No Fire, No Warmth

CW: Themes of child death, hypothermia, and themes of grief-induced delusion.

No Fire, No Warmth

As far back as she could remember, which was never too far back, she had always had puddles at her feet.

She had often asked her father about it. Most times he just stared blankly through her, not answering. Other times he would mumble that it wasn’t cold enough.

They lived in a cabin high in the hills where it seemed like it was always winter.

She couldn’t remember a day when there hadn’t been snow on the ground, or a chill that went all the way through her.

The bright afternoon sun filtered through the pines and scattered across the living room floor.

She stood in it without thinking.

When she looked down, her father was already there, kneeling, pressing towels around her boots.

“What are you doing?” he asked sharply. “You can’t do this.”

She blinked at him, confused. She hadn’t meant to do anything wrong. She never liked disappointing him. He spoke to her sparingly as it was, and almost never directly to her.

Even with the sun pouring through the window, she could see his breath crystallizing in front of his face.

He was shaking now.

The skin of his hands had turned a deep purple, fading to black at the fingertips.

She knew he was freezing.

She wanted to ask him to light a fire, to warm the room just a little, but she knew better.

He had always shut such ideas down.

The last time she asked, he had clawed at his own hair and whispered, over and over, “No fire. No warmth.”

He had wept on the couch until sleep took him.

She wanted to help him, but she didn’t know how. She was just a little girl, and grown-ups were meant to help the little ones. She knew that.

Father hadn’t always been like this.

She carried small pieces of memory — him laughing in the snow, scooping her up, his beard crusted white with frost.

She had felt safe then.

Had it been yesterday? A week ago?

She couldn’t tell.

Time never stayed in one place long enough for her to hold it.

She remembered the day because of the pink knit cap.

He had pulled it snug over her ears and slid the matching mittens onto her hands.

She had been cold, she thought.

He carried her inside and set her gently beside the rocker.

He muttered something about dropping something and stepped back out into the snow.

He was gone only a moment.

He returned and fixed her with a sad smile.

He tweaked her nose and said, hoarsely, “I love you so damn much. I will never, ever leave you.”

A tear clung to his lashes before freezing there.

Her heart swelled at the sound of his voice.

It also made her sad, though she didn’t know why.

She stood there for what seemed like ages, watching her father shiver beneath the blanket.

She watched his chest rise and fall, listened to his breath move in and out.

She often watched him when he fell asleep on the couch.

He would call out her name and mutter incoherently.

During these dreams his face would tighten, as if he were holding something back.

At first she had called to him to wake up, to tell him not to worry, that she was right here.

But no matter how loudly she tried to yell, he never woke to her voice.

After the first few times, she stopped trying.

It never worked.

Morning sun crept through the window as she stood looking at her father.

She couldn’t remember going to bed, but she must have.

She didn’t think she had stood there all night.

How could she have?

She pulled back the blanket from her father’s head, her hands so cold she couldn’t feel the fabric.

A frozen tear clung to his cheek.

“Father,” she cried. “Wake up. Please wake up. Let’s go outside and play. The sun is shining.”

She didn’t need to touch him to know his once-soft cheeks would now be as hard as the boards beneath her feet.

His glassy eyes stared at the back cushions of the couch.

She tried to cry, but it was so cold she couldn’t bring herself to tears.

Though the sun was shining, the morning air settled over her like ice.

They rarely had visitors.

She wondered what would become of her if her father didn’t wake up.

“No fire. No warmth,” her father always said.

But if she warmed the room just a little, maybe he would wake up.

She swore that if he did, she would never be bad again.

She would stay away from frozen streams, like he had warned her.

Strange, that thought.

She had watched him build fires only a few times and knew where he kept the matches.

She stuffed the fireplace with the old newspapers gathered at the side and laid a couple of big logs on top.

Then she reached behind the remaining logs and pulled out a box of long matches.

Father had always warned her about the dangers of fire and told her that under no circumstances was she to play with it.

But this was an emergency, wasn’t it?

Her arm shook like a leaf as she struck the match.

The head flared to life, and she wondered if she had ever seen anything so beautiful.

She touched the flame to the paper and watched as it began to burn.

The flame faltered for a moment before sparks leapt up and the fire roared to life.

She turned to watch her father for any sign of waking.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, but when she looked down at her boots, the towels at her feet were soaked.

She could not remember putting the towels down.

With renewed hope, she glanced at her father, praying he had risen to replace them.

He was still on the couch.

Still blue.

She turned back to the fire and felt tears stream down her face.

She sat in the rocking chair and listened to water dripping nearby.

She let her mind go blank as the steady trickle lulled her toward sleep.

The storm subsided enough for the snow patrol to finally reach the small wooden cabin tucked back in the hills.

They had warned the man staying there that a doozy of a storm was on its way and that he’d be better off in town until it passed.

He had declined, saying he would be fine and that he had all he needed to weather it.

They hoped he was right.

One of the rescuers nodded toward the trails in the snow.

“Sled?” he asked.

The other shook his head.

“Those aren’t sled tracks. Looks like someone was out here making a snowman. Who’d be doing that in a storm like this?”

He knocked on the rickety wooden door.

Then again.

When no one answered after the third try, he pushed it open.

“Aw, geez.”

The other rescuer stepped up and peered inside.

“Guess there’s no rush with this one, huh?”

His eyes drifted to the rocker beside the fireplace.

“Say, did this guy have a kid with him when he came up here?”

The other man shook his head.

“Why?”

The first rescuer pointed to the seat of the rocking chair — the pink knit cap and mittens, still damp.