In Kaneq, as she walked off the water taxi, it started to snow. The town gave off a slight humming: the sound of the big generator that fueled the new lights. Snow fell like sifting flour in the glow of Mr. Walker’s new streetlamps. She barely noticed the cold as she walked up to the General Store.

The bell rang at her entrance. It was four-thirty, technically still daytime, but night was coming in fast.

Large Marge was dressed in a thigh-length fringed suede jacket over insulated pants. Her hair looked like shavings from an Etch A Sketch that had been glued to her skull. In places she had no hair at all, patches where she’d cut too zealously down to her brown scalp, probably because she didn’t own a mirror. “Leni! What a nice surprise,” she said in a foghorn voice that would have sent birds into the air. “I miss my best-ever employee.”

Leni saw compassion in the woman’s dark eyes. She meant to say, I saw Matthew, but to her horror what she did was burst into tears.

Large Marge led Leni over to the cash register, eased her to a sitting position on the old-fashioned settee and handed her a Tab.

“I just saw Matthew,” Leni said, slumping forward.

Large Marge sat down beside her. The settee creaked angrily. “Yeah. I was in Anchorage last week. It’s hard to see. It’s killing Tom and Aly, too. How much heartache can one family handle?”

“I thought a care facility meant he was better. I thought…” She sighed. “I don’t know what I thought.”

“He’s as good as he’s going to get, from what I hear. Poor kid.”

“He was trying to save me.”

Large Marge was quiet for a moment. In the silence, Leni wondered if one person could ever really save another, or if it was the kind of thing you had to do for yourself.

“How’s your mom? I still can’t believe she let Ernt come back.”

“Yeah. The cops can’t do anything if she won’t.” Leni didn’t know what else to say. She knew it was impossible for someone like Large Marge to understand why a woman like Cora stayed with a man like Ernt. It should have been as easy as an elementary math equation: he hits you x broken bones = leave him.

“Tom and I begged your mama to press charges. I guess she’s too afraid.”

“It’s about more than fear.” Leni was about to say more when her stomach seized. She thought she might throw up. “Sorry,” she said when the nausea passed. “I feel terrible lately. Worry is making me physically sick, I guess.