An Unfair Move

She lingered by the ice cream, not planning to buy anything other than the Klondike Bars for Mike that she’d already placed in her cart, but desperate not to go home. The whining glass and stainless steel freezers offered Chipwiches; cones drizzled in fudge and sprinkled with peanuts; sundae cups, strawberry stripes like wheel spokes on vanilla bean; Neapolitan sandwiches. Appetizing, in the best of times, or when a boyfriend dumped you, or when you’d fought with a friend, but, apparently, not when the weight of a life-changing decision squatted upon your shoulders.

           He’d introduced it as good news. His boss had offered him the promotion he’d longed for for years. But it had strings attached: a thousand-mile move to Alaska. Alaska. Loneliness, high crime, bitter winters bearing miles of snow and near-twenty-four-hour darkness. He might as well have requested to start over in Siberia.

“It’s not fair,” she’d said, glaring at him across their kitchen table what felt like eons ago. She’d reminded him, as if he could have forgotten, of when a company in Miami had offered her her dream job. He hadn’t wanted to go—everything was here, he’d said; their lives were here. Though the thought of declining the position snapped a few heartstrings, she’d taken only minutes to decide to do so. She hadn’t even allowed herself to resent him or give him a hard time because, then, as now, she couldn’t stomach the thought of losing him; she’d recognized making him abandon everything he knew unjust; and she’d known that he’d do the same for her.

At least, she’d thought he would. Instead, he’d insisted that the significant bump in pay the promotion offered would make taking it worthwhile. Didn’t she want to give Emmalynn a better life than she’d had? Didn’t she want to give her a beautiful house, nice clothes and shoes, the latest gadgets, a good school? Plus, he’d said, a change of scene would do her good. As if a twelve-month-old would ever wake thinking, “Geez, I’m sick of this joint.” He’d set Talia on a precipice amid boiling lava—a precipice that had, by now, almost fully eroded, forcing her to pick the side of it on which she’d burn.

She imagined living in an Arctic wilderness, the walls of a house that would surely fail miserably to live up to the picture Mike had painted bleeding cold. She imagined living with the knowledge that, in an emergency coupled with one of the phone outages that probably happened all too often there, they’d have to trudge miles through snow to find help. She imagined its frigid bite soaking through her boots and socks and lower pant legs, stinging and then numbing her fingers and toes. She imagined having to summon sterling will and suit up as if to visit Chernobyl every time she ventured outside. She imagined falling asleep every night to gusts howling in icy eaves, waking every morning to a whitewashed wasteland. 

She imagined what the alternative would mean for Emmalynn: divorced parents thousands of miles away from one another. They couldn’t shuffle her back and forth regularly; she’d have to spend most of her time with one or the other. Yes, mothers generally had the upper hand in custody battles, a fact for which, in this case, at least, she felt thankful. Yet she didn’t want to deprive her daughter of time with her father, especially because she knew that, then, the child may well grow to resent her. Or, worse, she’d ask herself the questions that had tormented Talia throughout her childhood and, though she hated to admit it, still tormented her when companions quieted and happenings paused. What’s wrong with me? What did I do to make him like this? Hell, if she made Emmalynn ask herself those questions, she deserved resentment.

She turned and wandered farther down the aisle. Stainless steel shelves displayed French vanilla and cookie dough and rocky road in tubs that simultaneously yielded less and cost more every year. Did they eat ice cream in Alaska? If so, maybe, considering their climate, they just called it “cream.” Hahaha.

She turned and spotted a familiar, but unwelcome, face. Karina Bliss, the “psychic” Mike had been seeing regularly since before he and Talia had met. She “got so many things right,” he said. But those “things” were either so vague that dozens of events could have sufficed, or so obvious, when one knew Mike, that Talia could have guaranteed that any one of his family or friends would have no trouble coming up with the same “prediction.” And, yet, she’d told him that he should see what Karina thought before making any rash decisions, hoping, against all odds, that she’d advise against the move, which would, she knew, immediately eradicate the issue.

But Karina, he’d told her upon his return from her establishment, thought that the move would prove a new, brighter chapter of their lives. The poser had had one job, one job, that could make her useful to Talia, and she couldn’t even do that.

Before Talia could slip away, the “psychic” looked at her, eyes flashing, and waved. “Talia. Hey.”

No way out now. Forcing a breath into lungs as stiff as lemon peels, she wheeled her cart to where Karina stood beside the TV dinners.

“Nice to see you,” Karina said once she’d come within hearing distance.

“You, too.”

“How’ve you guys been doing since I last saw Mike?”

She shrugged. “Oh, you know, getting ready for the move.”

Karina’s brows furrowed. “You’re still gonna move?”

“You’re surprised?”

Karina looked at her as if she’d suggested that they climb to the roof of the store and do the Chicken Dance. “Of course I’m surprised, after what I told him…I mean, I guess I can’t think everybody’s gonna listen to everything I say, but I sensed that Mike trusted me…”

“Well, yeah,” she said, feeling as if trying to explain this to a kindergartner. “You told him it’d be good for us.”

“No, I didn’t. I said your daughter would hate it there—doesn’t like the cold, you know?…That’s not what he told you?”

Talia opened her mouth but didn’t reply, feeling as if flattened by a Steinway. She’d thought him stubborn. A believer in things people should not believe in. Oblivious to her wants and needs, even. But now she saw something worse.

Karina’s features knotted as she realized that she’d said something her client wouldn’t like. Before she could speak, however, Talia muttered, “Nice seeing you, Karina,” and made a beeline for the other end of the aisle to return the treats she’d grabbed there.

He could get his own damn Klondike Bars.