Blackberry Winter: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

their impressions. But after searching for a few minutes, I realized my efforts were futile. The snow, falling so hard now, covered any trace of his tracks with its cruel blanket of white.
    I walked a few steps farther, and this time, toward the back of the alley, a fleck of blue caught my eye. I ran to it and fell to my knees, sobbing, shaking my head violently.
No. No God, no!
Daniel’s precious bear, Max, lay facedown in the snow. I picked it up and held it to my chest, rocking back and forth the way I might have comforted Daniel after a nightmare. I trembled from a place deep inside. My little boy was
gone
.

Chapter 4

    C LAIRE
    W e all behave differently in the face of trauma and anguish, or so says my therapist, Margaret. Some people act out; others act
in
—bottling up their pain and holding it deep inside, letting it brew and fester, which had been my way since the horror of last May. Ethan, on the other hand, seemed to deal with his grief by acting
out
. Throwing himself into his work. Drinking copious amounts of scotch. Staying out late with friends—friends, I might add, who had meant nothing to him last year. Even the red BMW he’d bought on a whim in March. It was all tied to his pain, Margaret said. When I’d seen him stepping into the convertible outside the office, my eyes had welled up with tears. It wasn’t the expense that bothered me, but the choice. Ethan wasn’t a flashy red BMW sort of guy.
    I’d tried to get him to go with me to my weekly appointments. I thought that if we could talk about the past together, we both might stop pretending it had never happened and learn to face the new normal, whatever that was. But he had shaken his head. “I don’t do shrinks,” he said. And so our paths had diverged. Love stilllingered—I felt it in the unspoken moments, the way he’d leave the floss out on the bathroom counter in the mornings because he knew I had a habit of forgetting; or the way his eyes would linger on mine every time I said good night. But the emptiness grew like a cancer, and I feared it had spread too far to control. Our marriage, it seemed, was verging on a terminal diagnosis.
    “Morning, Claire,” chirped Gene, our building’s doorman, as I stepped off the elevator. “Can you believe this weather?”
    I cinched the belt of my lightweight trench coat tighter, considering whether to return upstairs for a wardrobe change. Gloves and a scarf, for starters, and—I looked down at my calf-high leather boots—maybe a pair of snow boots. I should have opted for something with a little more traction, but I couldn’t bear to lace up my tennis shoes. I hadn’t worn them since
the accident
, and I didn’t have the confidence to put them on again. Not yet, anyway. “A blizzard in May,” I said to Gene, shaking my head in disbelief as I looked out the building’s double doors. “Why do I live here again?”
    Gene grinned. “Do you think you’re dressed warmly enough?” He pointed toward the street. “That’s arctic air out there.” Ever since
the incident
, he, and everyone else, it seemed, looked after me like a lost little bird.
Are you too cold? Too hot? Will you be safe walking out to the corner market after dark?
    I appreciated his concern, but it annoyed me just the same.
Do I have an enormous sign attached to my back stating,
ATTENTION: I’M PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY UNABLE TO CARE FOR MYSELF. HELP ME, PLEASE?
    Still, I didn’t fault Gene. “I’ll be fine,” I said confidently, revealing a strained smile. “I may be a California transplant, but I’ve been through enough Northwest winters to avoid frostbite on my way to the office.”
    “Just the same,” he said, pulling a pair of mittens from his pocket, “wear these. Your hands will freeze without them.”
    I hesitated, then accepted the scraggly marriage of blue and white yarn. “Thank you,” I said, putting them on only to please him.
    “Good,” he said. “Now you can throw a proper snowball.”
    I