It was near midnight when the height of the storm came, a wild howling that swooped around the eaves of the cabin and rattled the windows. We were warm in bed, each of us awake, glancing at each other in the darkness, as the storm became a live thing, wild angels, perhaps, who wanted their revenge on us for leaving their likeness in the snow.
“Are we going to be okay?” Blue asked, a whisper above the pillowcase.
“Yes,” I said. “The cabin is solid. It’s an October storm. It’ll pass.”
He turned onto his side to face me, his body a comma beneath the bedclothes. Our breaths settled, and the winds howled, and the cold grew colder. I imagined I could see my breath in the dark air, but that was foolishness. The house had heat. Our bodies had heat. We would not freeze nor be blown away. Blue’s breath steadied as he fell asleep, and mine joined him.
CHAPTER 16
wolfe
The blizzard ended mid-morning, the howling winds settling to white murmurs, leaving behind drifts of six feet that sculpted down to frozen earth. I opened the back door and could just about have kicked my way to the door of the workshop. Behind me, his breath on my neck, Blue stood close.
“Is that blue sky?” he asked, peering up.
I looked where he was looking. White clouds dancing, a flurry of snow with nowhere to go. Icy air pushing itself about, undecided. Clear sky forming out of nowhere.
“It’s still going to be cold,” I said, feeling as though I’d said it before. As though I were warning Blue. As though he didn’t already know.
We had a late breakfast. Fried eggs. Oatmeal with banana, brown sugar, and butter on top. It was a pleasure, I was finding, to cook for two men with hearty appetites.
It was also a pleasure to sit across from Blue and watch him cup a white china mug full of tea, slowly coming awake. Looking at me with sleepy blue eyes, a flush to his cheeks.
If his family missed him, it was their own fault. They weren’t seeing what I was seeing. They didn’t have Blue in their lives. ButI did. At least for now. His sweet glances were aimed at me. His energy was shared with me, and not with them. I would enjoy it while I could.
As we cleaned up and did the dishes, moving around each other in the small kitchen as though we’d been doing it our whole lives, I sensed a tenseness in his shoulders.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s getting so quiet again,” he said. “Can you feel it?”
I could feel it and remembered the last time a blizzard had ended and how the skies had opened up to bright blue, and how the stillness had settled as the cold deepened. He’d run off into the snow, barefoot, confused, lost. He shouldn’t have to go through that again. It was my job to make sure.
“We’ll keep busy,” I said. “I have colored pencils. You can create drawings of each of the key ring designs. I can take them to Mabel to show her what we’re doing.”
Mabel was likely to approve of anything I showed her. The point was to give Blue something to focus on, and, though I would admit it only to myself, I was looking forward to seeing Blue relaxed in the way he’d been while sketching punch designs. Shoulders down, hips loose, breathing steady.
Maybe he’d notice me watching him, or maybe he wouldn’t. My job would be to make sure we had the supplies, so we wouldn’t have to stop until we finished once we started. Which meant picking up the special order. Buying paint and brushes online, and little paint cloths to keep things tidy.
In the workshop, I turned on the space heaters, watched Blue out of the corner of my eye, and pretended I was fully focused on my work. At lunch, I brought us BLTs. Cake donuts and hot tea. To me, it was a pleasure. To Blue, the silence was deafening. I watched him scribble and erase, scratch and erase.
At dinner, he was silent, and it made me wish I did have a TV for him, a Netflix account. Something to distract, to fill theair with sound as he flipped through the Civil War book, sitting cross-legged on the couch.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I said when the dishes were done.
I made it quick, sensing tension in the air as the cold air outside did its best to press through the glass. Hanging wool curtains over the windows had been on my list of things to do for a while. Considering how fast the temperatures kept dropping, it might be a good idea to move that project to the top of the list.
When I came out in a cloud of steam, dressed for bed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, I went to the back door and opened it to let the steam out. A long gray cloud floated, like a ghost, into the night air. Cold air came blasting in as I shut the door.
“Okay if I go now?” asked Blue.
“Yes, of course,” I said. The conversation was like a dance with unknown steps. An improv in the silence.
I listened to the shower start. Unbidden, imagining Blue as he washed himself. Water-slick skin. Soap suds sliding down his ribs. How he’d seen me, through the half-open door and not looked away.
My heart sped up. I should jump outside and roll in the snow to cool myself off. I should have taken Blue to the local sheriff first chance I had, because the alternative had gotten me where I was now. Listening. My body tight. Heat in my groin. Unbidden images and thoughts in my head. Maybe I’d take another shower. A cold one.
Instead, I went and knelt in front of the fireplace and built a low fire, gold and yellow embers, dark blue shadows leaping around the split logs. Heat easing out, spreading around the room. The smell of ash and hot pine. I sat cross-legged in front of it, unwilling to move. Not letting myself think or feel.
