Chapter 46
Three low wails pierced the sky and Alice’s world tipped. She turned, her eyes searching for Marco, and it was like she was swimming in slow motion, her mind trying to drag her all the way back to August.
Marco’s hands grabbed hers and pulled her back from the edge. ‘Alice, Alice, are you with me?’
‘What’s happening?’
Beyond the door Bear started to bark, frantic at the noise and anxious because Alice wasn’t coming inside.
‘Can you hear me?’ Marco insisted, putting his gloved hands on Alice’s cheeks and forcing her to look at him. ‘Are you with me?’
‘Yes,’ she blinked. ‘Yes, Marco. Come inside.’ She tugged at him.
‘Alice, I can’t, I have to go.’
‘Where?’
‘On a rescue. That siren means I have to go, okay?’
She clung to him, still trying to shake this fog that was overwhelming her thoughts. ‘What’s happened?’
He paused, as if not sure whether to tell her.
‘Marco, tell me.’
‘Avalanche, I think.’
‘How bad?’
‘I don’t know yet, the visibility’s all gone. I’ll be back soon. You go inside, Bear needs you.’
‘I can help, let me do something.’
‘Listen to me: there’s nothing you can do here, and that’s okay. You cannot save everyone. Just be there for the one who needs you now, that’s all you can do.’
‘No,’ she cried as he tried to untangle himself. ‘Don’t go up there, please stay here.’
‘I have to go, this is what I do.’ He spoke quietly but firmly.
‘But . . . ’ She grabbed for his sleeves, for his coat, the sirens still ringing in her head. ‘But I can’t do this alone. What if I lose you too?’
He was already pulling away, but he kissed her, his lips warm despite the weather around them, and then backed away from the chalet and held her gaze for just a moment more. ‘Of course you can handle this. Don’t let the “what ifs” control you.’
Marco turned and jogged back down the hill and Bear’s barking turned to a guttural wail, the type of noise Alice hadn’t heard since that first night she’d brought him home and tried to leave him to sleep in the spare room.
She scrabbled with the door handle and entered the chalet and had to fumble for the light switch, it was so gloomy inside. But several flicks told her the power was out. Bear was all over her, leaning and licking and catching his breath.
Alice slumped down against the door, holding on to him, running her fingers through his fur. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,’ she whispered over and over again, to either the dog or herself.
They sat there for who knows how long, as the sky grew ever darker, the wind howling against the wood of the chalet, the cold air whistling under the door. There were rumbles in the distance and she didn’t know if they were thunder or shifting snow on the mountains. Then the chopping sound of a helicopter cut through the falling ice overhead.
Her own demons clawed at the chalet door, reminding her that if anything happened to Bear it would be her fault. She brought him here. She fought back with reasoning – nothing was going to happen to Bear, he was safe inside with her. But the mind has a devilish way of spinning speculation into foregone conclusion.
Bear whined, and Alice talked to him in a sing-song, but wobbly, voice about how she wasn’t going anywhere. She told him about how brave Marco was, and how she was working hard to be as brave as him, and as she said it she thought about what he’d said. She couldn’t save everyone. And she pushed back harder at her thoughts, breathing in and breathing out, and vowed not to ever again let the ‘what ifs’ be in charge.
Flashback images of Jill danced in the dark, her face half turned and smiling at her across the sea of people after they’d separated, but Alice pushed it roughly aside and remembered instead a different memory of Jill.
They were at the Women’s March back in January. They’d walked and walked and cheered and held their placards high and Alice was so happy because in that moment it felt like history could, finally, start on a new course. Jill had shouted in her ear to be heard over the noise, ‘This is so great, but what if nothing changes?’
