Queen Maud Gulf, Nunavut, Canada
April 28th, 38°F, wind: 15 m.p.h.
“You’re the expert, Lydia,” Scott says as they stare out at the expanse of Arctic sea. Where there were supposed to be sleek sheets of ice, there’s now mostly slush. “What now?”
Scott’s nose and cheeks are red, a bad mix of cold and sunburn. He’d forgotten, or ignored, Lydia’s reminders to protect his skin.
The six-dog team whines in unison, frustrated as their paws sink into the snow without the solid grounding of ice beneath. Sadie, the lead dog, might be able to find them safe passage. She has good instincts.
Lydia studies maps and weather patterns for a living. Though this trip is, supposedly, for pleasure, being caught off-guard is a deep cut to her pride, and embarrassed heat burns her face. For all her carefully laid plans, the breakup of winter ice has come too early. Still, a dark, sharp place inside her refuses to accept that this part of Queen Maud Gulf may be impassable.
Reluctantly, Lydia turns to meet Scott’s striking eyes. Pale blue irises, stark against the red of his cheeks. The scruff on his normally clean-shaven face makes him look wild and strange.
Years ago, on one of their first sledding trips, Scott let Lydia shave his beard with a straight razor. She remembers the exposed column of his throat, head tilted back as she spread the foam across his jawline. Back then she had mapped every inch of his body, knew the topography and lines of it. This was just more uncharted territory to learn in slow, trusting increments.
Now she wouldn’t offer, and he wouldn’t ask.
#
Lydia’s heart races as she paces around the shoreline. Admitting defeat now when they’re so close to reaching the site where the HMS Terror crashed on King William Island is unfathomable. Under good conditions, her estimates place them only fifty miles away.
Lydia designed this year’s route just for Scott. When they met in their college course Marine Archaeology, Scott had a particular fascination with the then-undiscovered shipwreck.
“Can you imagine being the one to finally find it?” he asked once.
Cocksure, Lydia grinned. “Of course I can.”
Neither of them was there when it was discovered, but this is still something. It has to be. Lydia’s skin is hot and itchy under her layers of clothes, and she stops pacing to take a swig from her water bottle, the steel heavy in her hands.
The dogs and Scott are all watching her, waiting for her call. Lydia meets Sadie’s eyes, one lead dog recognizing another.
It’ll be a struggle, even if Sadie can guide them across the gulf, traveling by land isn’t a good alternative if the snow has melted on the other side, rocky terrain unfriendly to a sled and dangerous to a team.
Scott’s voice breaks the heavy silence. “I thought you said the storm last week was a good sign.”
The edge in his voice makes Lydia bristle. They had concerns before they set off, but she thought they were on the same page.
“I did.” Lydia counts to ten in her head. “I thought we had more time before the sea got like this.”
“Jesus.” Scott tilts his head back, using his hand as a shield against the sun. “How did it go from last week to this? This isn’t our first rodeo, we should have known better.”
“You do realize that just because I’m the only one updating the log book every night, it doesn’t imbue me with a secret power to control the weather or predict its whims with unwavering accuracy.”
Scott looks at her like she’s lost her mind, opens his mouth to say something but then snaps it quickly shut and shakes his head.
Sadie trots over between them, scrutinizing the water as if she too believes the call is hers to make alone. Lydia pats her head, and though Sadie doesn’t look away from the sea, her tail thumps twice against the snow, leaving a soft imprint in its wake.
“So what next?” Scott asks finally.
“I need another minute to think,” Lydia grits out, pressing the heel of her gloved hand against her eye.
The other dogs roll around in the snow, oblivious or so completely trusting of Sadie’s leadership that they have no reason to be concerned. That kind of blind trust feels good until it doesn’t. Until it curdles into something sour, something that undermines and needles, withholds praise but is lightning quick to dole out blame.
#
When Lydia decided to study geography, she dreamed her life would be full of expeditions to far-flung places. Instead, her days mainly consist of using GIS software to help the government decide where to put power lines.
In college, she passed up a post-graduation internship opportunity. She could have been part of an expedition to the Canadian Arctic for three months that summer, and she may have never returned home to Alaska. Life could’ve taken her anywhere.
“You could stay,” Scott said, pressed up against her in his tiny dorm bed. “Move in with me?” His voice was soft, eyes sleepy as his hands slipped out from under the covers and reached toward her. A happy shiver slid down her spine as his fingers skimmed across her arm. “I’ll take you on so many adventures.”
“Okay,” Lydia, hypnotized, whispered back.
#
As long as the ice underneath the water and slush, usually five to six inches thick, is sturdy, they’ll be able to carve out a path. But if she miscalculates and they’re stranded out there, unable to set up camp, they could die. If Lydia decides to press forward, they’ll need to move slowly and carefully, losing precious time and resources.
They’ve been traveling for weeks now, put so much time and money into training. When she tries to picture turning around, her mind slams shut. Refuses to see beyond the sea ahead of her.
“We’ve come this far. I’m not going to just quit now,” she tells Scott, voice steadier than she feels.
“I’m?”
“We’re,” she amends.
#
They check the dogs’ harnesses, the lines still strong. Scott takes the seat in the sled while Lydia stands at the back, hovering above them all, and shouts, “Mush!”
Over the years, Scott’s enthusiasm for these trips has waned. His promises of adventure shifting from solid ice to slush. It’s Lydia who can’t let them go.
When she was charting their course, she thought, This will be the trip that makes him realize what we’ve been missing out on.
The sun beats down on them and the sea, and Scott takes his cap off, unruly brown curls springing out. Slowly but surely, they move forward, and Scott never looks back at her once.
#
The shoreline is still visible when one of the dogs goes under. There’s a sharp crack of ice, a splash, and a terrified yip as Poppet, their left wheel dog, disappears beneath the water. The momentum yanks the rest of the team back even as Sadie urges them forward on their harnesses. The right wheel dog, Duke, is dragged back next, hind legs slipping in first as his front paws scramble against the ice in front of him. The rest of the dogs are pulled further toward the hole in the ice.
Lydia and Scott leap off the sled and run toward the dogs to pull forward on the lines.
“We’re going to break them,” Scott says.
“We won’t, just keep pulling,” Lydia insists.
But Scott lets go, moving instead to try and reach into the icy water for the dogs.
“Your clothes!” Lydia shouts on instinct. If he can’t change out of them to dry, the risk of hypothermia goes up exponentially even with the warmer weather. Not only that, but they’ll weigh him—and the sled and dogs—down. He never thinks ahead, never plans, never—
Scott ignores her, doesn’t shuck off his gloves or jacket like he should. Instead, he crouches down, submerging his arms up to nearly the shoulders as he reaches for Duke first.
“It’s okay, Poppet,” Scott says to her. “I’ll get you next, girl. I promise.”
Scott manages to hook his arms around Duke’s side. Duke scrambles and still can’t find purchase, falling back as Scott holds him up. Lydia and the dogs keep pulling on the line.
“Hike!” Lydia calls to the team, and they surge forward again and again. “Hike!”
Adrenaline drives her, her entire focus on moving forward inch by inch until she hears Scott and Duke both cry out, and Duke heaves himself over the ice, body trembling and shaking.
Scott reaches for Poppet next. Despite how shaken he is, Duke dutifully gets back into position. Scott hooks his arms around a yelping Poppet and hoists her drenched body out of the water the same way he did for Duke.
Lydia rushes to unharness the team. The dogs take turns nuzzling and licking one another’s faces. Duke and Poppet shake themselves vigorously; sharp sprays of water hit the sled and Lydia’s cheeks as she rifles through their supplies, pulling out a dry top and gloves.
Scott takes off his drenched jacket and gloves, rolls them on the shore’s hard-packed snow to dry them out. His upper body is soaked, but his lower half has faired better, and Lydia offers him the fresh clothing.
“You okay?” she asks.
“Yeah.” His teeth chatter as he strips off his wet shirt. “They’re a good team.”
“Must be nice.”
Scott’s eyes flash with irritation, and it strikes a match inside of Lydia. A small, ember-hot glow burning in the darkness. She waits, but Scott doesn’t say a word.
#
“I thought you wanted kids,” Scott said, following her inside the house and kicking off his boots. A rush of icy wind chased them in. Lydia winced as the warmth of the house shocked her cold skin, almost burning it.
She hung her coat up neatly on the rack and freed her hair from the knit cap. Everything felt too tight.
“I thought I did, but now…” She let that hang between them, still trying to feel her way through the unfamiliar terrain of her own mind. “If you really wanted them, maybe. But I didn’t think you cared anymore.”
Scott sat down on the sofa, his big brown coat still on. It made him look small for some reason, like a little boy who’d put on his father’s clothes. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do want them,” Lydia said.
Scott looked up at her, hands resting in his lap. “I’m not going to leave you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“You might not leave, but you might still resent me.”
“I want whatever you want, Lyd. Don’t you trust me?”
She froze. Her eyes went to the coffee table with the wonky leg that Scott insisted on buying at a yard sale. For months he’d promised to fix the leg himself. That had been two years ago. If it was going to get done, Lydia knew she’d have to learn and do it herself. Scott didn’t mind living with broken things.
“Don’t put this all on me,” Lydia snapped. “You can tell me what you want.”
“I thought I was,” he said.
#
Lydia’s gut churns, a choking panic cutting off her speech. Admitting the truth means admitting defeat.
Poppet shivers in Scott’s arms. Sadie lifts her head from where it’s curled in the snow against Duke’s side, looking up at Lydia balefully.
They’re exhausted, and Lydia is ashamed for ever thinking the reward justified the risk. That this was ever their problem to solve.
“Do you want us to try again?” Scott asks.
“Do you want us to try again?”
Scott lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug, won’t meet her eyes. They both know he doesn’t really want to be here in the first place.
“What if I kept going?” Lydia asks abruptly, the words leaving her lips as soon as they enter her mind.
A long pause and Scott says, “What?”
Lydia’s eyes trace thin rivers of water snaking around larger patches of ice. “Worst case scenario, I’d sink to the bottom of the sea. Best case scenario, I’d end up like one of those polar bears on the ice floes. You know what I’m talking about—the photographs they always use for articles about global warming.”
It sounds terrible and tempting, to float out there alone.
Scott’s face says, You have absolutely without a doubt lost your mind, but his mouth says nothing. This is the way it goes: Lydia says unhinged things to get a reaction, Scott retreats.
#
“You could teach geography,” Scott suggested. He put the book he was reading down on the bedside table, slipped off his reading glasses, and turned to look at her. “Maybe that would be more fulfilling?”
“I don’t like kids,” she said when she meant I don’t like people.
Occasionally she fantasized about mapping isolated arctic islands. She’d make the journey by herself, just her and a team of dogs, and her life wouldn’t be so small.
But she was afraid then and she’s afraid now of charting that new course. It’s a lot of pain to cause, a lot of sacrifices to make when there’s a good chance she’ll reach her destination only to be met with a sea she can’t cross.
#
“Tell me what you want to do, Lyd.”
The wind’s starting to pick up again, slicing at her exposed skin. Throat tight, she turns to Scott with pleading eyes. Words struggle to break free from the constricting space, scraping, clawing.
Tears don’t come easily to Lydia. Cold and frigid are words she’s heard thrown around about her. Scott’s mother cautioned him that Lydia lacked a maternal spirit. She isn’t crying now, but she’s close enough that she feels like a polar bear out on an island of ice, vulnerable and alone.
“I can’t. I—”
I can’t go back, I can’t go forward, I’m so fucking afraid of what comes next no matter what I choose.
Scott studies her for a long while, and it takes Lydia a beat too long to realize he’s afraid too. Of her. Of what she might do or say.
It makes her angry and sad and guilty all at once. She’s just as scared as he is, of what she might do or say.
She’s sure he’s not going to say anything more, when he surprises her.
“Let’s call it.” Scott pets Sadie’s head with the gentleness that Lydia had loved in him for so long. “There’s no shame in going back now. We had a good run.”
Her eyes still sting. She blinks hard then nods.
They turn around, retracing their steps in silence, the dogs cautious until they’re back where they started at the edge of the bay. White tundra blending with bare ground and shrubby growth, wind whipping at the exposed parts of Lydia’s face. She and Scott pause for a rest, feed the dogs their favorite jerky snacks and thank them for a job well done.
The settlement they’re returning to has a landing strip and a local pilot who will fly them all back to where they’d begun. There won’t be room for anyone else on the small plane, the altitude will make the dogs whine at first, and Lydia will pretend she’s come to terms with returning the team to their ranch. It’s always the hardest saying goodbye to the dogs, the bleakness of the adventure ending.
Her mind limps forward to the moment she and Scott step through their front door, everything exactly as they’d left it save for the stack of mail on the coffee table. The room is too dark and too close, and she remains frozen in place like a hunted animal.
But the picture melts away and is replaced by a series of new somewheres—a sparsely-furnished apartment with a narrow bed and a window with a view of the sea; a tiny tent that compactly fits a sleeping bag, a camping stove, and a lantern; a musty hostel room filled with bunk beds and strangers to meet or ignore. Her heart beats out a long-forgotten rhythm.
Those lonely pictures of the polar bears only show one moment. They don’t show if the bear swims to another icy island or safely back to shore.
Ten years ago, when Lydia began her studies and wrote one of her very first papers on the Arctic, she was mystified that you could be surrounded by so much snow and die of dehydration. And now she’s just as mystified to find you can be surrounded by love and your heart can die of longing.
She thought all the time spent studying the shape of the land, the shape of Scott, living in their legends and lines, would protect her from failure. Or at least what she thought failure was, before.
A few feet away, Sadie leaps into the air, kicking up snow behind her as she plays. A tiny thrill sends a shiver down Lydia’s spine. It’s a precious gift Scott has given, to be the one to call this journey. She knows she owes him one in return.
When Scott looks over at her, a sad smile playing on his lips, a rusty tenderness flares up inside of her. The landscape is beautiful, untouched and peaceful. The journey was still worth it, just to see this.
“We did our best,” she says, offering a gloved hand, some sweetness. “I’m glad we tried.”
Scott’s eyes search hers, and for a fleeting moment, they know one another again. He takes her hand, and even with the layers of wool between them, her body remembers the bony shape of his fingers, the callouses roughening his skin, the soft center of his palm.
ARIEL KAY is an American writer living in London with her husband, two mischievous rabbits, and ADHD. She enjoys exploring themes of love, longing, and loss in her stories. Her previous publications include Reflex Fiction, NUNUM, and other literary magazines. @arielkay_writes
