Patches of ice are forming on the log dam the beavers had built last year. Daddy killed the beavers and I am wearing their skin this winter.
I used to like sitting here by the little river we'd called ours since the idea of California got lost somewhere in daddy's head. For four solid years, it was all he could talk about and now we live here since the wheel on the wagon broke. Not even half way. I still ain't seen the ocean or the desert. I ain't sure which I imagine the most. Every dream I have now has either sand or waves in it. I guess I just don't want to have to face another winter here in Missouri. The last bad one killed my mom and I ain't so sure this one won't kill us all. We can tell by the size of the coats on the woolly bears that it's going to be as bad as it gets. Daddy just ain't cut out for survival and I ain't big enough to help all that much.
If it does me in, that's fine and good. But I can't quit thinking about Elisabeth. She's two years younger than me and she don't even remember ever having a mother. I guess I'm as close to a mom as she'll ever have.
I'm eight years old and I'm my little sister's closest thing to a mommy. Daddy needed a boy to help him. I know that's what he thinks of when he comes home at night and sees us there, cuddled up by the dwindling fire. When he's gone out hunting I tell stories to Elisabeth about her mommy and California. I make mommy prettier than she really was, with long brown hair and doe-shaped eyes. I don't tell Liz about the last few weeks when she was screaming and how the house smelled.
I try to have school for her but it's hard 'cause I ain't never been to no school and I don't really know how to read the big words in the seven books we have in the house. Especially the Bible. Those names are really hard to say out loud and I ain't got no idea what that whole thing is about. But I like to tell Liz the first part about how God made the light out of nothing at all and how he made everything that is in just a few days. Then we'll go out in the snow for a while and make things out of snow and act like we're God turning nothing into something.
It's hard to say how daddy's gonna turn this mess into anything right here, though. And that's what keeps me awake at night. Daddy's snoring over on his bed and Elisabeth is hugging her blanket and sucking her thumb and I'm lying here in the dark, dark Missouri winter's night thinking I'm the only one that knows we're all gonna die right here in this spot and no one will ever know we were here.
I imagine how we must look to God from up there in the sky. Little specks in a snowstorm with the ability to know we're here and what's going to happen to us, while the critters outside roam around without a single thought in their heads except the need they have right now to eat or drink or whatever else it is that critters do all day and night. It don't seem right that I shouldn't be able to just turn this mess in my head off and be a critter and quit worrying all the time. Even when daddy manages to trap one of them and I see the look on their face while they're dying, they don't seem all that upset about it. They don't look like they ever thought about this happening to them before and ain't thinking too much about what's happening right now.
I'm startin' to think that it'd be better for Liz if she went ahead and got this over with before she knows what I know.