Under the Ice

by Aaron Paul Lazar

  “What about tracing the call? Was she on the line long enough?” Oscar asked.

  Adam nodded and walked to the phone. “I’ll check with both the power and phone companies. I might be able to get the phone record. You guys just stay put and relax. And maybe the Professor will entertain us with some music while we weather the storm?”

  I’d forgotten about that promise. “Okay. Good idea. Thanks, Adam.”

  The family congregated in the great room with the backdrop of flickering oil lamps. As Adam began his long series of phone calls, I made sure the refrigerator was sealed tightly and grabbed a bowlful of ginger gold apples we’d brought up from the root cellar earlier in the day. I passed the bowl around to our guests, along with a block of Muenster cheese and a knife on a wooden board.

  It was very warm inside, in spite of the icy rain that spit against the windows. Siegfried brought his sleeping bag and pillow in from his carriage house apartment and arranged them against the wall. He snuggled in and was immediately attacked by Sheba, who flopped on him, mercilessly licking him. The big man was asleep before I started playing Manuel de Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance for my captive audience. My fingers danced over the keys and the trills shot through my fingers in bursts of energy. The beat in the left hand was hypnotic, almost tribal.

  Oscar’s fingers tapped on the arm of the couch in time to the music. He held Millie’s arthritic hand in his. Maddy’s head moved side to side with the rhythm while she snuggled in Joe’s arms. Adam—finally finished with his calls—sat forward in the leather club chair, watching my fingers fly over the keys. Mrs. Pierce knitted beside the fire, rocking in time to the music. The glory of the Spanish-flavored melody filled the room, mesmerizing us, and diverting us from thoughts of Shelby’s absence.

  I played it twice at Adam’s request. Finally, when the last strains of the exotic music evaporated into the night, we said goodnight and separated to sleep in our unfamiliar beds.

  Chapter 56

  I woke in the middle of the night to deafening cracks splintering through the darkness. It sounded like gunshots ricocheting off trees right outside our windows. The sharp reports jolted me out of an uneasy sleep.

  I sat up. Ever so carefully, I stepped over the still-snoring form of Siegfried, patted Sheba to reassure her, and pressed my nose against the window. I couldn’t see a thing. Blackness cloaked the grounds normally lit by our lights on the barn.

  I stared hard into the night. Nothing.

  The cracking sounds continued.

  What is that?

  Max trotted to my side and leaned uneasily against my leg, emitting a low, confused whine. I perched on a chair by the window and listened for a long time, patting my dog. Finally frustrated, I stepped back over Siegfried and Sheba and tiptoed to the kitchen. I opened the door and shone a powerful flashlight into the yard. It reflected in long icicles dripping from the porch roof, but illuminated only a small circle of the yard itself. The porch floorboards looked shiny and slick. I slipped into my boots and skated over to the wood pile, holding onto the side of the house for balance. Bending down, I chipped a piece of ice off of the railing and held it up in the light. The piece was almost a half-inch thick.

  The splintering sounds were louder from where I stood on the porch, but the temperature felt mild. When a branch crashed to the ground nearby—barely missing my car—I finally realized what the noise was. Heavy ice coated the branches and they’d been cracking off the trees all night. I wondered what it would look like in the daylight.

  A moist breeze blew across my skin. I stood for a long time with my coat flapping against my pajamas. It felt good, restorative. Max pushed his nose against my hand. His toenails scrabbled across the icy porch. I grabbed his collar and walked carefully back to the doorway.

  “You’re right, boy. Let’s go back inside.”

  I tossed several handfuls of salt on the porch before closing and locking the door. Max lapped water from his bowl and followed me back to the great room. I stoked the woodstove, and threw two more logs on the fire in the grate, carefully replacing the screen in front of the hearth. Shuffling across the rug and around the coffee table, I lay down on the couch again and pulled the comforter up to my chin. Max hopped up and curled into a ball at my feet.

  I watched the fire flicker and dart in the hearth. Yellow and green flames frolicked with blue and orange as the cracking outside the house continued into the early morning hours. I slept fitfully until six-thirty, when faint light seeped through the windows and woke me. Surprisingly, there were no noises of waking babies upstairs. I crept across the room to the kitchen, apparently the first one up. I opened the door and looked across what used to be our yard.

  Hundreds of tree limbs littered the yard. There were so many boughs dangling from trees that they formed a complete screen between the house and barn. Our one-hundred-fifty-year-old maple trees around the driveway were shattered. At least half of their limbs hung in tangled heaps on the snow in wooden teepees of splintered branches overlapping multiple dimensions, creating a mesh of designs reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright’s stained glass. My jaw dropped and I searched for our cars. A few branches lay across them, but surprisingly, no one’s car had been destroyed.

  Siegfried appeared at my side.

  “Mein Gott! Professor, what happened?”

  “Look at the trees, Sig. They’re covered in ice.”

  I walked across the porch and grabbed another chunk of ice from the railing. It broke away easily.

  “Look at this.”

  A few pieces of ice plinked from the spruce trees above the barn. They clattered down the roof and tinkled into the gutters. The top of the ancient cedar tree had shorn off ten feet from the top and lay alongside Freddie’s van. Had it been two feet closer, it would have shattered her windshield.

  “Mein Gott,” he repeated, slowly shaking his head.

  “Okay, first things first. If you’ll grab the generator, I’ll meet you back out here on the porch with the cables.”

  The household came to life over the next few hours. Mrs. Pierce managed eggs and bacon in cast iron skillets on the woodstove. We ate on paper plates in the dining room to the sound of the generator as it cooled down the refrigerator and freezer. I hooked it up to the water pump long enough to fill all the bathtubs and buckets in the bathrooms. After two hours of running, it quit. We were out of gas.

  I grabbed gas cans from the barn and put them in the back of the Jeep, then headed for Conaroga’s nearest gas station.

  Chapter 57

  I arrived home to find Camille’s VW gone. Puzzled, and—if I were honest—a little worried, I unloaded the gas cans and strode inside.

  Mrs. Pierce was in the middle of mopping the kitchen floor. “This mud has got to go,” she muttered, glaring at my boots. Her normally tidy bun of steel gray hair lay loose at the nape of her neck. I figured it must be hard to keep to her usual hair care practices by candlelight and with no running water. She wore a light green checked housedress, thick stockings, and her sturdy black shoes. A white apron secured her ample middle.

  I slipped out of my boots before daring to step onto the mat she’d placed by the door.

  “Adelaide? Where’s Camille?” I asked.

  She stopped for a second to wipe her brow, then burrowed down again to attack the floor. “Went to the store for batteries. The children found the flashlights and were making ‘big circles’ and ‘little circles’ on the ceiling all morning.”

  I chuckled. I’d been playing that game with Johnny since he was a year old. Apparently he’d taught his little sisters in my absence.

  “When did she leave?” Relaxed now, I hopped from dry spot to dry spot in my stocking feet.

  “A few minutes after you. She said she’d be back soon.”

  I thanked her and headed into the great room to check on our guests. Everyone was gainfully employed. Millie’s arthritic fingers labored over her latest crochet project. Oscar snapped photos of my grandchildren. He’d been out
side earlier, too, documenting the beautiful and dreadful damage that the storm inflicted. Siegfried stoked both fires. Adam followed the twins around, earnestly trying to keep them out of trouble. Freddie worked on a puzzle with Johnny. And last, but certainly not least, Maddy and Joe sat side by side, sharing sections of yesterday’s paper.

  “Is everyone okay in here?” I asked no one in particular.

  Maddy spoke up without raising her eyes from the page. “We actually did quite well without you, Professor. Now make yourself useful and get that generator running, will you? We need to get some hot water going for baths and showers. We’re getting pretty ripe.” She grinned and winked at me.

  “I’m on it.” I disconnected the freezer and refrigerator from the generator, and hooked up the hot water heater and well pump. Once the hot water tank heated, baths and showers began. After an hour, I walked out to the driveway and dialed Camille’s cell.

  No answer.

  “She might have run into a downed pole. Maybe she’s stuck somewhere,” I said.

  Siegfried set a wheelbarrow full of split logs by the porch steps. “We should look for her, Professor. It is dangerous out there.” His long blond ponytail fell forward over his shoulder when he bent to lift an armful of logs.

  “I’ll go. Can you handle this?” I pointed to the generator.

  “Ah, Ja. Kein problem. Go. Find Camille.”

  I jumped back into Sig’s Jeep and once again lamented the fact that I didn’t own a car. After this mess is over, I thought, I’ll call the dealer and replace my SUV.

  I drove north, up Lakeville-Goodland Road, heading for Wegmans. There were a few sections of the road where I had to avoid downed trees, and one spot where a pole had come down, which made me backtrack and take a side route. I wasn’t about to drive past those live wires sparking on the street.

  The town hunkered down in an oddly quiet state. Streets were empty. The fast food joints were dark. It was noon, and my stomach rumbled when I passed them. Most of the gas stations were closed. I’d been lucky the Mobil station I’d gone to earlier had actually been open. From what I heard on the radio, we’d been fortunate in rural East Goodland and the village of Conaroga. At least the roads were still passable. I turned up the volume, searching the shopping plaza parking lot for Camille’s car.

  “This is Ziba Edinger at WRLN FM, your captive host of the ice storm. My car’s blocked by a downed tree, the roads are impassable here in the city, and I’m staying put until it’s safe to be out and about. Honey, I’ll be home in a few days.”

  I circled around the lot and didn’t see the VW. Although the streets were dead, the store seemed jammed. People were stocking up, and I didn’t blame them. Candles, kerosene, oil, batteries, dry ice, baby diapers and formula…they’d need these items over the next few days while the mess was cleaned up and until power was restored.

  Worried, I decided to weave in and out of each aisle in the parking lot, to be sure I hadn’t missed her. Edinger continued.

  “We’re running on generators here, but have been receiving requests from the authorities. Please pay close attention. The Rochester Police Department is warning city residents to stay inside. Sheets of ice from the sides of the tall buildings on Main Street are falling off at an alarming pace, endangering all passersby. I repeat. Stay inside. Rochester and its surrounding areas are paralyzed with downed telephone poles, wires, trees, and washouts. It’s not safe to be out there, so just settle down and stay put.”

  I passed the entrance to the store and stared inside for a few minutes, hoping to catch a glimpse of my wife. The dim lights barely illuminated the front windows of the store. Apparently, they were running on generators, too. I turned to the next row in the lot.

  “Power companies are reporting outages for over a million customers across western New York. Predictions are as high as three weeks for full restoration. Hospitals and the 911 lines are clogged, folks. The police are requesting that you don’t call 911 unless it’s a true emergency. The facilities are on code red. No one is being admitted unless it’s a life-threatening emergency. And we’ve got plenty of those right now, so the police ask that you remain calm and only call…”

  Ziba continued, and then finally played some soothing Brahms. After circling the lot twice, I was convinced Camille’s car wasn’t there. I pulled up in a free space and ran into the store. The manager stood by the entrance. I recognized him, a very congenial fellow who always called me by name. I never knew how he knew me, but it was that way around here. Being a minor radio celebrity seemed to go a long way in our little town.

  “Professor? If you hold on, I’ll assign someone to take you around with a flashlight. It’s pretty dim in there. We can’t take credit cards right now, just cash. Is that okay?”

  I nodded. “I should pick up some diapers for my granddaughters, but actually I’m looking for Camille. She was supposed to be here earlier, maybe an hour or so, buying batteries. Have you seen her?”

  He scratched his head. He looked exhausted, as if he’d been at the store all night.

  “I think so. But it’s kind of a muddle right now. Let’s see if any of the clerks remember.”

  We walked inside for a moment and he turned me over to a young Asian man with a flashlight. After explaining my quest, he took me around to the tellers who worked under dim lights with paper and pencils.

  “Anyone here seen Mrs. LeGarde? Camille LeGarde?” he asked.

  A tall high school girl whose nametag read “Leslie,” nodded. “Yup. She was here a while ago. Bought batteries and milk.”

  I frowned. Could she have taken a different route home and become stuck behind a tree? My mind whirled with possibilities.

  “Sir? Do you still want those diapers? They’re right this way.”

  I nodded and followed him, picked out four packages of diapers, two boxes of wipes, paper bibs, several cartons of boxed juices, and some more candles. I trusted the clerk’s math, paid with cash, and rolled my cart into the parking lot.

  I scanned the lot. Frustrated, I pushed through thick slush toward the Jeep. As I neared the vehicle, I noticed something blue stuck in the wet mush. I stopped and stared.

  It was Camille’s mitten, no question about it. And there, a few feet away, lay her cell phone.

  Well, that explains why she didn’t answer my calls. The phone lay on a surprisingly dry oasis of pavement that must have been protected by a vehicle parked overnight in this spot.

  I picked it up. Water drops covered the outer case, but it wasn’t drenched like the soggy mitten. When I flipped it open, Camille’s goofy cat mewing sound greeted me. The display showed fish swimming on a blue screen, then went dead. I turned it off, turned it on again, and the same thing happened. Either her battery was low, or the moisture had compromised the circuits. I grabbed it, opened the Jeep, plugged it into my car charger, and loaded the groceries into the back.

  I decided to take an alternate route home. We didn’t normally go this way, but she might have been directed to a detour by a local cop. I called home to check on her, but she hadn’t returned yet.

  My nerves heated up. Had she hit a deer? Another car? Could she have run out of gas?

  I drove carefully along the slushy roads. The melting caused thick ropes of ice to drop from the power lines swaying dangerously overhead. Dozens of poles tilted at odd angles, threatening to loosen their hold in the soggy soil. As the temperature rose, the melting worsened, causing rivers of melted runoff to fill low pockets along the roadside.

  When I arrived home, Camille’s car was still missing. I parked, grabbed the groceries, and ran inside.

  Chapter 58

  I skidded into the kitchen, slipping on the wet floor. “She’s not home yet?”

  “No.” Mrs. Pierce looked at my muddy feet, apparently decided to ignore my thoughtless intrusion, and frowned. “You didn’t find her?”

  Siegfried and Maddy both came into the room. Maddy—toweling her hair dry—shrieked and pounced on me. “Where�
��s Camille?”

  I turned and called over my shoulder, “I’m going back to the store. Maybe I missed her. Maybe she ran out of gas.”

  This time I drove fast, taking greater risks through the slush piles and careening around curves. A big pond formed at the dip in the road about halfway to the store. I slowed, and water sprayed out in far-reaching curtains on either side. The Jeep didn’t stall, and I thanked God for small favors. When I reached the store again, I ran inside and found Leslie.

  She stood like a gangly stork behind her non-functioning cash register. “Mr. LeGarde? Are you okay?”

  “Not exactly. I can’t find Camille.”

  She raised one hand to her mouth. “Oh, no. That’s terrible.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual when she checked out? I mean, was there anyone with her, did she stop to talk to anyone? Maybe she offered to give someone a ride home? Anything like that?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Well, she did get a phone call. At first, she couldn’t answer it, ‘cause it was in her pocket, all buttoned up, you know?”

  I nodded. “Go on.”

  “Well, she paid me really fast, told me to keep the change, and then when she finally opened the phone, she looked kinda…”

  “Kind of what?” My heartbeat kicked up a notch.

  “I dunno. Kinda like she missed a call from somebody she really wanted to talk to, I guess. She grabbed the bag really fast and ran out to the parking lot with it up to her ear. Maybe she was listening to her voice mail.”

  Voice mail.

  I thanked her and ran back to the Jeep. Camille’s phone was still plugged into the power adaptor. I flipped it open and tried to power it up. It flickered, the display came up, and one bar showed on the battery. I revved the engine, hoping it would charge up the phone quicker. It went dead again.

  I drove home fast, avoiding the route with the pond this time. When I turned the corner for Sullivan Hill Road, I got an idea. I turned into our driveway, bumped over the slushy ruts, and pulled up into the parking area.