Years have passed since Melanie's death, and I've learned to bury
my guilt and anguish deeply within me, so that I can live each
day without fear and sorrow. But during the past month, my memories
of Melanie's strange addiction have floated to the surface of
my mind, and I am beginning to feel the pain again.
Recently I became suspicious that
my daughter, Gwen, was showing symptoms of the same addiction.
Gwen returned to live with me a year ago, after her marriage dissolved.
Up until a month ago, she was fine, even upbeat, despite her recent
divorce. Then I began to hear her getting up at night and quietly
creeping into the kitchen. At first, I convinced myself that she
was getting a midnight snack and put my worries aside. But as
I listened, night after night, I became certain that she was opening
the freezer, not the refrigerator, and that she was emptying ice
cubes into the sink.
Last night, as usual, I heard Gwen
get up and creep into the kitchen. I followed her and stood behind
the kitchen doorway, watching as she silently lifted an ice tray
out of the refrigerator and carefully twisted it over the sink.
I saw a gleam in her eyes, of either relief or joy, when the ice
cubes fell into the sink.
And then, to my dismay, my daughter
greedily lifted an ice cube, rinsed it under the faucet, and with
a trembling hand, rubbed the dripping piece of ice in slow circles
against her cheeks, lips and neck. Horrified, I saw the familiar
look of ecstasy on her face. I hurried back to my bedroom, careful
to avoid detection.
Thinking about it now, in the morning,
I don't know what to do. All the terrible memories of Melanie's
awful sickness are flooding back. And so are the memories of how
it was before then. Those are the worst. They remind me of what
I've lost. I suppose I would have been better off if the early
years of my marriage hadn't been so idyllic. It's as if I was
cursed with a cruel happiness that fooled me into a false sense
of well being and an inability to react to the difficulties that
followed.
Melanie and I bought this house
shortly after we were married. No one else thought much of it;
it was an old farmhouse on a lonely hill, with a road running
below it. But we liked living in seclusion, with nothing to do
but spend time together. Melanie soon became pregnant with Gwen;
and our daughter's birth only made our life better: we were a
happy, self-sufficient family.
One of the things that had attracted
us to the house was the thick woods behind it. When we first moved
in, we became lost for hours trying to learn our way around the
woods, so we created a path for ourselves, painting white bands
on the trees on either side of it so that it would be easy to
follow. We were proud of our path and named it "the white trail"
but we remained drawn to the intricate maze of untrodden paths
that we had left unexplored. Little did we know that venturing
out on these trails would one day cause our destruction.
Perhaps it's the turn our lives
took that makes those days seem like a dream now. Melanie was
always flushed and happy. She was a beautiful woman, voluptuous
and fair, always laughing. She stayed home with Gwen, and I worked
regular hours at the bank in town. In the winter, after dinner,
we huddled by the fireplace and took turns reading books out loud.
In the summer, we took walks along the white trail, pointing out
the different trees and flowers to each other.
It was the fall of Gwen's seventh
year when the trouble began, or perhaps some time before that,
when I did not notice anything out of the ordinary happening.
At first it was nothing alarming.
I became aware that Melanie was getting up each night and going
into the kitchen.
After a few nights of this, I asked
her if something was wrong.
"It's just nerves," she said. "I
haven't been sleeping as well as usual." It was clear that she
was not in the mood to talk.
During one of her nightly visits
to the kitchen, Melanie dropped something, causing me to wake
with a start. I got up to see if she was all right.
I was a bit startled to find her
crouching on the floor in the corner by the kitchen sink. In one
hand she held several dripping ice cubes. In the other, she held
a single ice cube and slowly rubbed her face with it. Her head
was tilted back and her eyes were closed. Her lips were turned
up in a slight smile, and her cheeks rose round and full as they
did whenever she was excited.
"Melanie, what are you doing?"
I said. My voice was trembling.
She opened her eyes and stood up
quickly. "I . . . I was hot," she said, embarrassed and cross.
"But it's cool tonight," I said.
"However, I am hot," she snapped.
She nervously clenched the ice cubes in her hands.
"Let me see if you have a fever,"
I said, leaning over to put my hand on her forehead.
She slid away from me on the floor.
"I don't have a fever," she said.
Confused, I said nothing.
"Let's go back to bed," she said.
She tossed the ice cubes into the sink and refilled the ice trays
abruptly.
When we returned to bed, I hugged
her body against mine, pretending to be affectionate, but actually
curious to see how hot she was. She did not feel warm at all;
in fact, she felt cold.
Her strange midnight visits to
the kitchen continued, and in my innocence or stupidity, I didn't
follow her again, although I often woke up and strained my ears
to listen to her empty the ice trays into the sink.
In late November, we awoke one
morning and the ground was covered with snow. There was just enough
to coat our little hill and the woods behind our house with a
layer of white frosting.
We bundled Gwen up and sent her
off to the school bus stop. She eagerly ran out the door, feeling
the typical excitement of a child over the season's first snow.
But after she left, something unspoken hung in the air between
Melanie and me. She kept looking out the window with poorly concealed
longing and seemed eager for me to leave for work.
"It's a good day for you to stay
inside," I said.
"I might take a walk in the snow,"
Melanie said, a little defiantly.
"There's no reason to go out unless
you have to," I insisted.
"What are you afraid of?" Melanie
said. She had a stern, challenging expression on her face. It
was a new look. I didn't like it.
"You've lost some weight," I said.
"Your cheeks are pale. I just want you to stay well." It was true.
She was losing her plump rosiness.
She rolled her eyes and smiled.
Feeling helpless, I left for work.
At lunchtime, I called home, but
there was no answer. I felt panicky, although I couldn't express,
even inwardly, what I feared. I told my boss that Melanie had
been feverish that morning, and I was going home to check her
condition.
My heart beat rapidly as I approached
home. When I rounded the bend in the road that led to our hill,
I gazed ahead and saw a figure in the snow in front of our house.
I accelerated and sped down the street.
It was Melanie, lying on her back
in the snow, and wearing nothing but a thin cotton sweater and
a pair of blue jeans.
"Melanie!" I cried, running up
the hill. "What are you doing?"
Calmly, she propped herself up
on her elbows and glanced towards me. "I'm enjoying the snow,"
she said nonchalantly. She smiled at me coyly. Her lips were purple
and her face was pale.
"Get up," I said, frantically pulling
at her arms.
She embraced me lightly and giggled.
"Relax, Dear," she said.
I pulled her up forcibly and tried
to drag her towards the house. She eyed me seductively, then leaned
over and kissed me on the lips.
Melanie had not been that passionate
in a while. I pulled her towards me, torn between giving in to
her and hurrying her inside to warmth.
She pulled me to her and pressed
herself against me, and I gave in to my desire, undressing her
in the snow and making love to her while I remained warm in my
down parka and wool clothing. Now, I look back on that afternoon
with chagrin.
I sense that by giving in to her
seduction I tacitly okayed her wild race to her own destruction.
In a way, I am responsible for the actions that followed.
Winter approached, and Melanie's
cycle downwards continued. The first snow melted in a day, but
the weather remained cold. Each day when I returned home from
work, she was sitting on the porch wearing her jeans and a light
shirt.
Gwen began to notice that something
was wrong. "Why do you have to sit outside in the freezing cold?"
I heard her ask Melanie. "People are going to think we're strange."
"You worry too much about what
other people think," Melanie said.
Next
Page> In the Cold 2
In the Cold © 2004 Jennifer
Perkins
Illustrations © 2004 Pam
Marin-Kingsley
