by Caron Todd
“Do you think so? A positive attitude can help, I hear.”
WET AND HEAVY, THE SNOW WAS nearly over the top of Jack’s boots. He’d walked through the woods as usual, sure that he’d be better off on foot than driving. The trees had offered some protection from the wind, but he’d found the swirling snow disorienting. Eleanor’s house was invisible until he was only a few yards away.
He climbed the porch steps, using his feet to swipe the accumulated snow to the side as he went. Glad to be under a roof, he stamped his boots and banged at his coat, knocking snow to the porch floor.
Liz opened the door. “Jack!”
He hoped her horrified expression had something to do with the amount of white stuff still heaped all over him. She moved aside to let him in.
“You look frozen! You walked?”
She sounded angry. Jack stepped into the kitchen and found himself the center of attention. Bella and Dora sniffed at his legs and at the bag he carried, tails waving. Eleanor and Liz pulled off his coat and scarf, and pushed him toward the fire, exclaiming over the frost on his eyelashes.
“Don’t you know you can die walking in a blizzard?”
She was angry.
“You get wet, you get cold, you get tired, you lie down in a ditch and you die!”
It was the way he used to imagine a mother would sound. Not so much angry, as scared and worried. “It’s not all that bad out—”
Liz turned to her grandmother, speechless.
Mildly, Eleanor said, “You could get lost in these conditions, Jack. And then the rest of what Elizabeth said is certainly possible.”
Liz turned back to Jack with an I-told-you-so expression.
“I’m fine.” Like swimming upstream, he made his way past the four females to the table. He set down his bag and loosened the string. Miniature chocolate bars tumbled onto the table. He’d shopped a little too enthusiastically, choosing some of every kind of bar he thought might be someone’s favorite. “I was hoping you’d help me. I bought too much candy.”
Eleanor and Liz just looked at him.
“You walked through a blizzard to bring us candy?” Liz pointed to their own basket. “We’ve got candy.”
Licorice and lollipops. “Mine’s better.” He was glad to see a flicker of amusement on her face. She was pale, and there were circles under her eyes. Had she really put off grieving for her husband all this time? A loss could jump up and bite you when you least expected it, long after you thought you’d settled it. That seemed more likely to be what was going on. Some trip home. Too many goodbyes for one person in one short visit.
He looked at the cards spread over the table. “You’re both playing solitaire at once?”
“Double solitaire,” Liz said. “It’s the same as the single person version, only you have eight aces to play on.”
“Is there a three person version?”
When she smiled she looked even more vulnerable. “That could get a little wild.”
“Yup. Drinking tea and playing solitaire with two country ladies. Could be the wildest thing I’ve ever done.” He moved his bag of chocolate bars to the side and started gathering the cards to reshuffle. Liz found a third deck in the living room. By the time Eleanor had a fresh pot of tea ready, all three decks were dealt and ready to go.
Jack tossed a Mars bar into the middle of the table. “Opening bids, please.”
“I’m not sure you can bet on solitaire,” Eleanor said.
“Of course you can. I’m betting I’ll win.”
“Confidence is a great thing.” She picked up a handful of candy. “In that case, I’ll meet your Mars bar and raise you two Aeros. Oh, why don’t I just add them all?” She dropped all the bars she held onto the table. It was Jack’s first indication that he might be in trouble.
He soon realized he’d have to play competitively to have any chance of winning, and he couldn’t bring himself to do that. He ended up joining Liz on the sidelines, happy to see the light pink that tinged her cheeks when she started to laugh at how hopeless they both were. Her laughter faded quickly, though, and with it the color.
They’d hardly talked since she’d told him about Andy. Going from memories of Saturday night to approaching Liz as a grieving widow wasn’t easy. His feelings for her had developed too quickly. They’d got ahead of how well he knew her. He wanted to hear what she was thinking, he wanted to fix things, he wanted to hold her and feel the tension leave her body. Instead he had to act like a neighbor. Not even her neighbor.
Eleanor was scooping her haul of chocolate to her side of the table and suggesting another game when they heard a snowmobile engine above the wind. Snow swirled into the kitchen, followed by Will, covered from top to toe by a one-piece snowmobile suit and a balaclava. He looked approvingly at the table full of cards and treats and teacups.
“Now here’s some people who know how to spend a snowy evening. I don’t know what it is with Halloween. Why doesn’t everybody just stay home and eat their own candy? You all right for wood and fuel, Mother?”
Eleanor assured her son she was equipped to handle the blizzard even if it lasted all week.
“Good, good. And you have plenty of food, of course, and company.” He smiled at Liz, then said to Jack, “The roads are pretty much closed. Need a ride home?”
“Thanks, but I’ve got to try to win back my losses. Unless I can help?”
Will made it clear that he and his snowmobile worked alone. “If you’re going to stay longer you’d better plan on spending the night. It’d be just plain stupid to go walking out there now.” He reached toward the pile of chocolate bars, waited for an invitation, then helped himself, stuffing several in his pocket. He smiled at Eleanor. “I’ll check on you again tomorrow.”
“You’ll be careful, won’t you, William?”
“Always.” He tapped a finger beside one eye. “Eyes like a hawk.”
“A hawk with reading glasses.”
“Not to worry. There’s no fine print out there tonight.” He rolled his balaclava down over his face, pushed up his hood and was gone. They heard his snowmobile sputter, roar, then fade away.
Liz and Eleanor couldn’t relax after Will left. The cards sat ignored on the table while they paced around the kitchen looking out windows, checking the wood supply and moving the kettle onto the heat in what Jack was beginning to think was a compulsive gesture, like knocking on wood. Bella and Dora had picked up their anxiety and followed them a few steps here, a few steps there.
“Grandma, if Jack’s staying I’d better get a room ready for him.”
“The one overhead,” Eleanor told her. “It’ll be the warmest.”
The dogs went with Liz as far as the kitchen doorway. Jack gave a low whistle. They came to him and leaned against him while he rubbed behind their ears. They were all upset, all four of them. He’d been naive to think company and chocolate could help. He didn’t sense as much distress in the air as he had when he was here carving pumpkins yesterday, but there was enough to make him feel useless.
“Would you take them, Jack?”
He looked up from the dogs’ silky heads. “Take them, Eleanor?”
“Bella and Dora.”
“Upstairs?”
“Would you take them when I move?”
He’d never thought of the dogs away from this house. “Of course I will. And you’ll visit them whenever you want.”
“Thank you. I’m so glad. They won’t be confused if they’re with you.”
She looked exhausted. He should have left with Will. “Don’t stay up because I’m here, Eleanor. I’ll head upstairs—”
Eleanor looked behind Jack, toward the doorway. “Jack’s agreed to take the girls, Elizabeth.”
Liz’s eyes got misty, but she smiled. “That’s one problem solved. Maybe he’d like the table, too.”
“Maybe I would.” He didn’t even have a dining room. Well, who said dining room tables had to go in dining rooms?
“Perhaps you should j
ust buy the house then, Jack, and list the Ramsey place with Mrs. Anderson.” Eleanor smiled widely enough that Jack thought she was probably joking. Still, it wasn’t the worst idea he’d ever heard. She went on, “It’ll be fun to think about it while I’m waiting to fall asleep. Good night, you two.”
Liz led Jack up the narrow staircase. They passed the room she was using, and the bathroom and stopped at the last door on the left. The window looked out over the front yard, but right now he could only see driving snow. Liz tugged the heavy drapes shut and the room immediately felt warmer. Woodsy, heated air from the kitchen came through the metal grill in the floor. A big old bed was against the inside wall, away from drafts. Even with quilts piled on he could see the mattress sagging in the middle.
“I put a few hot water bottles in,” Liz said. “If you give it a little longer they should get the chill out of the sheets. I don’t know if you care about pyjamas. We found a whole box of them the other day, different sizes, all in good shape, so I got a pair out for you. They’re under the comforter, getting warm.”
“Thanks, Liz. I feel pampered.” She’d even put a glass of water and some books beside the bed.
“Good. That’s what you need.”
“You’ll never guess what I found myself thinking on my way through the woods tonight.”
She gave a faint smile. “Tell me, then.”
Now that he’d committed himself to saying it out loud, he was embarrassed. His eyebrow went up, mocking him. “The north wind shalt blow—”
Her smile widened.
“And we shall have snow—” He stopped. What was sillier than an adult male reciting a nursery rhyme?
“And what will poor Jack do then?”
“Get lectured when he reaches the house. Poor thing.”
“Oh, dear. It wasn’t a lecture, was it?”
He hadn’t minded at all, but he wasn’t about to admit it.
Liz leaned against the wall. He wished she’d sit down and get comfortable. “So, you do know some nursery rhymes. This one just popped into your mind?”
“You got my curiosity going, so I bought a book of them when I was in Brandon. Interesting reading, but I’ve given up looking for secret messages. They can’t really be meant for children, Liz. Some of them are nasty, even violent.”
“That never bothered me when I was little. They made me laugh.”
“The absurdity, I suppose.”
She nodded. “And maybe children recognize something in the rhymes—the world as they see it. Simplistic, upside-down, unpredictable. For whatever reason, childhood and nursery rhymes go together.”
“They weren’t part of my relationship with my uncle.” She always looked suspicious when he mentioned Jerry. “He was a good guy. Just not a Mother Goose fan.”
“I’ll admit if I were reading them to Nell, I’d be selective.” She pushed away from the wall. “I’ll leave you to get settled in, Jack.” Unexpectedly, she came close and reached up to give him a sisterly good-night hug. He could tell she found the contact comforting. It felt wonderful to him. Just not comforting.
“There are extra towels in the bathroom. You have to run the water a while before it’s hot, but then it gets very hot, so be sure you don’t burn yourself. And be careful if you decide to go downstairs. The steps are odd sizes, so it’s easy to lose your footing. You can knock on my door if there’s anything else you need.” She lingered in the doorway. Her voice more hesitant, she said, “Thanks for listening to that awful story the other day, Jack. I should have told you about Andy right away, instead of cutting you off the way I did.”
“You can’t tell people your life story as soon as you meet them.”
She smiled again, more warmly, then went out, closing the door behind her. It was hard to have her so close, but unaware of her effect on him. He couldn’t help wondering how long her resurrected grief would last. When it was over, would she see him as a reminder of all this sadness? He was connected to the place she’d tried to cut out of her life. Picking up where they’d left off might be the last thing she wanted.
Jack felt under the covers. Not bad. A lot warmer than the sheets in his bedroom. He piled the pillows against the headboard and stretched out on top of the comforter. Liz had left him a couple of paperback thrillers, a book about pruning fruit trees and a slightly musty hardcover with fraying edges. He held it closer to the light to read the faded letters. Roughing it in the Bush by Susanna Moodie. There was a handwritten name on the flyleaf, faded, too. Julia Robb, 1883.
The first Julia, he’d heard the Robbs call her. That was the year she and the first William had arrived at their new home, nothing more than acres of trees and scrubby meadow. No buildings, no doctor, no roads. He was still adjusting to his move. Sometimes he thought he must have gone thousands of miles from the city, not a hundred, to some far-off place where the cultural rules were anybody’s guess. What must it have been like for them?
He had just opened the book to the first chapter when the lights went off.
LIZ FELT FOR THE LAMP SHADE and twisted the still-hot bulb. It didn’t come back on, so she crossed the room, feeling for the switch by the door. The ceiling light was out, too. No moonlight reached the hall outside the bedroom, or the stairs. “Liz?”
“I’m here, Jack. Right by my door.” She couldn’t see him, not even when he reached her side. “I’m going downstairs. If you’re coming, be careful.”
One hand on the wall and the other on the banister, Liz eased forward until her foot encountered the first step. She went down slowly, pausing when her hand came to the rounded end of the banister. “Okay, Jack?”
“It’s like a fun house at the fair. Pitch-black, and I have no idea what’s in front of me.”
“I’m in front of you.”
A hand touched her shoulder “So you are.”
Pleasant waves of feeling rippled through her body. “The front hall is a bit of an obstacle course.” She felt her way, careful not to knock pictures to the floor or bang her knees on furniture. She didn’t hear any clatter behind her. Jack seemed to be managing, too.
“Grandma?”
“In the kitchen.”
“You’re all right?”
In answer, a candle flame appeared, with Eleanor’s face behind it. She placed the candle on the kitchen table. “We should have expected this. It’s the ice and wind,” she told Jack. “Even if a line snapped near Churchill, we might feel it here.”
“Maybe a polar bear chomped a wire,” Liz suggested.
Eleanor smiled. “No doubt that’s what happened.”
Without power, the oil furnace couldn’t heat the house. The water heater couldn’t heat water, the well couldn’t pump it, the toilet couldn’t flush. They began preparing for an uncomfortable night. Jack dragged upholstered armchairs from the living room and added more wood to the fire, Eleanor brought a load of quilts from the downstairs bedroom, and Liz filled the kettle and a couple of stockpots with water that was still in the pipes. Between their chairs and the stove, they made a bed of blankets for the dogs. The rotary phone still worked, so before settling in Eleanor called Will’s house to be sure he’d got in safely. She was more relaxed when she came back to the stove.
“Everyone’s all set,” she said contentedly. “William’s enjoying himself enormously.”
“He loves storms,” Liz said. “I remember my dad going out with him on nights like this, making the rounds. Getting people out of ditches, taking groceries to anybody who was snowed in. They’d come back all red-faced and smiling, and Mom would make a fuss over them.” She looked at Jack. “Blizzards must have been different for you, growing up in the city. The ploughs would get out right away.”
“We never even got to miss school.”
“We did, all the time.” She smiled. “Maybe that’s why I can’t add.”
“Your grandfather loved it when the school was closed.” Eleanor turned to Jack to explain. “They always found their way over here, on snowshoes if they coul
dn’t beg a snowmobile ride from anyone, and then we had a houseful for a day or two.”
“Blankets over the furniture to make forts,” Liz said.
“Games of tag all over the house.”
“Cookies baked in the woodstove.”
“You must have kept your fingers crossed all winter for storms,” Jack said to Liz.
“We were lucky to have storybook grandparents.” She looked affectionately at Eleanor, then turned to Jack. “And you’re a storybook neighbor. A mysterious man from the city. Where he came from, who he is, no one knows.”
Jack shifted in his chair. “I don’t mean to be secretive. What would you like to know?”
“I’ve wondered about your vocation.”
“His vocation?” Eleanor asked.
“There’s not much to tell. I designed computer programs.”
Eleanor and Liz nodded, waiting for more detail.
“Individualized programs. The big software companies make standardized packages. We found that hospitals need one kind of database, and grocery stores another. Lawyers need templates for particular forms, schools need others. And so on.”
Liz was a little disappointed. It didn’t sound very exciting.
“Kind of dry, I know. The process is interesting. The math.” He looked from Eleanor to Liz and gave a little shrug. “Eventually it didn’t satisfy me anymore. Remember the experiment in school with the bean seed?”
Liz perked up. She understood beans. “You put it in a jar with water and watch it sprout.”
“And a green leaf emerges. Then you cut open a dry bean and there the leaf is, tiny and white, waiting. I decided I’d rather deal with that kind of code.”
“Applied mathematics.” Liz wasn’t sure if she was joking or trying to sound intelligent.
Jack smiled. “You’ve got it. Outdoor math.”
“You’ll do well,” Eleanor said. “You’re very much like my husband. He quietly went about his business doing things the way he thought they should be done, regardless of what those around him said. Now, there were times, I must admit, when listening to others might have done him good, but on the whole I liked his independence.” She tried to stifle a yawn.