A Warmth in Winter

by Lori Copeland

  She glanced over her shoulder when she realized Elezar wasn’t talking. He cradled the phone next to his ear, listening, while a frown marked his sober features.

  She caught his attention and mouthed, “Who is it?”

  Shaking his head, he turned so she couldn’t see his expression. Peeved, she stopped dusting. He hesitated a moment and murmured something in a soothing tone, but Vernie couldn’t hear a word.

  Shimmying down the ladder, she tossed the feather duster on the counter and busied herself filling out the supply order. She needn’t worry about Elezar. He’d been her trusted employee for longer than she could remember, and he could handle anything that came up.

  She licked the tip of her pencil and studied her order form. Most of the mercantile’s regular stock came from Wagner’s, a wholesale grocer located upstate. She was running low on baking supplies and produce, plus she’d promised to order fresh cranberries for Babette. Babette brought the salad each year to the town’s annual Christmas party, and the menfolk didn’t think the holiday season had arrived until they ate some of Babette’s cranberry salad. Then, of course, there wasn’t a dash of nutmeg left on the island since every woman had sacrificed her stash to bail Birdie out at the bakery. And yesterday Birdie had mentioned she was running low on sugar, so it wouldn’t hurt to order fifty pounds this time.

  Pencil poised in midair, Vernie racked her brain to see if she’d forgotten anything. She’d order another bottle of vanilla syrup for her soda pop. Somehow she’d gotten hooked on putting that sugary stuff in her midafternoon pick-me-up. Last month she’d switched to sugar-free syrup, but she still felt a mite self-conscious about the habit. She kept the vanilla bottle under the counter so no one noticed the little shot she indulged in every afternoon. There were worse things than being addicted to vanilla Cokes, but she’d just as soon keep her addiction to herself. She scribbled sugar-free vanilla syrup and sugar on the form.

  “Vernie?”

  Startled, she looked up to see Elezar holding the receiver in his right hand.

  “Who is it?” Probably Cleta calling to inquire when the nutmeg would be in, or Bea wanting help with the angel mail. Land, she didn’t have time to work on mail today.

  Elezar cleared his throat. “It’s for you.”

  “Can’t you handle it? I’m filling out the Wagner’s order. Got to get it faxed in this afternoon.”

  The man’s face gentled as his eyes shone with compassion. “I’m afraid you’ll have to handle this one.”

  Puzzled, Vernie dropped her pencil. Elezar could handle anything having to do with the business, so who could be calling? She had no children and no siblings. Ma and Pa had been dead for years. Anybody from Heavenly Daze would just tell Elezar to holler at her.

  She lifted the phone to her ear. “Ayuh?”

  “Vernie?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Stanley.”

  Blood drained from Vernie’s head.

  Stanley.

  The Stanley?

  Stanley Bidderman, the rat who’d gone bowling and kept on traveling? The fellow who hadn’t called or written or sent her so much as a Christmas card in twenty years?

  “Stanley who?” she asked, hoping against hope it wasn’t Stanley Bidderman. Surely even Stanley Bidderman wouldn’t have the gall to call out of a clear blue sky after all these years.

  “Stanley . . . your husband. I called to wish you a happy anniversary.”

  Bitterness swelled to the back of Vernie’s throat. As blood pounded in her ears, she grasped the side of the counter and struggled to stay on her feet. The soft sounds of the Christmas carols faded into a buzz, then she heard herself saying, “I don’t have a husband.”

  “I expected you to say that.” The voice on the other end sounded very old, very tired. “I don’t blame you for feeling that way, but I really want to talk to you.”

  Swallowing, Vernie glanced helplessly at Elezar, who stood at a discreet distance. His eyes sent a private, supportive message, as if he understood the cyclone swirling in her head. Her hand rose to her throat.

  “Vernie?” Stanley’s voice came over the line. “Have you fainted?”

  Stiffening, Vernie fixed her eyes on the Wagner order form. “I don’t faint, Stanley Bidderman, and if I had, I wouldn’t be talking to you now, would I?”

  A pause, then a soft chuckle. “Same old Vernie.”

  The suggestion brought heat to her cheeks. “No, Stanley,” she calmly corrected. “I’m not the same old Vernie—not by a long shot. Now, is that all you wanted? I’m busy.”

  Nervously she tapped her pencil on the order blank. Her thoughts were whirring so madly she couldn’t think straight, but Stanley couldn’t know that. She only had to hold together long enough to tell him to stay wherever he’d been all these years and leave her alone. For whatever reason he had called—and she didn’t believe he’d called to wish her a happy anniversary, not for a minute—she was going to play it as cool as if they had talked every day for the past twenty years.

  As if he hadn’t walked out on her and left her alone, bewildered, and hurt. She’d waited for weeks, jumping at every ring of the phone, starting at the sound of every cart on the gravel road. She’d called the police, fearing a car had flattened him and he was lying in the hospital unable to speak and/or suffering from amnesia. A quick check of police records on the night of his disappearance produced no accident reports and no hospitalized John Does.

  For weeks Vernie kept a vigil, clinging to the fading hope that he’d fallen and hit his head and didn’t know who he was. Perhaps he had wandered off in a daze, searching for his home, his family, his wife.

  But that idea proved to be sheer fantasy. The police had tried to cushion the blow; they told her men sometimes needed a little breathing space. They told her not to worry, that he’d call soon.

  So Vernie had waited by the phone, scorning anyone who suggested Stanley had left of his own volition. Why, that was crazy! She and Stanley had a good marriage— maybe not the fireworks kind portrayed in books and movies, but they were comfortable together. When the islanders teased Stanley about Vernie wearing the pants in the family, he would smile and say, “Yes, I reckon she does.” He wasn’t concerned that she was more practical-minded, that she could run the store, handle the books, and paint the woodwork better than he could. Stanley wasn’t handy around the house, but he didn’t seem to care. He was content to remain in the background, bowl on Thursday nights, and occasionally, when asked, vacuum the carpets when Vernie was too busy to clean.

  She knew they had a good life. And she had thought Stanley would be the last person on earth to abandon his wife.

  But he had.

  And now he was on the telephone and she didn’t know what to say to him. She didn’t have anything to say to him.

  His voice brought her back to the present. “I wondered if we might talk.”

  “Talk?”

  “Talk,” he repeated quietly. “You have every reason to deny me, but I need to speak to you, Vernie.”

  “Ha.” She slammed the receiver down, startling MaGoo. The cat jumped, then landed on all four feet, his hair standing straight up.

  Silence as thick as wool filled the mercantile as Elezar quietly returned to the register. Outside, a cloud moved in front of the sun, filling the room with gloom. The carols drifting from the radio suddenly lost their poignancy.

  Vernie focused on the ticking clock over the doorway and struggled to regain her composure. She felt numb.

  Sick at heart.

  Puzzled.

  Furious.

  Happy anniversary? Where had that come from? And why, after twenty years, did Stanley finally want to talk? Did he think she actually cared where or who or how he was?

  A chiding voice rose from her conscience: Where’s your human kindness, Vernie? Maybe he’s sick and has only a few weeks to live. Maybe he wants to apologize before he meets his Maker. He’s human, and humans make mistakes. You’ve made a few in your tim
e.

  Ayuh, but she didn’t walk out on her spouse. She didn’t leave without a word of explanation. She didn’t leave the one she loved worrying and wondering what had happened. And she hadn’t left him in a pool of fear and guilt, wondering what he’d done to make her want to leave . . .

  Maybe he wants to tell you.

  “But maybe he needs money and pity and a place to stay until he checks out.”

  She didn’t realize she’d spoken the hateful words aloud until Elezar looked up. Shoving the Wagner’s order under the counter, she pulled her coat from the peg near the door, then shrugged her way into it and yanked a stocking cap over her hair.

  “I’m going out for a while,” she told Elezar. A long, cold walk would clear her head. A brisk, windy walk would remind her that folks in her family didn’t easily forget wrongs. They had memories like elephants. Her father kept a list of those who’d wronged him. “Fool me once, shame on you,” he’d often told Birdie. “Fool me twice, shame on me. If you let someone hurt you again, you’re nothing but an idiot.”

  Elezar crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “Bundle up,” he said softly. “It’s cold out there.”

  Vernie left, closing the mercantile door behind her. Elezar didn’t ask where she was going, and that was good. Because she had no idea.

  She didn’t know where she was going, what Stanley wanted, or where he’d been for the last twenty years. He could take a flying leap at a galloping goose as far as she was concerned.

  She no longer cared.

  By the time Salt opened his eyes again, shadows had begun to lengthen in the room. He turned his head and saw Bobby and Brittany sitting before the TV, their faces bathed in a gray glow.

  “Hey,” he rasped, feebly waving in their direction. “Did you get something to eat?”

  “Yes, sir.” With all the seriousness of a five-star general, Bobby stood and came to his side. “We ate cheese and bread and Froot Loops. Would you like something?”

  Suddenly grateful for the boy’s precocious independence, Salt closed his eyes. “Just wanted to be sure you were okay. Let me sleep, and I’ll be right as rain in the morning . . .”

  As his concentration dissipated in a fever-fed mist, he slipped away.

  Bobby watched the grandfather’s eyes close. Stepping forward, he cautiously extended his hand, then pressed it to the man’s lined forehead.

  Hot. Burning hot.

  “He’s sick.” Bobby turned to Brittany. “What should we do?”

  Without taking her eyes from the TV screen, Britt said, “Four out of five doctors recommend Tylenol for their patients with fever.”

  Frowning, Bobby walked into the bathroom and shivered in the cold space. His teeth chattering, he lowered the toilet seat and stood on it, then reached for the door of the medicine cabinet. Inside, neatly arranged on three glass shelves, he saw a can of shaving cream, a silver razor, a comb, a bottle of cough medicine, and a bottle that said “Aspirin.”

  His frown deepened. No Tylenol.

  Biting his lip, he hopped down from the toilet and left the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind him.

  “No Tylenol,” he told Brittany, moving toward the bedrolls against the wall. “We should get ready for bed. Maybe he’ll be better in the morning.”

  “I know something we can do.” Giving Bobby a confident smile, Britt went to the sink, took the last clean dishcloth from the drawer, then held it under the water. As Bobby watched in fascination, she folded the wet cloth into a palm-sized rectangle, then walked toward the grandfather. Holding the rectangle between two fingers on each hand, she gingerly placed it on his forehead.

  The grandfather didn’t respond.

  “What does that do?” Bobby asked.

  Brittany lifted her hands in an I-don’t-know pose. “I saw the mother do it on Little House on the Prairie when Half-Pint was sick.”

  Bobby tilted his head, watching for some response from the old man, but nothing happened. So he and his sister pulled out their bedrolls, spread them on the floor, then went into the bathroom and quickly brushed their teeth.

  Leaning against each other, they sat in front of the TV far into the night, long past the time they were usually allowed to watch.

  But no one told them to go to sleep.

  Salt dreamed that he struggled to handle the dory on a rough, rollicking sea. The oars danced and jerked in his hands, tossed by impact with high swells that looked like rolling hills.

  Huddled in the bow, Bobby and Brittany rode with him, their faces drawn and pinched and pale as death. He tried to smile at them, but they weren’t looking at him. Their eyes focused on the sea swells as their thin arms hugged their shivering bodies.

  “Don’t worry,” Salt cried, his voice only a hoarse croak above the howling wind. “We’re going to be fine.”

  But neither his words nor his tone seemed to assure the children. They kept their faces turned toward the distant shore, their bodies melded together, their manner distant. He had risked his life to perform this rescue, yet they seemed to have no idea who he was or why he cared.

  The oars rebelled in his hands, pushing against his palms when he wanted to pull, pulling away when he tried to push. When he finally felt the oars yield to his will, his arms trembled with weakness, having spent all their strength in the struggle.

  Chapter Six

  When Bobby woke the next morning, he thrust his head out from under the covers and blew out a frosty breath. The fire had died during the night.

  “I’m freeeeeeezing!” Brittany said, her teeth chattering. She peeked out through a crack between her pillow and her blankets. “It’s as cold as a dead man’s tongue in here!”

  Bobby shushed her. The grandfather said that all the time, but it didn’t sound nice, especially not when he was lying over there so sick and still.

  Sitting up, Bobby glanced at the man in the bed. He must have gotten up during the night, for now he lay under a blanket. He was curled up in a knot, an odd position for a man so long and tall.

  Bobby shivered as a rush of cold air hit the parts of his body that had been warmed by the covers. He drew the quilts about his shoulders, then realized that the grandfather had only one thin blanket over him.

  With his covers trailing behind, Bobby stood and walked to the rocker, then pulled the knitted afghan off the back of the chair. Walking slowly, he crossed the room and dropped his own quilts, then quickly draped the afghan over the grandfather’s spare figure. When the grandfather was covered, he dove back into his quilts, then crawled to Brittany’s bedroll and huddled against her.

  Her head reappeared from beneath the blankets. “Is it morning?” she asked, shivering.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s cold.”

  “I know.”

  “Colder than an igloo.” Her head vanished beneath the blanket again, and he knew she wouldn’t come out unless he did something to warm the room.

  But what? He’d never started a fire before. The apartment had a furnace, and Daddy had been really strict about the thermostat on the wall. Bobby hadn’t been allowed to touch it no matter how cold the room became because heat cost money and money was something they didn’t have.

  But grandfather’s stove burned wood, and Bobby knew a stack of split logs stood right outside the front door. It would only take a minute to bring in a couple of logs, shove them into the stove, and toss in a match. Then he would shut the door before he or anything in the house had a chance to catch fire.

  He looked again at the sleeping man, hoping for some sign of life, but the grandfather seemed as sleepy today as he had yesterday.

  Taking a deep breath, Bobby wrapped his quilt tighter around his neck, gripped it with one hand, then tiptoed across the cold stone floor. A bitter burst of wind blew into the house when he opened the door, ruffling the pages of the newspapers stacked against the wall. Dropping his quilt, he twice darted in and out, bringing in a short log each time. Shivering without his covers, he carried the lo
gs, one at a time, to the woodstove.

  The polished handle was heavy and the latch tight, but Bobby finally managed to get the door open. A few red embers glowed in the coal dust, and he took that as a good sign. He shoved the logs into the narrow firebox, then looked about for something to start the fire.

  A matchbox lay on the mantel above the fireplace, and a few sticks of pine fatwood stood in a bucket on the stone hearth. He’d watched his grandfather light the fire several times, so he thought he could do it.

  He had to do it.

  With fingers trembling from cold and nervousness, Bobby lit the match, then held it to the end of a piece of fat-wood. After a moment the stick began to blacken and burn.

  From within her woolen cocoon Britt called, “Be careful!”

  Bobby swallowed his anxiety and tried to act as though his heart weren’t pounding.

  When the flame burned steadily, he thrust the fatwood into the stove, making sure it landed beneath the logs. For good measure, he tossed in a couple of other sticks, then shut the door and latched it tight.

  Brittany’s blue eyes were wide. “How’d you learn how to do that?”

  Bobby shrugged. “Nothing to it, really.”

  He looked at his bed. The temptation to curl beneath the covers was strong, but something told him he couldn’t afford to go back to sleep. Grown men should not lie in bed for more than a day without eating or drinking water. The grandfather needed help.

  Serious help.

  Bobby stood, then ran his fingers through his hair as he moved toward the bathroom. “Get yourself dressed,” he said, keeping his voice low. “We’re going out today. The grandfather needs us.”

  “But we’re not supposed to—”

  “We’ll be careful. But the grandfather needs us to go because we don’t have any Tylenol.”

  After stuffing down a quick breakfast of bread, cheese, and molasses cookies, Bobby led Brittany outside. They’d walked along the beach a few times before, but always with the grandfather keeping watch from the window halfway up the lighthouse, where he could see anyone coming. They knew Puffin Cove, where the grandfather kept his rowboat, and the rocky shore bordering the north end of the island. They also knew the graveled road and had been expressly forbidden to follow it.