When the first storm arrived, blanketing the entire house, Wilda could resist no longer. She slit open the top of the envelope. Standing on the back stoop in slippers and beige cabled cardigan, snow falling soundlessly all around her, she dug out the letter. Unfolded it and read each word slowly, carefully. Read it once again. Refolded it, and then placed it neatly into the side pocket of her sweater. It was exactly what she had imagined. Still, shock seized her, made her clumsy, and the old brass key she had held so many times before slipped out from between her stiff fingers. She dropped to knees, plunged her bare hands into the fluffy snow to retrieve it.
A few yards away, Melvin and Toby were constructing opposing walls of snow. Melvin's was a smooth and sculpted semicircle, Toby's a fat mound that offered no protection from Melvin's pelting snowballs. She put her hand to her mouth, was going to call out, but she saw Toby was enjoying himself. Plunked down behind his crude barrier, he snorted, rolled like a hyper puppy, gnawed away the clumps of snow that stuck to his wooly mittens.
She stepped back inside, kicked off her slippers, hung her cardigan on a wire hanger. Gathered up her boots, her long coat, her gloves. Rolled up the good red shawl Melvin had given her last Christmas, tucked it into her purse. Lewis's Polaroid camera was sitting just next to the canister set, and once she was dressed, ready, she plucked it up, tromped out to the boys, calling for a momentary truce between the warrior and the target.
“Why do we got to stop? I idn't hurting him.” Melvin packed snow between his mitts, and when Toby turned, bent over, Melvin let it fly, battering Toby's rump. “See, he loves it!”
“I know, I know,” she said, almost whispering. “I just want one photo is all. Let's make one perfect picture.”
“What do you need that for? You can look at us every day.”
“I just want one, Melvin. One.” She crouched down, fumbled with the snap on the hard brown case.
“No pictures, today, thank-you, ladies.” He put up his mitten, in stop sign fashion. “Put your cameras away.”
“Please, Melvin. Won't take a minute. One. That's it. I promise.” Snow landed on her shoulders, patted her face, making her blink over and over and over.
Melvin cocked his head, stared at her. “Well, okay. Just the one, though.” And he scrambled, four-legged, towards Toby, grabbed him by the scarf, yanked him in with an overzealous spurt of brotherly love. Icy red cheeks plastered together, they both hollered, “You're feet smells like stinkeee cheeeeese.” Several teeth missing, they held their patchy grins, even though it hurt. Frost penetrating empty gums, baby enamel.
“Thank-you,” she said after she'd clicked. She held her hand to the camera as the picture slid out, watched the dark square until the boys' image emerged.
Then she went back inside, tracked snow across the linoleum, and dropped the camera onto the table. Photo nestled inside a clean handkerchief, she placed it in her purse, then stooped to brush the crystals from her slacks. The clock chimed, a dozen tinny signals. She had to hurry if she was going to make it. Couldn't count on delays just because of the inclement weather. She did not look over her shoulder as she rushed out through the back door.
Just as she reached the bottom step, Melvin blocked her way.
“Where you going?” he asked. “With your purse.”
“I needs to, um... I don't have a... I just... A little air, is all, Melvin. I needs that.”
“We's going, too,” Melvin replied. “Yes, siree, we's going wherever you're going.”
“Okay, okay. But only for a bit.”
“A bit of what?” he asked, but she didn't answer.
In the shed now, Wilda nudged Toby into the stroller. Fiddling with straps, pushing in damp fabric, she struggled to close the clasp. She shoved the stroller out through the door, wheels turning sideways, resisting the growing layer of snow.
Melvin watched her, shaking his head and smiling. “You're being silly. Strollers idn't built for snow, Mom. Why don't you use that?” He nodded towards a corner of the shed. Long plastic sled propped against the wall, straw-colored rope tied to the front.
“Oh yes,” she replied, unbuckling Toby, straps flying backwards. “Yes. What was I thinking?”
“Not that he got to get a ride. He idn't so fat he can't walk.”
“But he's so slow.” She lifted Toby's feet over the edge, dropped them. “He wanders. You two don't even need to go, you know. I just wants air. A nice winter walk.”
“Sure, I likes air. You and air is my two favorite things.”
She bit her bottom lip. “And Toby?”
“He don't count, Mom. Toad's the same as me, and everyone's got to be one of their own favorite things, right?”
Snowflakes landed on her eyelashes, melted. “Let's get going,” she said.
They trudged down the driveway, Wilda and Melvin pushing through a drift of snow, Toby holding the sides of the sled and squealing as it sprang forward with a jerk, then stopped. When they made it to the road, it was easier to move, the ground was level, free of drifts.
“Where is we going to anyways?” Melvin said. He was behind the sled, stomping hard into every one of Wilda's boot prints.
“To get the air.”
“Not far, darling.”
“What do we got to be out for? Couldn't you just wait for Dad?”
“No, Melvin.”
“This don't make no sense. I wants a hot chocolate. My feet is froze.”
“Sometimes things don't make sense.” Switched the rope to her other elbow, hauled with fresh drive.
“Do you want some breadcrumbs in your pockets?” he joked.
She did not smile in return.
At the end of the laneway, Melvin and Toby were allowed to go no further. Toby climbed out of the sled, stood side by side with his brother, and together they watched their mother leaving them. “We'll wait,” Melvin had said to her.
“No, Melvin.”
“We's waiting.” He crossed his arms, spaced his boots. “Until you comes back.”
“Please, Mom. On the side. Case the plow comes by.”
“No, boys.”
He stared straight into her face then, but she would not return his gaze. One last attempt. Gently. Softly. So perfectly. “Please, Mom. Please. Let us wait for you. My feet is wonderful warm. For hours. We'll be good as gold. Better than gold. Right, Toad?” Arm slung over his brother's shoulder, an irresistible team.
“We'll be good as, as, as good as hamburgers. Fat juicy ones.”
Biting the air. “Harrumph.”
“Okay. Okay, yes,” she finally said. A beguiling smile lit up her lower face, though it did not touch her eyes. “You fellers can wait.”
Melvin's heart leapt, then plunged when he heard her say, “Until you gets cold.”
And when she turned, so close to him, Melvin could feel a sharp wind coming off her, and even though he was still young he knew it was a door slamming shut.
They could not see her feet moving, and she appeared to be floating over the snow in her ice blue coat. Floating, until there was no way of knowing where the storm ended and she began. Melvin's arms went out, navy mittens waving, as though he thought he might find her among the crowded air, bring her back. But she was long gone, and his arms soon returned to his sides. Toby reached up, and Melvin's hand opened wide, one damp mitten closing around the tiny other. Finger pinching fingers.
“I don't see her no more,” Toby murmured. “Do we got to wait?”
Melvin stood there, staring.
“She'll be back, Mel. After she finds some bread. Or eggs. Or butter. That's what moms does. Looks 'round for milk and stuff.”
He never wavered.
Toby sensed something different, now. He wiggled. “I got to pee.” Pressed his knees together. “Bad. Real bad.”
“Go home, Toad.” His voice crackled. “Go home.”
When Toby could wait no longer, he brushed his brother, nudged him towards the sled, and Melvin did not resist. He sat in the sled, then lay down, and Toby lifted Melvin's legs in, folded his arms across his chest. Toby stepped into the rope, hauled it up to his hips, and began to walk. One step after the other, don't stop, don't stop. Made his way through the snow. “We're going home, now, Mel. She'll come back. I knows she will. She got to.” And the words, this new need to take care of his brother, propelled him forward, even though his bladder had let go, and the cold jean was rubbing his thighs.
ON THE DRIVE to the hospital, Lewis had to keep his window cracked, icy breeze numbing his watery eyes, his exposed neck. He felt sick to his stomach. If he'd been any more dismissive of Mrs. Verge's claims, this young life would have been extinguished. He glanced into his rearview mirror, saw the curled form of Terry Verge on the seat. Though well into his teens, he appeared small, deflated. No one's life should be so bad that they'd give it all up for a girl. Let alone one of the Chafe sisters. Witchy women, the lot of them. Lived in a rundown trailer, hiked onto cement blocks, sour drunk of a mother and four daughters. He'd heard the oldest one provided a kneel-down service for gentlemen in the storeroom of Stubby's Pub, but he'd yet to catch her. He would though, and for a moment he thought to say something to Terry about his choices, but stopped himself.
He rolled up the window, considered that Terry might be cold. The nausea was passing, and what lay beneath it was tender awareness that he was blessed. By his wife, his two good boys, their cozy clean home tucked away from the drone of the small town. This sort of turmoil would never happen to him, not these days. Together with Wilda, he would raise his boys up properly. Not with slaps from a belt, but with unambiguous expectation. Clear guidance. A good example. They would grow up to be good men. Contributors to society. Nothing like the trash he scraped off the sidewalks or hauled up out of ditches every second day. Or worse, the lost souls, wiping their arses in the grim reaper's cloak, taunting him. Catch me if you can you dirty bastard. For no good reason whatsoever.
“You alright back there?” Craned his neck to see Terry's swollen face. “You doing alright, my son?” Eyes off the road for only a second, and Lewis glided over the hidden yellow lines, almost striking a bus that had formed out of a thick swirl of snow, barreling along in the opposite direction. Quickly, he corrected himself, swerved, backside of his car shivered, then straightened. “Jesus,” he said, the word a single breath out. Two eyes, two hands on the wheel. From here on in.
Pulling into the hospital, he unloaded Terry, told the tale, said he'd make the drive over to see Mrs. Verge, bring her along as soon as he was able. Back in the car, he leaned his head against the steering wheel, closed his eyes, and there on the inside of his eyelids was a likeness of the bus. When he nearly collided, his police mind had taken a snapshot, the many rows of empty seats, a single person, familiar silhouette, seated two-thirds of the way back. A flick of bright red, a scarf perhaps, covering a head. He opened his eyes, looked out at the road. Turned the key. Desperate to get where they're going, Lewis thought, as he turned out onto the road. Or else, desperate to get away from where they already was.
MELVIN SENSED HIMSELF lurching forward, gliding, lurching again. He thought about his new rubbery cowboy boots with the furry lining, boots he'd been so excited about only two hours earlier. And now he wanted to fling them into the woods, go barefoot. He wondered if he lay there long enough, would the snow cover him? Cover him completely? Make him disappear?
Though he no longer felt part of it, he could still hear the world, snow compacting beneath him, the crunch of his brother's boots, grunts from exertion. He closed his eyes now, sides of the sled cupping him, and he imagined his withered form moving over the snow-covered laneway in a bright yellow open casket. Breathing slowly, icy air entered and exited his functional lungs, but he was unable to shift a single muscle. Melvin had watched her leave, but he wondered if it had all been a dream. If that was really her moving away from him, if she'd even been there at all.
When Melvin pulled open his eyes, ice on his lashes, he was aware of the snowflakes whizzing through the air above him. How could they travel at such speed, for such a distance, and never collide? Each unique crystal maintaining a perfect orb of personal space. An hour earlier, he might have expected them to touch, some of them to stick, journey through the uncertain sky in unison. One flake guiding the other. With love. But right now, he wasn't at all surprised by the nature of their rejection. Selfish as they were. As he moved over the earth, dragged by his brother, Melvin was aware of something new expanding within him. Something outside of the realm of his childhood. A loathing, deep and cold. Not for the snowflakes themselves, but the spaces in between.
“HOW 'BOUT A BLUE charm?” Lewis settled into the creaking chair in front of his desk, took a deep breath, and smiled. “What do you say? Blue charm's a good place to start, and I reckon you're big enough now to give it a try.”
“Alright,” Toby said. “A blue charm.”
“Thatta boy.” Sliding open the bottom drawer, Lewis selected some feathers and floss and laid them on the desk. He twisted the screw on the bottom of the vice, secured it to the edge of the desk.
“Haul your chair over a bit closer,” Lewis said as he opened the miniature metal jaws, slid a single hook in place, clamped it.
“Can you jig a squid with that?”
“What?”
“A squid. Haul it in. Squirt his black juice right in your eye.”
“Nope. I don't do squid. Salmon, my boy. Big tasty salmon.
They can't resist it. Blue charm's a real charmer.” Lewis laughed, rubbed Toby on the head, neck wobbly. Toby drew the corners of his mouth straight back in a flattened smile. “This here's where my dad used to show me how to tie flies. Right on this very spot with this very vice.”