The ice sings back, p.1
The Ice Sings Back, page 1
M Jackson
The
Ice
Sings
Back
a novel
green writers press | Brattleboro, Vermont
Copyright © 2023 by M Jackson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations included in critical articles and reviews.
The Ice Sings Back is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, businesses, companies, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Ice Sings Back contains depictions of verbal and physical abuse; death of parents; death of a child; misogyny and sexist language.
Printed in the United States.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Green Writers Press is a Vermont-based publisher whose mission is to spread a message of hope and renewal through the words and images we publish. Throughout we will adhere to our commitment to preserving and protecting the natural resources of the earth. To that end, a percentage of our proceeds will be donated to environmental and social-activist groups. Green Writers Press gratefully acknowledges support from individual donors, friends, and readers to help support the environment and our publishing initiative.
Giving Voice to Writers & Artists Who Will Make the World a Better Place
Green Writers Press | Brattleboro, Vermont
www.greenwriterspress.com
isbn: 979-8-9865324-1-7
Cover art & design & interior artwork bv Laura Marshall
Lemographie Art & Design
Author’s website: www.drmjackson.com
To Christine, the Tove in all of us.
How the difference between an igloo and a block
of ice is only the body sheltered beneath it.
~Sandra Beasley, Japanese Water Bomb
1
THE
MOTHER
Mom. Wake up. Wake up.”
Leonie Kane splintered an eye, peered at the small child standing beside the bed, ached for hours more of sleep. Cracked the second eye. “What?” she groaned, sleep linty in her throat. Rolled away, wished her daughter would disappear.
“Today is Hike Day, Mom. Collier Cone.” Tone even, explanatory.
She heaved back over, squinted at the nine-year-old. Registered the point of the chin, the determined hitch of the shoulders.
“Hike Day!” Louder.
Leonie closed her dry eyes, willed her brain blank so she could return to sleep. She blinked again, focused. Still there. Warmth flushed through her; the girl was standing ramrod straight. She loved her beyond words.
“Yes, Amelia,” she intoned solemnly. “Hike Day.”
“We need to leave in twenty minutes. It is one hour and thirty-four minutes to the trailhead, and we need to be on the trail at eight. We agreed.” Amelia’s face scrunched as she stared down at her plastic wristwatch. She was a stickler about time.
She considered bargaining, but then glanced thoughtfully at her daughter.
Amelia was dressed in meticulously laced hiking boots, green corduroy pants, and a carefully tucked-in long sleeved purple shirt. Most days it was a battle for Leonie to get her daughter dressed and ready to leave the house. But here Amelia was now, dressed and booted. For nine years, Leonie had instructed Amelia to never to refuse miracles.
She sighed, wished for something more expansive than a sigh, turned to Amelia.
She’d known from the moment she’d first held her daughter that she was unusual.
Even in the hospital, Amelia had not responded to cuddling. And though Arturo had insisted everything was fine, she knew. There was a certain stillness to Amelia that made Leonie hold her tighter. In Amelia’s first year, she’d been a quiet, undemanding baby. Only later, when she was nearly three years old and still wouldn’t make eye contact, did Arturo agree they should get the child assessed.
“It’s Hike Day,” she capitulated, threw back the blankets. No bargaining.
Thirty-five minutes later—exactly fifteen minutes late by Amelia’s calculations—they were in Leonie’s small gold Toyota Camry, driving through sleepy Eugene onto Highway 126, speeding east in the crisp fall air past signs for Nimrod, Rainbow, McKenzie Bridge.
Amelia had counted each minute aloud while Leonie pulled herself out of bed, dressed, made jam and cheese sandwiches, filled the thermos with coffee, packed soda, and gathered Amelia’s guidebooks.
Just before Belknap Springs, an hour into the drive, she turned the little car right onto Highway 242—a narrow state highway that cut northeast through the Oregon Cascades. They drove in silence through the towering stands of Doug fir and red cedar and hemlock that crowded close to the sides of the road. Vine maples wove sparks of red and yellow through the lower canopy, and the ground was strewn with bright green ferns. Amelia stared out the window rapturously, and Leonie restrained herself from engaging her daughter in conversation.
Once Amelia was school-aged, Leonie sat through innumerable parent–teacher conferences where her daughter was described interchangeably as “sensitive” and “disruptive.” In class, her teachers reported, Amelia tended to vacillate between complete silence and unrelenting lectures—blurting out specific, detailed facts about a range of environmental topics from moss reproduction to the frequency of silicate in the Galilean moons to the discharge rates of each of Oregon’s 869 hydroelectric dams. She could fall into catastrophic fits of frustration when things did not go her way. There were long periods when neither Leonie nor her teachers could get her to eat anything other than cheerios, and even though Amelia had started eating more lately, she still carried the look of a malnourished child. She had a sharp chin and thin, bird-like bones, dark shadows under green eyes that in certain lights looked like bruises, blonde-brown hair that fell brittle down her back.
“Turn here, Mom,” Amelia commanded.
She slowed the car and turned into a narrow dirt road marked with a sign for Scott Trailhead. Ten minutes later—Amelia continuing to count minutes helpfully out loud—Leonie had stowed everything into her backpack and locked the car. They were on their way.
Leonie had instigated Hike Day over a year ago, giving Amelia on her eighth birthday the responsibility of picking out a hike on their weekends together. She had split from Arturo several years previous, and they amicably traded off every other week with their daughter.
Typically, Amelia picked hikes in Eugene’s local parks, but sometimes they went further afield. After Amelia had learned about volcanoes in school, she’d come home and demanded they go to the Collier Cone on the very next Hike Day. Leonie had been apprehensive about the length of the hike—they’d never done fourteen miles before—but Amelia was ecstatic and her excitement was infectious.
Amelia made them stop at the informational sign just past the trailhead. Leonie watched her daughter scrunch her brows and scan the colorful map. She turned and read the brief area description. The Scott Trail led out towards the Collier Cone within the greater Three Sisters Wilderness. Pictures on the sign showed a red and black cinder cone surrounded by enormous snowcapped mountains, glaciers and jagged rivers, old growth forest and sparkling alpine lakes. She was enchanted—the area appeared brochure-quality stunning and she’d never hiked there before.
“Let’s go, Mom,” Amelia commanded.
She turned obligingly, and together they followed the trail through the trees, heading for the promised fifteen-hundred-year-old-lava formations and the Collier Cone. They passed only a few other people on the trail: a young sunburnt couple, a man with a substantial dusty backpack, and an elderly woman with chin-length white hair. Amelia greeted each as she’d been taught, politely stepping off the trail to let each pass in turn. The older woman had chuckled and smiled, and Leonie was surprised when she saw Amelia smile back.
When they arrived at the first massive lava flow, even Leonie was suitably impressed. Her calves were burning, volcanic rock constantly chattered underfoot, and each step was like rolling on marbles. But, the twisted gray lava was sculpted into incredible formations and the views of the surrounding mountains and forests and lava flows were something else.
She paused, steadied herself at the base of the steep slope they were about to climb, squinted in the glare, scanned the dark red lava. While beautiful, it looked to her also desolate, like how she imagined Mars. Hard to believe this was Planet Earth. This was Oregon.
“Can you believe all those Oregon Trail people pulled their wagons through here?” she called to Amelia, who was further ahead. She hoped to slow the girl with conversation. She was out of shape, Amelia was not.
No answer.
Leonie tamped down a flash of irritation. She knew Amelia heard her but getting her to respond was a continual challenge. Sometimes Amelia would, but more often she did not.
The books she’d read and the various therapists she’d consulted had stressed that she should continue to verbally engage her daughter even if Amelia didn’t consistently respond. It was frustrating, but Leonie kept at it. Lately it seemed to her as if Amelia responded more frequently, especially if they were hiking.
She tried again. “Have you played Oregon Trail yet in class?” she called to Amelia.
Amelia stopped
Leonie felt both victorious Amelia had responded and startled by her response. “What?”
“It’s racist towards Native Americans, Mom.”
She swallowed, considered. She had fond memories of playing the computer game when she was younger. She’d even seen it recently in stores in the children’s aisle. She had thought the game was making a comeback.
“When you start playing, you have to be white. The default is white.” Scorn wove through Amelia’s words. “If I want to be a Native American in the game, I can’t. Even though I’m not white, right?”
She felt immobilized by her daughter’s directness.
“Also, most of the attacks on the wagon trains heading west were not orchestrated by the tribes they were trespassing through but by other people who were…” Amelia paused, closed her eyes.
Leonie had seen her do this countless times before. It looked like her daughter was processing data, searching for the correct page. She knew Amelia was about to quote something verbatim. She often wondered if Amelia had a photographic memory.
“…white, male, and mercurial.” Amelia went rigid, shoulders scrunched up by her ears. “No,” she said. “That’s incorrect. Wait.”
She watched Amelia’s eyes blink rapidly. She’d learned from therapy not to interrupt and not to feed a suggestion, even if the word seemed apparent. If Leonie did, Amelia could erupt in rage.
But Amelia unexpectedly smiled, a huge summer smile that warmed Leonie to her abdomen. “White, male, and mercenary,” she said. “Mercenary. They preyed on the vulnerable, on the innocent—those in the wagon trains and on Native Americans.”
Amelia paused, then looked in Leonie’s direction with a still face. “Mercenary. Like Creighton Sears in my class. He steals Audry’s lunch and says he can do it because she’s Black.”
Leonie felt her face go limp as her daughter’s words registered. Pulse pounding, she moved quickly up the slope, lava rocks scattering, to stand closer to Amelia. She resisted with every ounce of her remaining energy her urge to reach, to sweep her daughter into her arms. Amelia disliked all physical contact.
Instead, she took a deep breath, clasped her hands together tightly, then asked, voice forced neutral, “Does Creighton Sears do anything to you?”
She watched Amelia link her fingers, draw her small shoulders tight, shrink into herself. Waited, recognized all the physical echoes of Amelia’s distress. “Amelia?” she pressed, knowing she shouldn’t, but also knowing she had to because she was her daughter’s mother.
The girl looked up, directed her eyes half an inch away from Leonie’s, gazed somewhere between her mother’s hairline and ear. It was a learned gesture, one that Leonie had been working on for years—getting her Amelia to look people in the eyes.
“Yes,” Amelia said firmly. “He says I have to give him my Friday hot lunch allowance because I don’t belong here and will be deported to Mexico when I grow up.”
She had to turn her face away, press her jaw so tightly together that she could feel her teeth pop. Tried to focus on a murmur, light and insistent, that thrummed from somewhere in the rocky background. Tried to breathe.
Leonie had instigated the divorce with Amelia’s father. He was a good man, but she hadn’t been in love with him for years. And while most of the time she was happy she’d left, moments like these she longed for the three of them to be together and wrapped fiercely around one another as family. Leonie felt her own whiteness left her woefully unprepared to talk about race with her daughter, wished that Arturo was there and could talk about what being white and Hispanic meant for Amelia.
Five deep breaths, then, she forced a calm voice.
“You know that’s not true, right?” She knelt, her knee pressing into tiny sharp rocks. “You belong here with me, and you belong at your dad’s house, and when you visit your abuela’s in Pátzcuaro, you belong there! You’re so lucky, Amelia, you belong to all of us in all these places.”
Amelia bobbed her head while inside Leonie raged, pictured shaking little Creighton Sears until he screamed.
“I know what Creighton says is inaccurate, Mom, but I dislike that he speaks to me in that manner.” Amelia’s voice was small.
“Can I speak to Mrs. Flores about this, and about Audry?” she forced more calm into her voice.
Amelia shrugged a single shoulder, turned, and moved further upslope. Leonie knew the conversation was over.
Leonie took a breath, noticed small bits of volcanic rock inside her low-slung sneakers. Welcomed the opportunity to gather herself, to dump rocks out of her shoe and still her shaking hands. How dare he?
“Mom. Come on.” Frustration lined Amelia’s voice, the girl all limbs and speed. She was several switchbacks up the trail.
“Mom,” Amelia called again, and she slipped her left shoe back on and got going. Increased her pace—thighs, knees, and calves screaming—but then she was there: on the edge, standing next to her wisp of a daughter looking down into the dark volcano.
“We made it!” she exhaled heavily, forced cheer into her voice thick with breath. The wind whipped up, sang a strange whistling sound, blew her long hair into a tangle. She was still distracted. Creighton Sears.
“Can we go all the way around the rim?”
The trail rose steeply in front of them as it led the way to the far side of the volcanic cone. At the top, the rim was shaped like a horseshoe. The side they were on was lower, and as the trail curved, the sharp bend was the highest point, and then it dipped and descended around to the other side. Leonie had never seen anything like it. She breathed deep the fresh air, took in the enormous landscape, the strong wind, the faint humming background. It was incredible. She tried to shake off her anger.
“We’ll be able to see North Sister from up there.”
“That mountain right in front of us?” Leonie asked suggestively. “The one we can see from here?”
“Mom. We’ll be able to see all of the mountain from over there. It’s a volcano too, just like what we’re on, but larger.” Amelia turned away without waiting, thin green-clad legs working as she moved up the trail away from Leonie.
Leonie closed her eyes, exhaled slowly. Every muscle in her body called attention to itself, and she eyed the higher slope with trepidation. The rim of the cone was a monotone of cinder and scree, all flat grays. Inside some stones were red, and the way the wind tossed the smaller scree around made her think of a cauldron bubbling.
Unease trickled down her throat. A cold sweat sponged between her skin and shirt. She shook her head, tried to dispel her agitation. It was probably little Creighton Sears haunting her thoughts.
Leonie tried to shake him off, summon compassion. He was just a child. And likely somewhere in his life someone was bullying someone in front of him. She knew children learned their behaviors by watching others.
Maybe she should reach out to his parents.
She shook her head again. Maybe. But only after she spoke to Mrs. Flores. Amelia came first, and Leonie would not let her daughter be harmed.
She looked up the trail, squinted. Amelia flickered in and out of sight. The cold sweat on Leonie’s skin became a flood. “Wait up!” Leonie sped up the ridge after her, scree striking sharply on her heels.
All thoughts of Creighton Sears flew from her mind. Something didn’t seem right. It felt like there was a danger that Leonie couldn’t name. Her mouth flooded with adrenaline. Pure iron. The ground seemed to shiver.
Leonie shoved herself upslope. The air felt raw. She broke into a run.
She lost sight of Amelia.
Once, on one of their first Hike Days, she had lost her daughter in Eugene’s Westmoreland City Park.
They’d walked down the bike path to the park, laid a blanket out in the sun near two large linden trees, and Amelia had run around the grassy slopes while Leonie had lazed in the bright heat. Drowsy, she’d fallen asleep for only a moment. When she’d opened her eyes, Amelia was gone.
At first, Leonie had just scanned the area, waited for Amelia to reappear. But then, heart clenching and cold sweat running down her back, she’d frantically searched the whole park, begged people to help. When Amelia didn’t turn up, she rushed back to her blanket to call 911 in tears. As she dug her phone from her purse with shaking hands, she’d heard a voice and looked up. There was Amelia, perched high up in the linden tree.
