Free Frozen Solid: A Novel by James Tabor

from a relative stranger.
    “Honestly, yes. I’m always glad to be home. But then I can’t wait to get out again.”
    “Interesting choice of words.”
    “How so?”
    “Most people would have said ‘leave home’ or maybe ‘go away.’ You said ‘get out.’ Like from prison.”

12
    WIL BOWMAN LIVED ON A HUNDRED REMOTE ACRES IN NORTHWESTERN Maryland, in a stone house built in the 1850s by a farm family named Mongeon and refurbished at odd intervals since. Bowman’s place was accessible by a dirt service road that curved and twisted more than a mile from State Route 550. The land was mostly mixed hardwood forest on the southern flank of Piney Mountain. Remnants of an orchard intermingled with native trees off to one side of the house. Bowman was slowly bringing the apple trees back, heirloom varieties like Northern Spy, Orange Pippin, Winesap, Roxbury Russet.
    A quarter mile behind the house, a sheer granite face rose vertically for 150 feet and ran a half mile in either direction. In spring, freshets poured down the mountain above the cliff and joined into foaming cascades at several places. In winter, those waterfalls froze solid. In front of the house, Bowman had cleared several sloping acres to reclaim what, once upon a time, had been sheep pasture bounded by ruler-straight, knee-high stone walls. When time between operations allowed, he kept working to open things up beyond the fields.He liked making space for the big maple, beech, and oak trees to have light and flourish. He also liked clean, open sight lines.
    He sat at an oak table in front of a cavernous fieldstone fireplace. It was fitted now with a Vermont Castings Defiant woodstove, which heated the house all winter on four cords of seasoned wood, which he cut, split, and stacked himself.
    He had been trying to write an email to Hallie for some time now, starting and stopping, uncharacteristically twisted up in his own thinking. He had not liked the way they had parted on Thursday. On the way to Dulles, she’d told him that she had thought she was pregnant. It had come as a surprise, but no more so than the fact that she’d waited until they were almost at the terminal.
    “Why didn’t you say anything before?” he asked, wanting her answer and fearing it in about equal measure.
    “I wanted to be sure,” she said.
    He looked over. Something in her tone. “That wasn’t the only reason, though.”
    “No, it wasn’t the only one.”
    Perhaps that was why she had waited until they were so close to the airport. Before more could be said, he double-parked in front of the terminal. He knew that she had to board in less than an hour and had two huge bags to check, not to mention passing security. He could feel her impatience. Cars were lining up behind them. A cabbie honked, then another. A dirty wind came up, making them both blink to clear the grit. He tossed her luggage onto a redcap’s wagon, then drew her aside.
    “We need to talk more, Hallie.”
    “We do. But I have to go.”
    He held her with his eyes. “There are things you don’t know. About me.”
    “And about myself, apparently.”
    That surprised him. Shocked, almost. Hallie never spoke about herself that way, was virtually allergic to the argot of self-help books and guru mantras.
    He held her, and they kissed. She promised to call from Los Angeles, or maybe it had been New Zealand. She waved to the redcap, who followed her into the terminal.
    A green minivan pulled to the curb directly in front of him and disgorged people: business-suited man, woman in white parka and jeans, young girl with shining blond hair in red jacket and white cap. The man hauled a suitcase out of the van’s back, faced the woman, and they embraced. The girl fluttered around them.
    Bowman turned away. More honking, a woman leaning out her car window, gesturing, yelling something. He heard none of it.
    He started another email:
    Hallie,
    I didn’t like the way we left things at the airport. I was caught off