Read Twenty Miles for Free Online Page B

want to ruin it by opening it,’ she said, her voice still hoarse with sleep. Her eyes were swollen, her hair tangled; it was the second Christmas of their marriage, and she’d barely slept, prodding Buck out of bed at five-thirty, their room still filled with the metallic taste of night.
    The present was exquisite, a thick, red velvet ribbon intersecting the middle of its green face, paper folded and taped under in precise angles. A fountain of curled ribbon spilled over the edges, trapping in sharp slivers the Christmas tree lights that slowly burnt away the early-morning darkness.
    Buck exposed a startling chord from time to time, an unexpected flash. Sig didn’t know what to do with the jarring intimacy, distant from anything she’d expected of this silent husband. He wrapped birthday gifts for his parents, scrutinized the boxes with an intense eye. Pink ribbons and pastel tissue paper clutched in his giant hand. He occasionally added flourishes to the dinner table when he set it: folded the serviettes into pyramids, picked some wildflowers that grew among the crevices of rock bracing the lake and placed them right there on the table, next to their knives and forks, or plucked a few petals from a daisy and sprinkled them onto Sig’s plate. He didn’t say anything when Sig sat down for dinner, his head bowed to the fingers bearing the mill’s rough calligraphy, scratches and stains, and neither did she, the petals slid off the plate and put aside without a word, hidden in the folds of her yellow serviette.
    There were some things Sig expected of this marriage. She hadn’t expected the silly romantic junk mewled by the mouths of daisies, and she didn’t believe in it either.
    ‘Don’t mind the wrapping,’ Buck said. His head dipped and he twisted his wedding ring. ‘It’s yours to open, anyways.’
    ‘Here I go,’ Sig said. She tore into the gift, putting the ribbon to the side, yelped as she lifted a skate out of the box.
    ‘If they’re not the right size, or they’re – ’ Buck watched Sig’s face.
    Leather seeped pungent into the living room, overthrowing the scent of pine. Sig, a low chuckle, examined the liquid curves of theblack boot, the slow touch of lights, red and green, on the long blade.
    ‘They’re the same kind as mine,’ Buck said. ‘Figured mine have done the trick, so – But if you want something different, something –’
    ‘No,’ Sig said and laughed. ‘No. No.’
    The lake snapped and creaked beneath them. Sig moved in staccato strides, her arms swooping beside her. Her ankles caved in toward each other, echo of her blades against the ice.
    ‘Goddammit,’ she slurred through her balaclava as she snagged a blade and keeled forward.
    Buck caught her elbow, pulled her upright.
    Docks frozen in summer amnesia dotted the shoreline behind them. White rolled out in front of them, until it hit and shattered the horizon. The sky didn’t move, wind locked away. The shovel Buck used to clear the ice lay half-buried nearby. Delicate tendrils of cold snaked up Sig’s toes, toward her ankles. She moved the toes with satisfaction. They were nearly numb – the way it should be, skating on the deserted lake Christmas day.
    ‘How the hell do you do this?’ Sig said and wrenched her elbow free from Buck’s grasp. She plunged forward, mouth a straight line, and glided for a moment before her feet gave way and she tumbled to the ice.
    ‘Bloody hell sonofabitch skates!’ she spat and put her cheek against the ice for a moment before rolling onto her back. Buck loomed above her, his face red, breath steaming around his head. The woollen flaps on his hat lolled forward like dogs ears.
    ‘Help up?’ he said and extended his hand. Sig found the dull seep of the cold to her winter skin, lethargic through the layers of clothing – wool undershirt, Icelandic wool sweater, parka – preferable to the stuttering vertigo carved out by the skates.
    ‘No, I’m just looking at the sky,’ she