The air felt warmer now, and it wasn’t because the sun was up. A pre-blizzard breeze was blowing across the landscape. I remember this happening last year. Like a promise of spring, only to be followed by a hard slap of icy, sideways wind. Mother Nature’s trick.
That’s when I realized I hadn’t quite eased Blue’s arms from my neck. I should have. But I closed my eyes and savored that closeness. Fingers on my skin. The warm line of his body, those narrow hips, his hipbones jutting into me. Hair once more tangled, so I’d get to comb it, maybe.
I’d have to comb it. Right? He might let me, but I didn’t want to keep asking because the hair combing would turn into something more layered. My hands on his slender hips. My face tucked into the curve of his neck.
Even metaphorically, I didn’t have enough ramen noodles for something like that, even if I would make it a soft fuck, the softest ever. But Blue wasn’t some newbie who’d just arrived at Reynoldsville State Prison. He didn’t deserve to hook up with someone like me.
I rustled myself out of bed and jumped in the shower. I usually showered at night, but I needed a damn minute. I shaved, made tea, and pretended that Blue’s rumpled state as he slid into the chair across from me, hands wrapped around the white china mug, eyes half closed as though he meant to keep on sleeping where he sat—that his rumpled come-hither state didn’t make my heart dance a shimmy beneath my breastbone.
That’s when I saw the comb. His hand had been covering it, and now it sat there, a bald, naked request. Next to it was a brush, an old blue plastic brush with white bristles. The name Avon on the handle was faded. I couldn’t remember where I’dgotten that brush, but there it was. My heart jumped when he held it out to me.
“I found it in the bathroom,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s eat breakfast first.”
Eggs on toast. Bacon. Cake donuts and tea. I rushed through making and eating, all the while saying nothing of consequence besides asking for the butter to be passed to me. I left the dishes in the sink. They were soaking, I told myself.
Blue sat in the chair, shoulders relaxed, head dipped down, hands on his thighs. I combed his hair. Strand by silky strand until it was soft as sunlight, falling across his cheek. Then I brushed it with the old blue plastic brush, thinking all the while, as I pulled the bristles across his head, that his hair deserved something better than plastic. But that was for another time.
I needed to finish so we could get on with our day and attend to the tasks that lay before us. I was lucky to have Blue’s help, his enthusiasm and willing hands. The last thing he needed was me mooning over him like some lovesick fool.
In the workshop, we made lanyards, and Blue reworked his stamp designs. I made a tracing of the designs to make sure they would fit the amount of leather in the key rings, photographed the tracings, and opened my laptop to make the order for the stamp.
The blank leather key rings themselves had been special ordered through the feed and grain, back when I thought the order would help Oralee and her business. The box was still sitting there, somewhere, at the feed and grain, with the gloomy Mr. Malone standing guard. I’d have to make a trip into town. Next week, maybe.
“It’s warm in here,” Blue said.
I reached over, just about between his legs, and turned the space heater off. Then I got up and turned the other one off.
“It’s a Chinook,” I said, gesturing at the windows, at the dove-gray softness. When he looked at me, puzzled, dark brows drawn close, I said, “That’s a warm wind that comes from the west. It melts the snow. This one, it’s soft now, but will pick up speed because a blizzard is behind it.”
As he looked at me with those blue eyes of his, I realized how nice it was to have someone there to share ideas with, to discuss the small things with. If it hadn’t been so cold at night, we could have gone out to look at the stars together.
“We should go out after lunch,” I said. “And get some fresh air while we can.”
There was plenty of air all around, all the time. But there was a special sweetness in a Chinook wind that I liked, the softness of it against my face. The way the snow melted in curls, secret rivulets running beneath the surface.
Down by the river, standing among the cottonwoods, the air would smell sweetly green with the promise of life, which was part of the trick because by nightfall, the wind would be blowing sideways, thick with snow and we’d be buried in frozen white.
Lunch was meatloaf sandwiches, and then, yes, I finally did all the dishes, with Blue at my side, drying them and arranging them on a towel. The wind kicked up a bit as we bundled ourselves and stepped into the air that swirled above our heads as though tossed by a giant hand.
I led the way, north of the cabin and down the slope to the Yellowstone River, making a path in the deep wet snow to where there was a little hillock that overlooked the river and the clawed branches of bare cottonwood trees. Across the river was where the pine trees grew, in flocks of dark green, their branches bestirred in the gentle, invisible wind.
There was plenty of snow everywhere, but I knew it would be especially deep on the south slope of that hillock. I stood on that little slope, with my back to the cabin, my face to the north,absorbing the crispness of that air with closed eyes, absorbing the stillness that rose around me.
This was why I’d purchased this piece of land with a mortgage I couldn’t afford, because of this, this endless peace, decorated with trees and sky, the call of birds with the changing of the seasons, and, sometimes, the chorus of wolves howling way off in the distance.
Only this time I wasn’t alone. Blue stood a little way behind me.
“Come here,” I said. “Come stand beside me and I’ll show you.”
Blue did as I asked, his blond hair streaming from beneath the toque I’d gotten him at the surplus store. He still needed a better coat, but for today, he would be fine.
I spread my arms and did a trust fall with the earth, falling into the soft, deep snow, letting it embrace me. It curled around me as I looked up at the gray sky, speckles of snow falling on my face. Energy soaked into me.
“What are you doing?” asked Blue, suddenly looming over me, framed by that soft gray sky. “Are you okay?”
“I’m making a snow angel,” I said. “Join me.”
