The Frozen River

by Ariel Lawhon

It ought to kill a woman, this process of having her body turned inside out. By rights, no one should survive such a thing. And yet, miraculously, they do, time and again.

This knowledge is both a relief and a sadness—I have brought nine children into this world, after all, and only six are still living. Like all mothers, I have long since mastered the art of nursing joy at one breast and grief at the other.

This is the trouble faced by any woman who sets pen to paper in a busy household. I am never guaranteed the certainty of quiet, much less a solid length of time to chase my thoughts and bind them together.

“Well, it makes me feel like a king.” He smiles at my curious look. “Only a fool would be upset to find a vein of silver running through his beloved territory.”

We are in the twilight years of a long love affair, and it has recently occurred to me that a day will come when one of us buries the other. But, I remind myself, that is the happy ending to a story like ours. It is a vow made and kept. Till death do us part. It is the only acceptable outcome to a long and happy marriage, and I am determined not to fear that day, whenever it arrives. I am equally determined to soak up all the days between.

And then I laugh. If anyone had told me two decades ago, when I was buried in small children and endless chores, that one day I would sit at my desk in a warm, quiet house while the snow fell outside and complain of loneliness, I would have slapped them. That future seemed as far away as Constantinople.

The only antidote to this kind of despair is to create a bulwark of immovable calm. To sit and be. To pray and offer comfort. To watch the shadows cut tracks along the wall as the sun slowly moves across the sky. To say nothing when there are no words that can console.

Or maybe—if I am being honest—it is because these markings of ink and paper will one day be the only proof that I have existed in this world. That I lived and breathed. That I loved a man and the many children he gave me. It is not that I want to be remembered, per se. I have done nothing remarkable. Not by the standards of history, at least. But I am here. And these words are the mark I will leave behind. So yes, it matters that I continue this ritual.

They both have the rangy look of boys who are no longer little but who won’t be men for some time yet. All teeth and elbows and knees, they need haircuts and baths. They are in that grubby, delightful no-man’s-land between those who play and those who work, and I am glad that Young Ephraim’s brothers and sisters brought him tonight. It is hard to be the youngest.

As I rise from the table, it occurs to me that part of what I feel, watching them, is a sense of betrayal. I carried these children into the world, paid their entrance fee with dues rendered upon my own body, and now they no longer need me.