by Caitlin Stratton
The doe’s ears stood out, illuminated by an orange glow. Further ahead, in the middle of a clearing, sat an uneven log cabin. Smoke rose from its chimney, and the origin of the orange seeped from a frosted window, showing off a burning fire inside. A small hand pulled the window curtains to one side, letting the light dance into the clearing, and a child’s eyes investigated the deer with a twinkle. The doe stilled, matching the child’s gaze.
The child’s nose grew red from touching the chilled glass, but she didn’t wince. Seeing what lived beyond the cabin’s four walls was more important than being warm. She had watched animals gather in the sun earlier and wanted to look for more in the moonlight while her family cozied up inside. She craved something that couldn’t be found inside the cabin. The animals earlier had darted across the barren branches, brushed against the frozen tree trunks, and munched on the fallen ice covering the backyard in a chilled blanket.
But tonight, only one could be seen. A doe with a small nose and thick coat stared back at the child, breathing in tandem with the fire’s shaking light. When the creature bowed its head slightly, the child swore it was acknowledging her. She trembled with excitement at the prospect of this new friend but held her tongue and jittery noises, afraid to ruin the moment. Her hand tugged onto the curtain for balance.
The doe calmly watched, only moving to shake its coat at the rush of a wind gust. She was the only doe in the area without a family. A remarkable entity. She spent her days drifting through the forest untouched and unscathed, searching for something she, too, had never found. Save for the fall hunters, she lived a peaceful life. All she wanted was something to care for. And all the child wanted was to be cared for again by someone lost to her.
Each night, the doe returned to watch the log cabin sit empty, like a beacon calling for life. This time, the family had come home.
***
In the spring before, the child sat in her bedroom as her parents screamed back and forth downstairs. At only eight, she could not understand why her mother’s overcooked dinner had caused such a stir. But she hid away, flattening her curled hair under the blanket her grandmother had knit for her when she turned five. She used to believe that her big girl blanket had the power to make big girl problems go away. Though she understood now that things sometimes happened for no reason, she still found comfort in the handmade squares.
When the living room finally grew quiet, she knew it was okay to come out and creep into her mother’s arms. But tonight, when she surfaced from her hiding place, her mother was nowhere to be found.
“Oh, sweetie. Mom just went out to grab something.” Her dad assured her as he hugged her tightly and kissed the top of her head with a longing tenderness unfamiliar to her. She winced. Something was wrong, she felt.
When her mother returned while she was asleep that evening, the energy in the house shifted. In the morning, the child awoke to her parents sitting silently at the kitchen table. When she saw her mother sitting there, she beamed. But the brightness in her eyes was lost when she saw her father’s gaze locked on his feet and tears in her mother’s eyes.
“Sarah, please come sit with us.” Her mother smiled weakly. Her blue eyes looked electric from all the escaping tears.
Sarah obeyed, dragging one of the kitchen chairs out with a scraping noise that filled the air between them. Crisp and alone.
“What’s happening, mummy?” Sarah’s voice broke. She had always been able to sense tension. A change in feeling or a crack in the air set alarms off in her bones, begging her to run, hide, or scream. This morning, it was the loss of her mother’s sweet sunup voice that made her feel wrong.
“Mummy has something very important to talk with you about.”
Her father had not looked up from his lap yet. His clothes were all black, like an omen.
Her mother continued, “Do you remember how I was feeling that pain in my head last week? And how I have been for about a year now?”
“Yes, you take the red medicine for it, and we get to cuddle in bed together when you feel sad.” Tylenol bottles were stored around the house as if they might fix the problems that were hidden within their repeated use.
“Yes, sweetie. Well, I went to the doctor to tell her about the pain, and we ran some tests while you were at school this week. And – God, Jonathan, how do I word this?” Her father finally looked up as her mother’s voice shattered.
“Mummy is sick.” He replied with a cold ending. He could never handle bad news.
This is the last thing Sarah remembers hearing before her wails took over completely.
***
That summer was the hardest of her life. Sarah’s mind could not detach the end from the final chapter, and she lived in an in-between state—in between happy and sad, as she called it. It was too early to be sad yet, but she never felt happy anymore, either.
Her mother’s pains grew worse. The medicine had stopped working, and Sarah watched from afar as her mother struggled to get out of bed and leave the house. It was a brain tumour, rapidly growing and taking root inside her head. Soon enough, it would consume all of who she was and take her away from Sarah and Jonathan. They all knew this, and carrying on as if they didn’t was more of a chore than a wish. Her parents tried to explain to her that her mother would be gone one day, and Sarah read books to try and understand what that would mean.
“Mummy, where will we go when you’re not here anymore?”
“What do you mean, my love?”
“Well, we can’t live here without you. You belong here with us. This is your house.”
“Honey, you and your dad will still be here. You’ll be okay. And guess what? I’m always here with you. Do you know where to look for me?”
“No.” Sarah pondered this deeply; her imagination turned on for the first time in months.
“You can always find me in the blue.”
Blue had always been her mother’s favourite colour. From berries to dresses to birds in the sky, she was always transfixed by shades of blue. Her eyes were like a robin’s egg, perfectly blue and untouched. Her favourite blue of all was the one made by the ice that covered the lake by her parent’s cabin. When winter took over, the lake grew still, protected by blue ice that shined in the sun brighter than anything else.
Sarah smiled, allowing her mother to see her truly happy for one of the last times. She gazed into her robin’s egg eyes and let a single tear fall into their joined hands.
***
The funeral was on the first day of autumn. The leaves competed with Sarah’s tears for which could fall the fastest. The funeral flower arrangements were blue, of course, and they contrasted the leaves’ oranges and reds, standing out in the crowd as her mother always had.
Sarah cried until she couldn’t anymore. She wasn’t even sure why she was so sad yet, but it felt right to join in the chorus of sobs surrounding her mother’s casket. Jonathan was silent throughout the day, speaking only through his body as he held onto Sarah’s hand and hugged her when she needed it most. The air felt heavy and unbreathable. Sarah’s nine years with her mother would never be enough, not even close. She missed what she did not yet understand.
Her maternal grandparents spoke with her father at the reception for a long time. Sarah sat nearby, playing with the food on her plate to appear full. She listened to them speak and watched her father nod along until, finally, he replied.
“Thank you. I think that will be just what we need.”
They smiled softly with closed lips, mourning their lost ray of sunshine while trying to speak of a future without her. Her father soon called Sarah over to join them.
“Sarah, Gran and Pop would like us to go with them to the cabin for a little while this winter. We can play in the snow, go ice fishing with Pop, and Gran can show you all the animals in the forest that she feeds. Your mother loved it there so much,” his voice cracked, just like her mother’s did when they broke the news to her, “and we’ve never really had a chance to take you out there when you’ll remember it. How does that sound?”
Sarah nodded. She wanted to smile, but the curves of her lips could not yet want to make happy motions.
Three months later, they packed the car with bags of clothes, books and toys for Sarah, fishing gear, and food for the cabin. Jonathan drove them through the country highways for four hours, leaving their palace of grief behind—it was a necessary escape for them both. Sarah swore the air grew lighter once their car reached the forest-soaked mountains.
Sarah had only been to the cabin when she was very small. She barely remembered the home, aside from stories her mother would enact for her before bed. She remembered the cabin as her mother’s oasis, where everything stilled, and all that mattered was the air in your lungs and the chill in your bones, quickly warmed by the fire inside and a cup of hot chocolate. Her mother’s secret was a spoonful of peanut butter to make the cup of happiness even sweeter.
“We’re here, sweetie.” Her father awoke her from a nap once they had parked outside the wooden home. She did not remember drifting to sleep, but she had trouble with that lately.
She blinked herself awake and stumbled out of the car, hand in hand with her father. Once her eyes adjusted to the bright glare from the snow, she looked upon the quaint and beautiful log cabin. Built by her grandfather and his brother forty years ago, it stood in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by hundred-year-old trees and natural life. Though the home had a slight tilt, it was welcoming and reminded her immediately of the stories her mother described in such intricate detail.
A family of deer walked in between the trees on the cabin’s right side without a care for her family gathered out front. Birds chirped from the branches of every tree, it seemed. Her grandparents emerged from the cozy, chocolate-coloured haven to help them with their things.
“We’re so glad you’re here, Sarah.” They wrapped her in a hug as snow began to dance toward the tops of their heads.
December was the first month Sarah had not cried every day yet. But today, seeing the fixture of her mother’s stories in real life, she allowed the tears to fall if they promised to be happy, too. Her father and grandparents soon joined in, wrapped in blue blankets, as the memory of her mother held them together.
“Mom always told me how warm it is inside, even when the world is frozen outside the window.” Sarah shared as they entered the cabin.
Sarah looked longingly at the blankets and felt her mother, in the blue.
“Always!” Her Pop replied, “Have you seen the frost on the windows yet? Your mum was always fascinated by the unique patterns in the ice when she was your age. Come,” he stood up and walked with Sarah over to the window.
Sarah peeled back the curtains and stood on her tiptoes to see the ice formations. Her Pop chuckled at her stance, reminding him of his missing daughter. He blinked the tears away.
“Who wants a cup of cocoa?” Sarah’s grandmother called out.
When night dawned on the cabin, Pop lit a glowing fire and told Sarah to look outside for any wandering animals. Her grandmother said they often visited for a midnight snack. Sarah jumped up to return to the frosted window and peeled the handmade curtains back as fast as she could.
Sarah and the doe stared into each other’s eyes for minutes before she dared to move.
“Gran, one of your deer friends is here! Just like you said,” She whispered, afraid to spook it.
Gran came to look, grabbing a carrot from the basket on the counter.
“I’ve never seen that one before!” Gran was just as transfixed. “Why don’t you go see if it’s hungry? I’ll watch you from here; it won’t hurt you.”
Jonathan and Pop joined to observe as Sarah wore her jacket and boots. She held the carrot in her tiny hands with a mighty grip. The back door cracked open from the cold, inviting Sarah to join the fresh, snowy world. Her first step resounded a delicate crunch, and the doe continued to walk closer.
When the two finally reached each other, Sarah held the carrot above her head to reach its snout. The doe whinnied, taking the carrot from the child’s hands with a grace only found in stories.
“That’s a good girl.” Sarah smiled—a genuine, wide grin.
She stood perfectly still as the doe finished her carrot, and then it did something none of the family had seen before. The doe sat in the snow, looking up at Sarah as if they knew each other. They stayed this way. Sarah ran her hands through the creature’s fur until they no longer noticed the cold. And in the perfect bliss, Sarah looked into the doe’s eyes and froze.
She began to cry again, her tears cooling down as they reached her cheeks. Sarah had found exactly what she needed to know everything would be okay.
The doe’s eyes looked like robin’s eggs, and blueberries, and the ice in the lake. The most beautiful blue she had ever seen.
© Caitlin Stratton
Caitlin Stratton (she/her) is a writer from Alberta, Canada who recently graduated from the University of Alberta. She enjoys writing in many genres as long as her characters carry pieces of her own story with them. Find her on instagram @caitlinstrattonwrites.
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