Girl in Ice(3)

I knocked back the rest of my Amaretto and picked up the landline to dial Wyatt halfway around the world at his climate research station on Taararmiut Island, translated “land of shadows,” off Greenland’s northwest coast. Already my palm was slick with sweat as I listened to the odd dud-dud-dud of the international call. If it wasn’t too cloudy, and the antennae hadn’t been ripped away by the near constant fifty-mile-per-hour winds, the satellite call would go through, and there would be simply no going back.





two


I pushed through the doors of my father’s nursing home, wondering how many more Saturday mornings I would spend with him—out of a sense of obligation, an old, warped love, or some fantasy that one day he might actually like me. Or, more practically, how many more Saturday mornings he would be here on earth.

Head down, I signed in on a clipboard at the nursing station counter.

“Hey, Val,” said Carla, the head nurse, sliding the window open and peering out at me. “How’s it going?”

She knew about Andy and was a good person, but I plastered on a fake smile as an answer because I just didn’t feel like sharing for one second how it was actually going. “How’s my dad today?” I asked.

“He’s good,” she said, moving on briskly to business—with relief, it seemed. “Hates the new activity schedule. Then again, he hated the old one, too. Skipped breakfast again.” She glanced over a form she’d been filling out when I walked in, before looking back up at me. “He’s in the lounge.”

“Thanks,” I said, now fully anticipating a dad storm cloud and suddenly glad to be sneaking in a box of caramels, which were his favorite, though forbidden on his diabetic diet.

A rehabbed hotel built in the twenties, the home retained the tang of disinfectant, air barely cooler than the heat-blasted day. Sad zebra fish mouthed dully against the glass of an aquarium as they swam in a fog of their own excrement, exquisite combs fluttering.

As if he’d become part of the furniture, my ninety-one-year-old dad, Dr. Joseph Chesterfield, climate scientist, once a strapping six-foot-four hard charger with a fierce intellect and fiercer temper, the terror of climate research stations around the world, sat motionless, sunk deep in the belly of his favorite wingback chair, knobby knees jutting up higher than its arms, several inches of hairless shin on display between pant cuff and fraying polyester sock. He’d dragged the chair to the window for a view of the outside world, a place I knew he missed desperately.

He was fast asleep. I considered my options. I could catch up on some grading back at the office, Marie Kondo my spice cabinet, ride the stationary bike in my bedroom for precisely three miles—

He opened one aquamarine eye. “You said ten o’clock.”

“I lost track of—”

“It’s ten past eleven,” he stated firmly, with no watch, clock, or phone in sight. I glanced up at the wall clock behind him. Exactly ten past eleven. He hitched himself up to a slightly more organized position, swept back cottony wisps of hair, and gestured to a matching chair. “Sit,” he said. “Contemplate the universe with me.”

My escape plans flying away in sad little thought bubbles, I dutifully lugged the chair toward where he sat in full blazing summer sun.

“So, why aren’t you eating, Dad?” As if I ate like a normal human being anymore, either.

“I don’t eat when I’m not hungry.”

I handed over the caramels. Side-eyeing the staff, he scratched at the cruel cellophane wrapping.

“Hang on, Dad, let me get some scissors or something.”

“Never mind,” he said, gnawing at one end of the box. “I got this.” Inordinately pleased with himself, he tricked open the flap at one end with an eyetooth and tore off a clear strip of plastic. He popped a piece of candy in his mouth, almost reluctantly holding out the box in my direction.

“No, thanks.”

“Watching your figure?” His eyebrows waved, as if he thought this might be a good idea.

“They’re for you, Dad.”

He chewed aggressively, jaw muscles flexing and dancing. “What’s new, kiddo?”

A petite, nearly toothless elderly woman, as tall as he was sitting, and wearing an apron with little yellow ducks on it, walked over and gave him a tennis ball.

“Not now, Marie,” he said, handing the ball back to her, but she thrust it back at him, her face fixed in a fragile smile.

“Maybe just take it, Dad, if it makes her happy,” I said in low tones. Marie had Alzheimer’s but was clearly in love with my dad. Back when her mind was clearer, they’d discussed playing tennis on their respective high school teams. Some part of her mind had hung on to this fact.

“Thanks for the ball, but I’m visiting with my daughter now,” he said loudly, as if her problem were her hearing. He took the ball and wedged it next to his bony hip. Marie nodded eagerly and hurried away. He shook his head, muttered, “Christ, to think of the women who used to follow me around. World-class beauties. Now I’ve got Marie. It all comes to this. Complete and utter shit. Take note, okay? Take note.” He blew his nose into a soggy handkerchief, took me in with watery eyes. “What have you got to say for yourself?”

“I talked to Wyatt last night.”

His eyes widened, then dimmed with pain as he squinted into the sunshine. “Some kind of what…” His voice quavered; he cleared his throat. “New information?”