Not ever initiating a new topic of conversation at a dinner party where Bud’s friends were in attendance.

Not ever inviting her friends to visit without first securing clearance from Bud.

Not ever refusing sex.

Not ever miscarrying.

Or going out without first asking permission and giving Bud an accurate estimate of when she would return.

Or miscarrying a second time.

Or leaving the house with fresh bruises.

Or calling the police at two-thirty in the morning when you’ve locked yourself in the bathroom because your husband has threatened to kill you.

Or bringing Bud anything less than an ice-cold beer in his favorite pint glass.

Or miscarrying a third.

Or loaning money—Bud’s fucking money—to a friend on the brink of a winter eviction.

Or miscarrying a fourth.

Or ever acting like a cold and distant bitch.

* * * *

So by the time Ariana turned thirty, she had fully mastered the patterns of behavior that would not get her regularly beaten.

She walked the line, did as she was told, and there were even fleeting moments when she convinced herself that she was happy.

* * * *

When she was thirty-three, she and Bud celebrated their fifteenth wedding anniversary six months early with a month-long trip to Fiji in the dead of the Michigan winter.

There was one evening in particular when they dined on a patio beside the sea with a traditional Fijian meal, and maybe it was the good wine going to her head and the perfect kokoda (raw fish marinated in lime juice and served with fresh vegetables), but a strange question presented itself as the sun dissolved into the South Pacific in an exquisite spill of light: had Bud changed? Become a better man? He hadn’t raised his hand or voice to her in two years. Was the prospect of turning fifty mellowing him, or had she so thoroughly bent herself to his desire, that she’d merely become a manifestation of his will? Two people existing to serve the needs of the one. If the latter were the case, she tried to tell herself she would’ve preferred the beatings, but one of the tragic realizations of Ariana’s early-middle-age was that she was a coward, with neither the courage to take Bud’s abuse, nor do the truly brave thing—admit she’d made a terrible mistake.

That she’d ruined a quarter of her life.

And leave.

* * * *

On the outskirts of the village of Ontonagon, the snow intensified, beginning to frost the road. She should’ve driven her Subaru, but then the bag of meat in the bed of the truck would’ve stunk up her ride.

The local radio station broke in again, recapping the top story of a hunter who’d gone missing in the Porkies. It happened every hunting season up here—some out-of-towner would head off into the hills with inadequate gear, poor respect for the harshness of the terrain, and get himself lost.

Sometimes, they’d be found in time, alive.

Sometimes, dead and frozen the following spring when the snow began to melt.

Sometimes...never.

Ray’s butcher shop was just a mile ahead.

She cut off the radio, punched on the headlights.

During these last five years, it was always the twenty-minute drives into Ontonagon where she reached the deepest level of misery.

Bud hated Koski, ever since Ariana had confided to him soon after their wedding that she’d lost her virginity to Ray her sophomore year of high school. Bud could’ve had his wild game processed at any number of butcher shops closer to their estate, but he’d insisted on not only giving Ray his business, but in making Ariana take it to him, throwing in Ray’s face, even all these years later, what the man from Texas had taken from the boy from the UP.

Every week during hunting season, she made the trip.

Hated Bud for making her go.

Hated Ray for how much he hated her, for how much he reminded her of the innumerable failings she’d perpetrated against herself.

Hated herself...Jesus...for too many reasons to count.

She’d come to Ray’s shop a hundred times over the last ten years, and their exchanges had never been more than the bare minimum required to transact business.

She’d leave the meat, special instructions if necessary, and Ray would tell her what day she could return to pick it up.

No small talk, not even about the weather, with the sole exception in all these years being the week Ariana’s father died of a heart attack during archery season.

Ray had mumbled as she headed for the door, “I was sorry to hear about your dad.”

She hadn’t even looked back, though his words had moved her to tears. And it wasn’t just the condolence. It was Ray, her old friend, her old lover, her high school sweetheart, saying something of substance.

But lately, Ray had taken to hiding in the back when she stopped by, leaving her to deal with that kid, Luke. She didn’t mind so much.

Eye contact with Ray felt like someone scrubbing her soul raw with a wire brush.

And still, every time she came and didn’t see Ray, she left feeling empty.

Through the falling snow, her headlights shone on the sign:

KOSKI MEAT MARKET

She tightened her hands around the steering wheel’s rubber grip until her knuckles whitened, and then eased her foot from the gas to the brake pedal.

Hit the turn signal.

It was just past four o’clock, and with this winter storm revving up, the day was already heading toward a chill, blue dusk.

As she turned into the parking lot and brought the Chevy to a careful stop on the half-inch of fresh powder, she caught a glimpse of Ray’s clunker parked around back. The Ford had been brand new that last summer they’d spent together.

The things we did to each other in that shiny red truck bed...

She killed the ignition but didn’t get out.

Just sat there staring through the windshield toward the front entrance of Koski’s Meat Market—a refurbed farmhouse built a hundred years ago.

Snow whisked across the glass like confetti, falling harder and harder.

They’d said it was going to be a helluva storm.

Maybe they were right.

She reached for the door, thinking, Ray...poor, sweet Ray...

Will you wait on me today?

If I speak, will you answer?

If I look into your eyes, will you turn away?

2

Raymond Koski wasn’t a hunter. He hated hunters.

But given his profession, he knew the tools of the trade like a narcotics officer knew a heroin needle or like a priest knew sin. Luke Nyman talked constantly about the weapons he’d collected—from Hoyt to Matthews to Bowtec, not to mention all the firearms—just like the rest of them. Ray had hired him grudgingly given that fact, but you couldn’t swing a beaver by the tail without hitting a hunter in Ontonagon county.

“But I won the lottery!” The appeal came at Ray over a display full of hand-packed sausages, as if Luke thought it safer to make his case from behind a reflective surface than to ask his employer face-to-face.

Luke ducked his head and reached in to take out another tray full of potato brats.

Coward, Ray thought. Why do some guys get all the luck?

He’d never won anything in his whole damned life.

“C’mon, man.” Luke continued his petition as Ray came around to the back of the counter, taking off his public apron—it was unsullied, pristinely white—and setting it aside.