⚠️ Spoilers ahead. This bonus chapter takes place after the epilogue of She’s Got Range. Read the novel first.
The Cabin, New Year’s Eve
A bonus chapter from She’s Got Range by Aurora North
Skye
The vows were the easy part.
I had been working on the vows since the first week of December, on the cedar table at the loft, on a yellow legal pad I had bought at the hardware store from Pete on Main Street, with a Bic pen I had stolen from Holly’s desk because Holly had a drawer full of them and would not, in any operational sense, miss one. I had drafted the vows on the pad over four separate evenings while Voss had been downstairs running the floor or upstairs grading a curriculum or — on the second of those four evenings — at her brother Wyatt’s house with the older niece, doing a one-on-one .22 lesson she had been working into the niece’s regular schedule on Sunday afternoons.
I had drafted the vows alone.
I had drafted them alone because that had been the rule we had set, on the cedar table, the night Voss had said yes — we write our own, we don’t show each other, we read them at the cabin on the canal on the thirty-first.
I had said yes, on a count.
I had stuck to it.
The vows were sixteen sentences long.
The vows fit on one page of the legal pad.
The vows had taken me — cumulatively, across the four evenings, with revisions — about eleven hours to write.
I want to register that, on the page, because Voss had taken the same number of evenings, and I am almost dead certain that the actual handwritten word-count of her vows fit on a quarter of a page, the way Voss fit anything she meant onto a quarter of a page.
The vows were, by every measure, the easy part.
The hard part was what came after the vows, which was that I had spent six and a half weeks working up to the night I was about to have, and the night I was about to have was the second of us I had been actively planning for, and the planning had been the kind of planning a twenty-eight-year-old woman does when the woman she is going to spend the rest of her life with is the woman she is going to spend the rest of her life with, and there is no calendar past tonight that is not the rest of our lives, and tonight is the dividing line, and tonight has to land.
It was eleven-fourteen p.m. on the thirty-first of December.
I was standing at the cabin’s kitchen counter in nothing but Voss’s soft black robe and a pair of wool socks Tess had knit for my birthday in October, with a small fire in the woodstove behind me and a single candle on the cedar table — the same candle that had burned on the cedar table at the loft on the night of the twenty-fifth of April, the candle Voss had carried with her to the cabin in a small wooden box, on a count, because the candle was the candle, and the candle came with us — and Voss was upstairs in the back room on the canal side getting changed out of the small soft thing she had been wearing during the ceremony forty-six minutes earlier, and I was, in the small still part of myself, measuring my breath.
Four count in.
Hold.
Six count out.
I ran the cycle three times.
The cycle worked.
The cycle was the cycle.
I lifted the bottle of champagne off the counter — the small bottle Mari had given us on Christmas Eve at the staff dinner, the small bottle Mari had handed me with the specific face Mari did, which had been the face of a butch fifty-one-year-old who had been waiting four years to give me, specifically, a small bottle of champagne for a specific occasion — and I poured two flutes and I set them on the cedar table next to the candle.
I heard Voss come down the stairs at eleven-sixteen.
I did not, for a count, turn around.
I did not turn around because I knew, by now, what Voss looked like coming down a set of stairs in a robe, and I wanted the visual of the next half-second to land in the room and not in my anticipation of the room, which were two different operational things.
She came down.
I turned around at the bottom step.
She was in the soft black robe.
She was in the soft black robe and her short blonde hair was wet at the temples — she had taken a quick shower, I had heard the water on for a count of about four minutes — and the small white scar through her left eyebrow was the small white scar through her left eyebrow, and the small gold band on her left ring finger was the small gold band that had been on her right ring finger for three months and had moved, at the ceremony, in the small specific way a band moved when it changed fingers, and her face — the face that had been fully open in front of forty-six people in the lobby of Voss Precision at five-oh-eight p.m. on the twentieth of December for nine minutes, and that had been fully open for me on the night of the twenty-fifth of April in the loft, and that was now fully open at the bottom of the stairs at the cabin on the thirty-first of December at eleven-sixteen p.m. — her face was the face I was going to look at for the rest of my life.
I looked at it.
I let myself look.
Voss said, very quietly: “Skye.”
“Voss.”
“You’ve been standing at the counter for fourteen minutes.”
“I have.”
“I know. I was watching you from the landing for the last three of them.”
“Voss.”
“Mhm.”
“That is creepy and I love you.”
“I know.”
She crossed the room to me.
She crossed at the deliberate pace she crossed every distance with, the deliberate pace I had been clocking for nine months, and she stopped six inches from me at the cedar table.
I picked up one of the flutes.
She picked up the other.
I held it up between us.
I said, very quietly, in the voice I had used at the ceremony four hours ago: “Find the rhythm.“
She tipped her flute against mine — the small specific clink of a person who knew exactly how to land a thing — and she said, very quietly, back: “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.“
We drank.
We drank slowly.
She set her flute down at eleven-seventeen.
She set it down on the cedar table next to the candle and she lifted her hand, and she put her palm flat on my sternum, and she held me there for a count of four — her four, the four that was ours, the four that had been the count of every single contact between us for nine months — and at the end of the count she leaned in, and she put her forehead against mine, and she said, in the working voice that was the voice that was the voice of us:
“Skye.”
“Yeah.”
“I want to take you upstairs.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, Elena.”
“Skye.”
“What.”
“It’s New Year’s Eve.”
“Yeah.”
“And I am going to take a long time.”
“Voss.”
“Mhm.”
“How long.”
“Skye —”
“Hours, Voss?”
She did the corner-of-the-mouth.
“Hours, Skye.”
“Voss.”
“Yeah.”
“Take me upstairs.”
She took me upstairs.
She took me upstairs at the deliberate pace she did everything with, on a count of fourteen — there were fourteen wooden stairs at the cabin, the same number as the back stairs at the loft, although neither of us had ever discussed this and neither of us would ever, I think, on a calendar I was not going to put a count to — and she walked behind me up the stairs with one hand at the small of my back, palm flat, the way she had been putting her palm at the small of my back for nine months, and the back room on the canal side was already lit when we got to the top.
She had lit it before she came down.
The back room on the canal side was — I am going to register, on the page — the most carefully prepared room I had ever walked into in my entire adult life. The bedside lamps were on at the lowest setting. The bed had been turned back. There was a fresh fire in the small woodstove in the corner — a thing that had not been in the room when we had gone to bed at this cabin on the third of May, and which Wyatt had had installed in November as a wedding gift, on a quiet count — and the cedars dripped outside, and the canal at the bottom of the lawn made the small specific lapping sound that Skye loved, and there was a small black tray on the dresser with a glass of water and a fresh towel and a small bottle of the lavender oil Voss had been buying me from the apothecary in Port Townsend since June.
The room was the room.
The room was set.
I turned around at the foot of the bed.
I held her eye.
I lifted my hands and I undid the tie of her robe, slowly, on a count of three, the way she had undone mine on the night of the twenty-fifth of April.
The robe came open.
Voss was in nothing under it.
I want to register this on the page, because the registering matters: Voss was in nothing under the robe because Voss had decided, on her own clock, sometime during the four-minute shower, that the way she was going to come into this room on the thirty-first of December was with the smallest possible barrier between her body and the room, and the smallest possible barrier was no barrier, and she had walked down the stairs in the robe and she had stood at the counter for fourteen seconds and she had crossed the room and she had stood with her palm at my sternum for the count of four, and the entire time she had been in one layer of cotton, and the layer was now off her shoulders.
The robe slid down her arms.
It hit the floor.
She stood at the foot of the bed in the soft amber light of the bedside lamps with her hair wet at the temples and the small white scar through her left eyebrow and the script tattoo on her shoulder — find the rhythm — and the gold band on her left ring finger and the small old appendix scar at her hip, and she was — and I am going to write it again, the way I wrote it on the night of the twenty-fifth of April — beautiful.
I undid my own robe.
I let it fall.
I was in nothing too.
I had decided, on my own clock, sometime during the fourteen minutes I had been at the counter, that I was not going to wear anything either, because the room was the room and the night was the night and we were not — for the rest of our lives — going to be a couple that wore layers on the thirty-first of December at the cabin on the canal at eleven-twenty-three p.m.
We stood at the foot of the bed.
We held each other’s eye for a count.
Voss said: “Skye.”
“Yeah.”
“On the bed.”
“Yeah.”
“On your back.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The ma’am slipped, the way it had been slipping for nine months in every operational context I should not have been slipping it in, and Voss did the small specific thing she did now when I slipped it, which was the small specific full smile she had only done four times in nine months, and she let the smile live for a count of one, and she leaned in and she kissed me, slowly, on the count, and she walked me backward two steps to the foot of the bed.
The backs of my knees hit the bed.
I sat.
She put her hand on my shoulder, palm flat, and she pressed gently, on a count of three.
I lay back.
She came up over me on her elbow.
She looked down at me.
She did not, for a long count, do anything.
She just looked.
I let her look.
I want to register that, on the page, because the letting her look was a thing I had been working on for nine months, and the working-on-it had cost me — at the start — the small specific performing for her I had been doing my entire adult life, and the not-performing was, by the thirty-first of December, the version of myself I was, and Voss was looking at the version, and the version was hers.
After a long count she said: “Skye.”
“Voss.”
“I am going to do a thing tonight I have not done before.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me.”
“I am going to take my time the way I have been taking my time, on the count, the way you taught me to take my time on the morning of the twenty-eighth of April.”
“Yeah.”
“And I am going to not finish you until midnight.”
I — and I am being honest, on the page — I made a sound.
The sound was the small specific sound a body made when it was being told a thing the body wanted to be told, and I made it, and Voss’s eyes — at six inches — darkened.
“Voss —”
“Forty minutes, Skye.”
“Voss.”
“I am going to keep you on the count for forty minutes.”
“Voss —”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Skye.”
“Yes, Elena.”
She kissed me.
She kissed me slowly, on the count, the way she had been kissing me for nine months, and her hand at my hip — the same hand that had been at my hip on the line in Bay One on the morning of the second of April — spread, the small specific spread of a person who was settling in for a long count.
She worked her way down my body.
She worked her way down on the count.
She kissed the line of my collarbone for the count of four. She kissed the place where the small target pendant had hung on the chain for two months for the count of four. She kissed the line of my sternum, where her palm had been on the eleventh of April at the breath drill. She kissed the soft skin under my breasts. She kissed the line of my ribs. She kissed the small flat place at the bottom of my sternum where my pulse was, and held the count.
She kissed low on my stomach.
She kissed the line of my hip.
She kissed the inside of my left thigh, and held the count, and at the end of the count she lifted her face and looked up the line of my body at me, and she said, in the working voice that was the voice that was the voice of us:
“Look at me, Skye.”
I looked.
She put her mouth on me.
She put her mouth on me at — by the small operational evidence available to me — eleven-twenty-eight p.m., and she worked, on the count, with the small specific economy of motion she had been working with for nine months, and at eleven-thirty-one I felt the long held thing in my body start to climb, and I felt her — and I want to register on the page — she felt me start to climb, and she pulled back, on the count, and she lifted her face from me, and she held the count of four.
She held it.
She held it with her hand flat on my hip.
She did not, in the four count, look up at me.
She watched her own hand at my hip the way she had watched the elbow through the bay window on the Saturday in March.
At the end of the four count she put her mouth on me again.
And she did the same thing.
She did the same thing eleven minutes later.
She did the same thing at eleven-forty-eight.
She did the same thing at eleven-fifty-three.
By eleven-fifty-three I was — and I am being honest, on the page, and I am proud of it — unmade. I was unmade in the small specific way a person was unmade by a person who knew her body, and who had been studying it on a count for nine months, and who had decided that the particular long count of the night of the thirty-first of December was going to be the longest count of our entire adult life together, and Voss was — and I want to register this on the page, because the registering is the truth — the most patient person I had ever met, and the patience was, on the night of the thirty-first of December, the precise tool I had been waiting for her to use.
She did it again at eleven-fifty-six.
She did it at eleven-fifty-eight.
She did it on the long count down to midnight, with her mouth on me and her hand at my hip and her free hand laced through the fingers of my right hand on the bed at the line of my ribs, and I — and I am writing this on the page because I am writing it on the page — at eleven-fifty-nine and eleven seconds, with my back arched off the mattress and my hand tight in hers and the small woodstove cracking in the corner and the cedars dripping outside and the canal at the bottom of the lawn making the small specific lapping sound — I begged.
I want to register that on the page.
I begged.
I begged her quietly, in a voice I had not used on her before, with my eyes closed and my whole body running on a count she had set:
Voss, please.
She did not, for a count, lift her mouth.
She held the count.
She held it.
She held it for the long count of the last forty seconds of the year.
The clock by the bed — I had been watching it on and off in the long count, in the small still part of myself that watches clocks — the clock by the bed read eleven-fifty-nine and forty seconds.
Voss lifted her face one half inch.
She kept her mouth one half inch from me.
She said, in the working voice: “Skye.”
“Voss.“
“Open your eyes.”
I opened my eyes.
She held my eye.
She watched the clock.
The clock turned.
It went from eleven-fifty-nine and fifty-eight to eleven-fifty-nine and fifty-nine to twelve-oh-oh.
Voss said — and I am going to remember this for the rest of my life — “Happy New Year, Skye Voss-Navarro.”
And she put her mouth on me.
And I came.
I came on the long held six count of a body that had been held on the count for forty minutes by the woman it had married four hours and forty-six minutes earlier, and I came hard, and I came loud, and I came with my hand tight in hers and my back off the bed and the small woodstove cracking in the corner and the small specific clink of the clock turning over on the bedside table at the start of the new year, and Voss did not — and this is the part I am going to keep — Voss did not stop.
Voss kept going.
Voss made me come a second time at twelve-oh-three with her mouth and her hand.
Voss made me come a third time at twelve-eleven.
Voss made me come a fourth time at twelve-twenty-six, with her body up the line of mine and her hand between us and her mouth at the line of my throat at the place where the small target pendant had been on the chain on the morning of the eleventh of April, and the fourth time was — I am going to register, on the page — the long held something I had been carrying since I was twenty-six and had walked off a stage with a coach screaming at me, and the something came out at twelve-twenty-six on the first day of the new year with the woman I had married holding me through it, and I cried.
I cried clean.
I cried for a long count.
She held me through it.
She held me with her hand flat on my sternum and her face in the side of my hair and her voice in the small still part of my ear saying, very quietly, the small specific I have you she had been saying for nine months, and the I have you was the I have you, and I let her have me.
She let me have her.
After a long count — at one-oh-fourteen, by the clock — I rolled her gently onto her back.
I came up over her on my elbow.
I held her eye.
I said, in the working voice that was the voice that was the voice of us: “Voss.”
“Yeah.”
“Your turn.”
She did the corner-of-the-mouth.
“Skye.”
“Yeah.”
“It is the first day of our marriage.”
“Yeah.”
“Take your time.”
“Voss.”
“Yeah.”
“On the count.”
“On the count.”
I took my time.
I will not — on the page — write down the next ninety minutes the way I wrote down the last ninety. I will not because the next ninety are mine, and I am going to keep them in the small still part of myself that does not perform anything for anyone, and what I will write on the page is this:
I made her come at one-twenty-two.
I made her come at one-thirty-six.
I made her come at one-fifty-one — the long held one, the one she had been carrying since 2010, the one that came out of her at the end with her face in the line of my throat and my hand flat on her sternum and her own voice saying the small specific Skye she had been saying for nine months — and I held her through it, and I held her until her pulse came down to seventy-two, and I held her past it, because the holding past it was the holding past it, and we held each other in the bed in the back room on the canal side at the cabin at two-oh-four a.m. on the first day of the new year with the woodstove crackling and the cedars dripping and the canal at the bottom of the lawn and the candle on the cedar table downstairs still burning.
I want to register, on the page, that the candle was still burning.
The candle had burned itself out on the night of the twenty-fifth of April at twelve-oh-three, and the candle had burned itself out on the night of the twentieth of December at eleven-fifty-six, and the candle had — on the night of the thirty-first of December into the first day of the new year — not burned itself out.
We had a new candle.
Voss had bought it on a Saturday in November at the hardware store from Pete on Main Street.
We had carried it to the cabin in the small wooden box.
We had lit it at six-eleven p.m. on the thirty-first of December, in the kitchen, before the ceremony.
It was still burning at two-oh-four a.m. on the first of January.
It would burn until the morning.
We would be in the bed in the back room on the canal side until it did.
— Aurora North
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