knew.

Wind rattled a loose shutter they’d fixed properly. She saw flurries sweeping past the windows, white feathery bits propelled into layered greyness, like feathers into dirty wool. She brought a heavy afghan up to her chin, closed her eyes, thought and tried not to think.

******

The snowstorm had shown its fierce intentions so that white flakes were now swirling, zigzagging, entering the mad mass of snow. A good hour or more had passed. Marnie shook herself awake, got up to put wood in the wood stove and rekindle a gasping fire. Her nose was getting cold.

They’d been there almost four years. No, Chris had been raised in St. Ignace then went to university, then got work in Minnesota where they eventually met at a climatology conference. He did well in the Forest Service there yet wanted to return to his roots and she, faithful, followed. And it was just go with it or teach math with no husband. She worked at liking it as much as he did, but found it trying. She was from Minneapolis-St, Paul. Her life left behind so easily had come to feel a million miles from St. Ignace, a world like a dream. But they loved each other, right?–that was the crux of it.

His black fleece was slung over the rocker and seeing it jarred her back to the moment. Hovering before pungent, radiant heat of the stove, she still felt chilly so pulled on the fleece, inhaled the fabric’s scent–spice and smoke and wood, just as it smelled all the time around him. She suspected roots would soon grow from his feet; he’d fit right in, even with those.

The allure was simple: being opposites. She with her love of pretty things, fascination with equations and adoration of jazz. Her outgoing impulses tempered by deep pondering. His devotion to the land and its needs and demands, curiosity about almost only earth sciences and wildlife, and that great desire for action, physical risk. Their shared love of nature kept them mutually interested, and the physical attraction which still took them by surprise.

The snow hit the windows with such force it was as if it begged to get in. She knew about winter from childhood and youth but never had intended on living again where it dominated. To her geography was personal, each individual drawn to a place that spoke to him or her. She’d hoped to move to Nevada or New Mexico or maybe northern California. Chris got the better job deals; they weren’t there, that was that.

Time ticked by. He didn’t call her. She made a sandwich, made more coffee. The winter storm warning was in full effect according to her charging phone–in case power went out– and she knew Chris might come home early, he might come late or check in from his friend’s outside of town where he’d remain– due to the roads, he’d say. This had happened many times.

She zipped herself into his thick fleece and got a book she kept trying to read because it should be good: Mathematics and Wisdom of the Ages. Instead, she skimmed it, put it down as usual. Wisdom was something she sorely coveted but hadn’t found there.

Marnie sank deeper into the plaid second-hand couch, legs and feet curled under her, and watched snow act alive as it tumbled and fell, lifted and gathered and draped everything in formidable whiteness. Its stark beauty– a tyranny.

Chris would stop at the store and get dinner for them if he could; he’d buy more coffee. He’d hang up his parka and take off his boots in the mud room and come find her. He’d have chafed apple red cheeks and his reddish hair would stick up all over when he pulled off the wool cap. He’d ask what she was up to, “no good and five feet six and a half?” Bury his chapped lips in her warm neck, breathe in deeply, and they’d forget dinner for awhile.

As the darkness crept into the house and the fire burned lower, Marnie didn’t turn on the lights. She sat and remembered. How it had been, how they had engulfed each other at first, how they had grown up some, weathered trials. How they had lost her mother and his father too young and just held each other like never before. How they’d found the simple country house, made it so much better. Planted a garden each spring. Danced to country songs at the Eagles Lodge. Watched astounding sunrises and sunsets over Lake Michigan, Lake Huron. Camped under the star-pierced night.

She knew in her bones much more than all that.

He wasn’t coming back.

She faced reality after the relentless wondering: he was done with her ingrained city ways, her longing for other places and things besides the wilds of the Upper Peninsula and its insular world; and her desire for less sex and not wilder like he preferred, and her want of much less silence between them when she was wasting away from a strange kind of hunger —she was starving for ideas talk, music talk, college teaching talk. Getting lost in a crowd if she wanted to And having choices.

They had fought in great spurts the past year. They had said too many wrong words. And had forgotten to forgive, and forgotten how to find and stick with those intersecting points that had guided them for so long.

He had left under the shield of night.Left her with a foolish facsimile of a man in her bed. He had left her with nothing good to eat in a raging snowstorm. He had left her with simmering self loathing: he had a job to do so he was doing it, and she had a job to do–get herself together. He might have left with heart torn and bruised but sure not bleeding out, as it was back to his buddies, to the woods, to those who always knew him inside and out–while hers was slowly cramming and crushing her insides so she could barely breathe. He left her behind as if she was a wounded creature that was not likely to be useful again, not enough for all he needed. Best to let nature run its course then. Best to cut his losses, as he was fond of saying when it came to the business of forest management. When it came to shooting the hit deer on the dark road.

Marnie shuddered, afraid.

Then, slowly, relieved.

The snow drifted, the house held firm in the manic, deep darkness of the storm–it held with its creaks and moans, circled about her. She loved the house most. Her fire sputtered and failed so Marnie got up and put more split wood in and tended it by herself as she had more often done. She appreciated this wood stove, its being central to home, the hearth that had drawn them close so long at end of day. She did know well how to start necessary fires and take care of them, keep them going to keep herself alive.

Chris was truly and finally not ever coming back to her, just as he had said last night as she fell into exhausted sleep from the laborious efforts of hearing and speaking such things…of feeling the long-tangled web of joys and sorrows tear apart.

And there were even now the imprints of his hands on her skin, and they always left every fiber aching, flesh stung, her spirit adrift, alone. He believed he loved her but then could not, or not enough, nor in the ways he should–safely, fully, easily. Their promises finally failed them and so he was done. Before worse happened. She ought to be grateful. She ought to feel released from the growing cage of their marriage but felt herself turn and twist about, panicked.

And then it passed as the minutes went by. She had all night to get used to this redirecting of her life.

In the morning, she would find her way to leave, too, and move toward a good destination. To turn her back on the home they’d made of a rundown house would test her resolve. But now nothing was the same. She wanted to find a place where she would not have to cover shame and hide truth. Where she’d be free to tile a wall or wear a dress in any color, work at a better job and be proud of her work. Somewhere out there were red rocks, desert light and shadow, desert flowers and wide, clear horizons. Another way to tabulate her passion for mysterious numbers and ideas, vivid design and music. And less a conundrum of love, more a shared life that might well shelter two.