“Not Tom. That would make it worse.”

“College starts in three and a half weeks, Mama. I have to leave as soon as I can. Will you go with me?”

“Maybe you should go without me.”

Leni had known this was coming. She had wrestled with it and finally come to an answer. “I have to go, Mama. I can’t live this way, but I need you. I’m afraid … I won’t be able to leave you.”

“Peas in a pod,” Mama said, sounding sad. But she understood. They had always been together. “You need to go. I want you to go. I couldn’t forgive myself if you didn’t, so what’s your plan?”

“The first chance we get, we run. Maybe he goes hunting and we take the boat. Whatever the opportunity is, we take it. If we’re still here when the first leaf falls, it’s all over.”

“So we just run. With nothing.”

“We run with our lives.”

Mama glanced away. It was a long, long time before she nodded and said, “I’ll try.”

It was not the answer Leni wanted, but it was the best she was going to get. She only prayed that when the opportunity for escape arose, Mama would go with her.

*   *   *

THE WEATHER BEGAN to change. Here and there, bright green leaves turned golden, tangerine, scarlet. Birch trees that had been invisible all year, lost amid the other trees, appeared boldly in the forefront, their bark white as the wings of a dove, their leaves like a million candle flames.

With every leaf that changed color, Leni’s tension increased. It was nearing the end of August now—early for autumn to arrive, but Alaska was capricious that way.

Although she and Mama had never spoken of their escape plan again, it lived in the air between sentences. Every time Dad left the cabin they looked at each other, and in that look, a question. Is this the time?

Today Leni and her mother were making blueberry syrup when Dad came in from outside. He was dirty and sweaty, with a fine layer of black dust on his damp face. For the first time, Leni noticed gray strands in his beard. He wore his hair in a low, haphazard ponytail and had tied a bicentennial bandanna across his forehead. He came forward, his rubber boots clomping on the plywood floor. He went into the kitchen, saw what Mama was making for dinner. “Again?” he said, peering down at the salmon croquettes. “No vegetables?”

“I’m conserving. We’re out of flour and low on rice. I’ve told you that,” Mama said wearily. “If you’d let me go to town…”

“You should go to Homer, Dad. Stock up for winter,” Leni said, hoping she sounded casual.

“I don’t think it’s safe to leave you two here alone.”

“The wall keeps us safe,” Leni said.