Decision in the Night

Decision in the Night

The tree-line silhouette stood stark against the horizon; a black ragged slash separating the blue-black of the predawn sky and the phosphorescent expanse of blue-white snow that lay between me and the trees.

I stood, still as the scene before me, testing the air for sounds or smells, sizing up the distance across the field, wondering how deep the snow was once you stepped off the road.  Taking a small step into the low bank left behind by a snow plow (shuffling my feet a bit as I did  - could I still feel my toes?) it was hard to tell if what I felt beneath my tennis shoes was gravel or iced snow.

The cold air burned my nose as I breathed and made my eyes feel gritty when I blinked to clear them. Turning my head, I looked up the road in the direction I had been headed until stopped by the scene at the side of the road.  Only the faint glow from the snow shouldering the roadway, but nothing else. No headlights, tires crunching, engine rumbles – nothing.  Absolute silence.  Absolute aloneness.

Facing the field of snow and tree line again, I tried to calculate how fast I could move in about two feet of snow.  Two feet I could handle, but no more. My muscles tensed of their own accord at the thought, my body doing a quick system check.  It had been a long walk up the mountain from where the car had gone off the road, after all, not to mention climbing through the trees up the ravine.  Unbidden, the flash of the car swerving, the crunch of the roof against my back as the car rolled, the wild whipping of leafless limbs slapping windows, gentle swaying as the car teetered on its side over the rushing river below…

The skin of my face tightened and tingling flushed in a mad rush across my skin. Clenching my fists in torn mittens, palms aching, I blinked several times very hard to stop the mental footage of that particular film.

How long had I been standing here? 

I turned back to the field, realizing in a distracted way what I was considering – running across the field into the trees never to return.  I wasn’t thinking about crossing the field and then through the trees into a storybook life.  This would be a dash for peace; sitting against the perfect tree, held safe within the snow and watched over by the stars until I drifted off to sleep forever.  That was the lure of the trees.  Peace and nothing else.

I was shaking and not just from the cold night.  Cold from fear.  Not of dying, but of not dying.  If I did this thing and failed, what would be the consequences? 

They had stumbled into the parking lot, forced out by the bar closing, arguing as always.  Words so slurred I couldn’t make them out, but clear in intent. In an odd way it was always a relief to see them at this point; it meant that while I was closer to the worst part, I was also closer to it being over.

I had been in the car since about six pm, waiting while they made a “quick stop”.  I had known a “quick stop” was coming – it always did – but I had hoped it would be much later and further down the road when they wouldn’t have as much time to drink (and me as much time to wait).  I should have known better; Christmas always ended badly.  This time had been no different. 

The car rocked as my stepfather Earl slammed the passenger door open, slinging my mother into the car so hard her head hit the steering wheel.  I heard her muffled sob but remained huddled down in the back seat feigning sleep. Cowardice is a bitter companion no matter how old you and while I often fantasized about saving her from another bout of abuse, the reality was it would make no difference.  Earl was just one of many and the world – I had learned at a very early age – was full of abusers.

The car backed out of the parking lot, spewing frosted clouds of gravel and exhaust.  On the road their fight started in earnest; faint slaps echoed by dull thuds of a closed fist, swerving and swaying on the mountain blacktop every time he took a swing at my mother or I. Heedless of the snow and ice on the road, heedless of his own safety, heedless of everything but the anger he was releasing. 
Heedless of the curve until we were air born…

Blinking hard.  Focus.  Peace … or life.

I looked up the road again in the direction they had walked, straining for a sign.  In my mind or on the air – I wasn’t sure – I heard the faint but ugly sound of fist meeting flesh.

Decision made, I turned back to the tree line poised to run.  For my life, for peace.

And it hit me – harder than Earl ever had.  The field of snow, now pristine and unbroken, would tell of my flight – if not now, then in the morning when the sun lit the ragged path my eight year old legs would cut through the snow.  The few hours until daylight wouldn’t be enough for hypothermia to set me free.  I needed longer. 

And when found?  My mind could not even visit the dark aftermath for that minute of failure.

My childish plan was tainted now by adult reality. Even here, even now, denied.

Too tired to feel cheated and long past the point of tears, I turned from the field and trees with their hollow promise, back onto the roadway; dirty pink sneakers sodden from the snow banks, mittens sodden with blood and ice, and a heart sodden with defeat.