He took it and followed her example, then tossed the tube in the backpack. “Year three...was the bad year. We had snow in July. Autumn started at the beginning of August. The garden barely happened. My parents knew we faced disaster. But they wouldn’t admit they might be wrong. That nature was cruel and indifferent.” He spoke with the surety of a man who knew that to be the painful truth. “It was cold and snowy in early September, then some sunshine. We harvested a few carrots, potatoes.” He took a long breath. “Then the arctic winds swept south and in two hours froze everything solid.”

“You didn’t know it was coming?”

He wanted to tell her it did no good to protest the past.

But she wanted somehow to make it right, and she argued with him. “I understand you didn’t have electricity, so no computer or... But what about a weather radio or—”

“We did not have contact with the world. My parents believed that in the good old days—” said with air quotes “—people survived in the roughest conditions. Which was true. But they also died.” He closed his eyes.

Elle’s hand clasped his; she tangled their fingers and held their palms close together.

He opened his eyes and looked at her fingers entwined with his. “We lost every remaining bit of our garden. I was out fishing, and I almost didn’t make it back with my string of trout—and I wasn’t coming back without those fish, because I knew... I’d grown up during those years. I wasn’t a kid anymore.”

“You were eleven!”

This was hard for him to tell and perhaps hard to hear, too. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No. I want to know...need to know what happened.” She gripped his fingers harder. “Please, tell me.”

“Every day my parents had pounded their beliefs into me, but I didn’t trust them anymore. I understood what this kind of cold meant. We had insulated the cabin with natural materials. It wasn’t enough. We had collected downed trees and chopped wood for our rusty stove. That wasn’t enough. We brought the livestock inside. I slept with the goats.” He laughed a little, then sobered. “A mother goat and her spring kid. The kid died, and I swear to you, the mother died of grief. My parents didn’t want to eat them. They thought of the animals as part of the family. So did I, but I was the only practical person in that cabin. I cleaned the animals, hung the meat and made the first stew.”

“I can’t even imagine...”

“I had to learn to cook somewhere.”

“I didn’t mean the cooking, I meant...”

He knew what she meant: she couldn’t imagine an eleven-year-old butchering the animals he loved.