He felt tears prick at his eyes. “You just can’t! I can’t bring you home!”
“You hate me, don’t you?” she said, hands balling up into mittened fists. “That’s it.”
“I don’t hate you, Marci. I—I love you,” he said, surprising himself.
She punched him hard in the arm. “Shut up.” She kissed his cheek with her cold, dry lips and the huff of her breath thawed his skin, making it tingle.
“Where do you live, Alan?”
He sucked air so cold it burned his lungs. “Come with me.” He took her mittened hand in his and trudged up to the cave mouth.
They entered the summer cave, where the family spent its time in the warm months, now mostly empty, save for some straw and a few scattered bits of clothing and toys. He led her through the cave, his eyes adjusting to the gloom, back to the right-angle bend behind a stalactite baffle, toward the sulfur reek of the hot spring on whose shores the family spent its winters.
“It gets dark,” he said. “I’ll get you a light once we’re inside.”
Her hand squeezed his tighter and she said nothing.
It grew darker and darker as he pushed into the cave, helping her up the gentle incline of the cave floor. He saw well in the dark—the whole family did—but he understood that for her this was a blind voyage.