Northern Lights

don't break my word if I give it. So I'll give you my word. I won't cheat on you."
    "Except at cards."
    "Well, yeah. It's going to be light soon. We should get going."
     
     
    SHE DIDN'T KNOW how she was going to handle it with Charlene. Any angle she picked, the result was going to be the same. Hysteria, accusations, rage, tears. It was always messy with Charlene.
    Maybe Nate read her mind, because he stopped Meg outside the door of The Lodge. "Maybe I should break this to her. I've had to give family members this kind of news before."
    "You've had to tell people their lover's been dead in an ice cave for fifteen years?"
    "The means don't change the impact that much."
    His voice was gentle, in direct contrast to the jagged edge of hers. It calmed her. More than calmed her, she realized. It made her want to lean on him.
    "Much as I'd like to pass this plate to you, I'd better handle it. You're welcome to pick up the pieces after I'm done."
    They went inside. A few people were loitering over coffee or eating an early lunch. Meg flipped open her coat as she signalled to Rose.
    "Charlene?"
    "Office. We heard Steven and his friends are going to be okay. Roads were still too bad, but Jerk swung in to fly Joe and Lara down this morning. Get you some coffee?"
    Nate watched Meg walk through a doorway. "Sure."
     
     
    SHE WENT STRAIGHT THROUGH the lobby area, skirted the counter and entered the office without knocking.
    Charlene was at her desk, on the phone. She gave Meg an impatient, back-fingered wave.
    "Now, Billy, if I'm going to get screwed like that, I expect to be taken out to dinner first."
    Meg turned away. If her mother was haggling over the price of supplies, she had to let it run through. The office didn't look efficient. It looked like Charlene—female and obvious and foolish. Lots of cottoncandy pink in the fabrics, armies of silly dust catchers. Paintings of flowers in gold frames on the walls, silk pillows mounded on the velvet settee.
    It smelled of roses, from the room spray Charlene spritzed every time she entered the room. The desk itself was an ornate reproduction antique she'd bought from a catalog and paid too much money for. Curvy legs and lots of carving.
    The desk set was pink, as were all her personal stationery and Post-its. All of them were topped with Charlene in fancy, nearly illegible script.
    There was a pole lamp beside the settee—a gold wash with a pink beaded shade more suitable, in Meg's mind, to a bordello than an office.
    She wondered, as she often did, how she could have come from anyone whose tastes, whose mind, whose ways, were so directly opposed to her own. Then again, maybe her own life was nothing more than an endless rebellion against the womb.
    Meg turned back when she heard Charlene purr her good-byes.
    "Trying a price hike on me." With a short laugh, Charlene poured herself another glass of water from the pitcher on her desk.
    Didn't look efficient, Meg thought, but looks were deceiving. When it came to business, Charlene could calculate her profit and loss to the penny, any time of the day or night.
    "I hear you're a hero." Charlene watched her daughter as she sipped. "You and the sexy chief. You stay over in Anchorage to celebrate?"
    "We lost the light."
    "Sure. Just a word of advice. A man like Nate's got baggage and plenty of it. You're used to traveling fast and light. It's not a good match."
    "I'll keep that in mind. I need to talk to you."
    "I've got calls and paperwork. You know this is my busy time of day."
    "It's about my father."
    Charlene lowered her water glass. Her face went very still, very pale, then the color erupted in her cheeks. Candy pink to match the room.
    "Did you hear from him? Did you see him in Anchorage? That son of a bitch. He'd better not think for one minute he can come back here and pick things up. He's not getting anything out of me, and if you've got any sense, you'll say the same."
    She shoved away from the desk and stood, her color rising from pink to hot and red. "Nobody, nobody walks away from me then walks back. Not ever. Pat Galloway can go fuck himself."
    "He's dead."
    "Probably had some sob story to tell. He was always good with . . .
    What do you mean he's dead?" Looking more annoyed than shocked, she flipped back her curly hair. "That's ridiculous. Who told you such a stupid lie?"
    "He's been dead. It looks like he's been dead a long time. Maybe only days after he left here."
    "Why would you say something like that? Why would