Plantsicles

I've killed the plants. It is all your fault. They look strange when I walk inside, like they were made of styrofoam. I pull the driftwood-handled door shut behind me, but the sticky-back seal that you used to fix the crack is starting to slip. Cold air whistles in through the slit where the door doesn't match up with the frame. It is the same temperature in the cabin as it is outside.

My breath hangs in the air so I pretend to smoke. Then I wish for a cigarette. Then I wish for you. You always have what I need. 

I crouch down to light the wood stove. Your dog sneaks around and licks my face. He always does this when I am trying to light a fire, like he's more important than warmth. He rolls over on his back and spreads his legs wide open. This looks like an invitation to rub his junk. You'd say it has nothing to do with that. But it's between the two of us now, and I say he's a pervert. A cute pervert though. I scratch his belly.

My fingers are stiff and slow. I am good enough at fire building by now to only use one match and a very small amount of newspaper. I am afraid of the chainsaw, but even so, have bucked four cords of rounds. I have split them with the axe I borrowed from my dad. It all makes me feel very rugged, although I am an imposter in the homesteading world. I live out here, sure, but everything I do is in town. My friends are in town, my family is in town. My life is in town. I spent last night there, crashing at my parents' after a bender at the bar. This is why the plants are dead. You weren't here to make me want to come home.

I do not have electric heat. This is all part of the dream, our dream: minimizing our carbon footprint, returning to the land, saving the world by getting away from it all. Or maybe that was just my idea, and you would prefer to play savior by rolling up your sleeves and muddying your hands in the muck of humanity. This is nobler than me.

The fire is crackling but the cabin won't be warm for an hour. Your dog pants twice, then closes his mouth with a slight smacking sound. "Are you thirsty?" I say, and scratch behind his ears. His bowl is a smooth circle of ice. The water jugs are solid too. "Damnit," I say. I make a mental list of things I need to thaw out.

The glue is frozen. And the antibacterial wipes that you bought to keep us clean. The dirty dishes are now a big chunk of dishtub-shaped ice with plates and pans sticking out at odd angles. I pick the whole thing up by a fork stuck into a cup. I put it back down and open the fridge. Everything in it is freezer-burnt. Worthless machine. I consider throwing the whole thing out, reducing my life to dry goods and candlelight. But I can't. Not yet. Who would I be without my computer, my cell phone, my alarm clock that keeps me on time?

I throw another log on the fire.

 "Okay, son. Woodshed time." Your dog looks at me and cocks his head to the side. He wants to understand so bad. If he were a human, he would be a philosophy major. He would be a heartbreaker. I put on my gloves. This is his cue. He jumps straight up in the air, tries to bite my hands, then wiggles and whines in that anxious way that he does.

We don't take the usual path to the woodshed. We circle all the way around the cabin and the trees. This way he can sniff out any baddies and he can pee on stuff to mark what's ours. This way, I can check on the squirrel trap. Those cheeky bastards have been getting in somewhere between the roof and the ceiling, chewing on the insulation to make a little nest. I hear them when I lie awake in the loft at night, nibbling on their spruce cones, their home just a few feet from my face.

The trap is empty. It is a clear night, but for a patch of clouds low in the northeastern sky. The northern lights are there, behind the clouds. You would think it was light pollution. But I know there's no town over there. It is orangeish and hazy. And then suddenly, and only for a few moments, the northern lights betray their anthropogenic guise. They morph into green and then leap to a different part of the sky where it is clear and starry. I laugh out loud because they are that fantastic.

They snake back behind the cloud and eventually disappear altogether. I wish you had been here. Maybe they could have convinced you to stay. Or maybe they would have made this all seem even more like a dream, like a virtual reality, or a really mellow videogame, as you called it on the drive up to the airport. The hoar that morning coated each branch in a thick, antler-like frost. That and the sunrise over the Chugach, as we drove over the pass in our seat-heatered car, did make this place seem fake. It was all too wintery-wonderland, too scenic to be real, too Jack London kitsch.

But my boogers are freezing and in a way, I guess, I am glad you are not here. The northern lights aren't that great tonight.

It is so cold that even your dog can't wait to get inside. "I guess it's dinner time," I say. "Do you like chicken noodle soup?" He yawns and I roll my eyes, "I know." The two-gallon pot on the stove is half-full of chunky chickeny ice. I made this preposterous amount last week in an attempt at wholesomeness and as an experiment in bulk-food buying. It has warmed to a slushy soup around the edges. I ladle some out and pour it over the dry dog food.

The room is finally warm enough to take off my down jacket. I hang it up in the best spot, the hook that's above the fire, where it'll get warmed for the next time I wear it. You used to hang your coat here, but now this spot is mine. I've put your coats and boots in a drawer that I wasn't using for anything else.

I look at the plants. Water collects on the underside of their leaves. I touch one and it breaks off. Plantsicles. That is what I've made. My chest and my throat contract in an attempt to cry. But I don't let the sounds escape my face. Don't cry over frozen plants, I think.

Your dog is licking his bowl around the room. He makes me laugh, which deceives my defenses, turns into a hiccup and then I really do start to cry. I quick, turn on some music so I don't have to hear my pathetic lament. But still, as I've trained myself to do, I sob silently, all that emotion welling up in my throat and spilling out from my eyes. I look in the mirror. It is an old trick to get me to stop. My mouth is contorted in such a horrible grimace that I smile at my ugliness, which looks even more absurd. I touch a cold, brittle leaf, so lifeless and insignificant. This is not about the plants, I think.

You dog jumps up and scratches me on the chest. His bowl is clean and wedged behind the refrigerator.

"Good boy!" I say. "Do you deserve a treat?" He doesn't have a tail, so he wags his whole body and grins like a maniac.

It is midnight and I'm still awake because when it's dark most of the day, there is no difference in the time of night. Besides, the loft has warmed up enough to do yoga comfortably half-naked.

In downward dog I fart, and it smells exactly like chicken noodle soup and I wish you were here so I wouldn't be the only one to crack up. I wish you were here so we could be finished with that soup. I decide to make a list of reasons why I wish you were here. I think maybe, if I send them to you, you will quit your job and your family and your friends and you will move back up to Alaska to be with just your dog and me and the dream.

I write:

Why I Need You Back

1. My farts smell like chicken noodle soup

2. You're a man and men love to chainsaw

3. I can't remember exactly what it was you said about the relativity of time as it pertains to the drive home from town, but I feel like it was somehow very important

4. I've killed the plants

5. Your dog is starting to think that he's my boyfriend

6. I am reading the Bible, like you recommended, but I have so many questions. Nobody knows Jesus like you

As I am writing "you," your dog howls and starts barking. I am jolted out of my relaxed, post-yoga position. I am shirtless. The clock reads 12:56. There is a muffled mittened knock.

It must be the neighbors. There is an emergency. They are bleeding. They need to borrow my car. I jump down the ladder and throw on my pre-warmed coat. I zip it up as I fling open the door and step onto the porch. Your dog bolts between my legs. I shut the door to keep in the warmth, and look up to see the person standing there.

It is not my neighbor, bleeding from the face. It is a stranger with a red beard. He appears calm and looks about my age. Your dog circles him, sniffs and growls.

"Who are you?" I say. I am too surprised to be scared. I zip my jacket up to my chin.

He tells me his name, matter-of-factly.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"I was just going for a walk. I saw your light on, so I stopped by."

"It's a little late for visitors." Your dog woofs quietly in agreement. He is still circling, hair raised and ready.

"I just wanted to say hi. What time is it anyway?" He is unapologetic and without affect.

"It's one in the morning!" I say this with as much accusatory inflection as is possible.

He says only, "Oh." Then, after a pause, "What are you doing?"

"I was sleeping!" This, of course, is a lie. But it justifies my tone.

"Your light was on."

I wonder for a brief second if he had been looking in my windows, if he had seen my topless poses. Then I think, is this man going to get me? Why else would a stranger with a big beard appear on my porch in the middle of the night, out here where nobody would hear me scream?

"It's a little late for visitors," I say again. "Do you have somewhere to go?" I look at the thermometer. It reads -9. "Are you going to be okay? I mean, do you have somewhere to stay?"

"Yeah?" he says, and he seems pitiful, not at all like a rapist.

"Then I'm going to go back to bed." I open the door and step inside. Your dog squeezes past my knees, eager for the warmth.

Before I can close the door completely he asks, "How long have you lived here?" I pause, his tone so desperate it's almost endearing. The precious heat escapes out the conversation-sized slit and I am suddenly hyper-aware of my bare skin directly underneath the jacket.

"A while. Good night." I push the door shut and lock it. Until we hear footsteps leading away in the starchy snow, your dog and I stand silent, transfixed on the crack where the cold comes in.

And then I collapse onto a chair, full of vague feelings of fear. Your dog wags his way over to me, so I get up and grab his bag of treats. Shaking, I feed him one after another while I scratch him behind the ears. "Good dog," I say. "Good boy." Without him, who knows what that man would have done.

I wish I had a shotgun. I wish you were here.

I hear the familiar scratching of a squirrel somewhere above and it is that man, clawing his way into my home. I clutch your dog's fur and wonder if he's standing outside, just watching. Or is he walking off into the woods, postholing into the unknown, rejected and cold? Will I wake up to a corpse on my hands? I think about the time I got hypothermia. My friends say that I acted like I was drugged; affectless and uninterested in getting warm. I don't recall thinking about how to warm up, only that I was just so cold.

Have I sentenced this stranger to his death? I look at the plants. They are now drooped down, soggy and depressing. My Bible sits on the coffee table. Jesus would have let him in, given him a cup of hot tea at least, maybe a loveseat to sleep on, and a blanket to stay warm.

But I am not Jesus. I am just a lady alone.

I turn off all the lights and sit down in front of the fire. I watch the slow consumption of the coals as I think of a new list, this time booby traps. I inventory make-shift weapons: the broom by the door, the frying pan in the sink. If you were here, we'd have your throwing knife. If you were here, I wouldn't have to be afraid.

But you're not here. And you're not coming back. At least not until it's warm outside and the daylight keeps the baddies away.

I have to pee but I will not go to the outhouse. I hold it and try to think of other things. When I am doubled over and have to go so bad I'm afraid I'll burst, I take the disposable turkey-basting pan I use for a sump bucket out from inside my sink. I squat over it on my kitchen floor. The splattering sound is too loud and now my home smells like urine. Your dog exhales as though he's annoyed.

By four, I have given up my guilt. I lie in bed somewhere between a dream and reality. Your arm, heavy and warm, is slung over me like I'm something that belongs to you. It dissolves into blankets and I wake to the scraping sound of squirrels turned sex offenders, gnawing on my insulation, burrowing in to stay warm.