Dandy looked terrible. I was anxious about many things, but I was terrified to lose him while Waldo and the boys were away. Wasn't his well-being—his very survival—the whole reason I'd stayed behind, and wasn't that why I was here with Abelardo, he of the bad attitude about winter weather?
I called our vet, Dr. Donald Eco. He was a kind man who seemed as unwilling to give up on Dandy as I was. Their house, formerly Thelma's parents' house, was right in VerGroot. They had turned the old chicken coop into a small clinic, which was a great thing, as it meant I didn't have to take Dandy all the way to Winifred Bates Memorial Animal Hospital every time he needed blood or new medications.
Thelma answered the phone. I asked how she was doing with the snow.
"Splendid," she said. "We've all been stuck inside for days. It's been wonderful. For two entire days no one has considered going out-of-doors. I've been completely normal."
"I hadn't thought of that," I said.
"You are not alone," she said. "But I suppose you're looking for Donald."
I told Donald about Dandy. He said I should bring him in for another blood transfusion.
"I'll meet you there," he said. "Are you already plowed out?"
"No, but I can get through it."
Still, it was all silence. Not a peep, not a creaking floorboard, not a snore from Abelardo's, that is to say, Ezra's, room, or from anywhere else. Great, I thought. I'll quickly shovel around the car, and then just try driving through the snow to the road, which will surely be plowed by now, and I'll get Dandy to the clinic, and leave him there to be transfused, and be back before Abelardo is awake. It was a good plan, good in its simplicity.
But after I'd cleared off the car, loaded Dandy in the back, and then actually started moving, I glanced up at Ezra's window and saw Abelardo's horror-stricken face. He must have been pressed right up to the wavy glass pane because his features were slightly distorted, flattened and elongated. It was impossible to tell if he was naked or wearing shorts, and yes, I wanted to know. I should have stopped right then and gone back inside and explained to him what I was doing and shown him the note I had left on the kitchen counter, shown him the half grapefruit under an additional Post-it with his name written on it, and shown him the already ground coffee in the coffeemaker. But I didn't. The car seemed to have some momentum; we were making headway through the snow and I was afraid that if I stopped I'd never get going again. Not without hours of shoveling. So I kept going and got down to the road. Emerson had been plowed, but not recently. Very slowly, I drove to Donald Eco's clinic, a mere three miles away. Dandy was perfectly silent in the back of the station wagon. I would have liked to hear just a yip, a hiccup, or a growl. But he was as silent as the snow. I don't know how long it took us to get there. There was no one else on the road and that was lucky because the car skidded prodigiously.
Mentally I composed a letter to the new DPW head that I'd cc to the VerGroot Sentinel. While understanding that the scale of this snowstorm made immediate snowplowing impossible, I would describe most poetically the public safety concerns of uncleared roads for those of us with children and those without, for those of us with four-footed animals and even those not so blessed. I would not mention frustrated Nicaraguan houseguests. I would not sound hysterical.
I made it to Donald's office intact. It must have been a lovely chicken coop in its time. The chickens must have counted themselves lucky to live in such a well-wrought and finely detailed abode. Until the moment of neck-wringing, that is, when presumably the architectural merits of their home had paled. Like the house, it was built in the Gothic revival style promoted by Alexander Jackson Davis with such success in the mid-nineteenth century. I knew this because when I'd first gone there I'd complimented Donald and Thelma on their gingerbread house. I'd waxed enthusiastic about windows wearing hats and the roof waving banners. I'd been corrected. "You're referring to the drip-mold window crowns, Alice," Donald had said. "And the ridgepole finials." There were no finials on the former chicken coop, now veterinary offices, but that building too was graced with lovely verge boards that hung from the projecting eaves like lace.
He was standing on the front step in a bright blue one-piece snowsuit, the kind normally worn by children.
"You made it!" he said.
"Of course I made it. Don't tell me you ever doubted."
"Let's just say it's a good thing I have some blood on hand, because no one is going anywhere today."
Dandy lifted his head sadly but otherwise did not move. I took him in my arms and followed Donald into the clinic.
"Where do you get the blood anyway? Several people have asked. I told them public-spirited dogs donated pints to the doggy blood bank. I hope I haven't been misleading them."
"Everybody asks me that," he said.
"They do? You mean I'm not the only one who lies awake at night pondering canine blood banks?"
"Sorry," Donald said.
"But seriously, where—?"
"From greyhounds retired from the track. Instead of being euthanized, they get to spend a year supplying blood for clinics. And then they're adopted by good families."
"I guess informed consent is not an issue with dogs," I said.
"It's better than being put to sleep."
"Why greyhounds?"
"They have a very high red blood cell count."
"But they're so skinny."
"All that running oxygenates the blood."
"I never thought of that."
Donald inserted the transfusion needles into Dandy's back leg and dosed him with a sedative, which I didn't think he needed. "You may as well go home," he said. "This will take hours."
"Is Thelma really enjoying this as much as she said?"
"More so. She weeps with delight when she watches the weather news."
"Maybe she should meet my houseguest. He is horrified by the storm—he seems to take it as a personal insult. Of course, he's from the tropics. But they have weather too. You would think."
"You have a tropical friend here? Now?"
"It's a long story," I said. "But I was joking. I don't think he and Thelma should ever meet."
After a fond adieu, I left poor Dandy at the clinic, splayed indecorously on the stainless steel table with a needle stuck into and taped to his leg, and headed home. Driving on the snowy roads was still painfully slow. But not slow enough.
Just as I was starting a wide swing so I could gun it up my driveway, I became aware of bright and annoying flashing red lights. A fully grown migraine had landed inside my head, right behind my furrowed brow. But the lights were not inside my head. Just at the entrance to my driveway was a VerGroot volunteer ambulance vehicle, its flasher widely circling, pinking the snow in every direction. Its wheels were so deep in the snow they were lost.
I swerved and ta-da! I was stuck in a snowdrift at the road's shoulder. The wheels spun merrily through the piled-up snow, as if they had nothing to do but just that: spin. They spun and gained no purchase and I made no progress. I stopped before digging myself in deeper and making it much worse, a wise and prescient course I would have found impossible to follow a mere ten years earlier. I didn't understand why the ambulance had to get stuck in my driveway, of all the driveways in VerGroot. I didn't understand why they had to be on the road at all in this weather. Did they have anemic dogs in desperate need of transfusions? They did not. I knew several of the members of the VerGroot Volunteer Fire and Ambulance Corps, and many of their dogs.
Teddy Gribbon was at the wheel of the ambulance. He got out and started walking toward me as I left my car and headed toward the driveway. We were converging. He didn't have boots on—he was wearing sneakers. This struck me as a problem. And a bad sign.
"We got a distress call from Mrs. Crench, next door," he said. He didn't look happy. His hands were deep in his pockets.
"Susie Crench? What could have happened to her? Damn."
"Nothing happened to her. She said you had a problem."
"I'm
fine. I mean, the dog is sick so I just had to go to Dr. Eco's office. But believe it or not, I made it." I looked back toward my beached whale of a car. "What's with the roads anyway? It's pretty treacherous out here."
"We've had a massive snowstorm. The biggest snowstorm in decades. No one should be driving."
"I know, Teddy. What did Susie call you about?"
"She said someone was outside your house, shouting. Specifically, she said he was weeping and bellowing. She was specific. But she couldn't get over there."
"Oh, shit," I said. "Shit, shit, shit. It must be Abelardo. And Susie just had knee surgery—she's not supposed to go anywhere."
"Who or what is Abelardo?" Teddy was looking down at his sneakers, barely visible in the snow, with an expression of overwhelming sorrow.
It was normal for Teddy not to make eye contact. Susie and I had often discussed just what exactly was so weird about Teddy. Teddy wasn't especially smart but he did know everything there was to know about the volunteer corps, and he was the local expert on fire hydrants. Which didn't explain his presence.
I said, "He's Abelardo Llobet. My houseguest. From Nicaragua."
Teddy said, "Nicaragua is the largest country in Central America. But at forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven square miles, it is still smaller than our own New York state."
"I know," I lied.
"My vehicle is stuck in your driveway," Teddy said. "I told you three times that the nearest hydrant to your house is over two hundred feet, and because of the curve in the driveway it could be described as two hundred and fifty-four feet. I've left several messages with the county about this. The county is in charge of fire hydrants."
"I see. We can walk."
"It's two hundred and forty-three feet to your front door."
"But you're stuck in the snow."
As we walked I worried more and more and wanted to walk faster and get the bad news as soon as possible, because sooner or later I would have to tell Waldo that while I was at the vet's with Dandy, Abelardo had locked himself out of the house or gotten frostbite, and now his friend thought that, in marrying me, Waldo had made the worst mistake of his life. There is a limit to how fast one can walk in three feet of snow, no matter how dire the catastrophe awaiting one. But it takes no time at all to sympathize with polar explorers; it takes no time at all to imagine the exhaustion of slogging across crevasse-riddled Himalayan snow-fields, or of climbing Andean peaks with no llama in sight.
Did such empathetic images prepare me for the sight of Abelardo Llobet in his pressed Brooks Brothers blue-striped pajamas splayed on his back upon the virgin snow in front of the house, making an angel? Not likely. Five newly imprinted angels glistened in the snow, almost a host of cherubim. Abelardo had been at this for a while. Or were they fallen angels?
"Do you know this man?" Teddy said.
"Abelardo! What are you doing? Abelardo! Didn't you get my notes?" I went over and took his arm. His pajama sleeves were icing up. Tiny icicles descended from his eyebrows and nostrils. He shook my hand off with enormous strength.
"No one told me that I would go blind in Heaven," he said, with difficulty. His jaw was stiff with the cold.
"You're just really, really cold," I said. "Let's go inside."
"Tía Tata smelled of gardenias when she was dead. We all know what that means," he said.
Teddy said, "No one told me about this."
"Christ, Teddy, no one knew. We have to take him to the ER. He's awfully cold, and he's not making sense."
"Does he want to go to the ER?"
"Does that matter?" I said. Abelardo had stood up and was leaping barefoot through the piled-high snow, clearly scouting for another suitable angel spot. Or was he?
"I can't see her. I can't see anything," he said. I didn't know much about eyes. His looked normal. As normal as coal gray unseeing eyes can look.
Teddy said, "Hypothermia is present when the body core temperature is less than ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit or thirty-five degrees Celsius. What is his body core temperature?"
"How would I know?" I said. "Abelardo, we're going to go to the ambulance and get you warmed up."
"Three days after she was dead, she still smelled of gardenias. There were always gardenias in the courtyard in León."
Damn Susie and her knee surgery, I thought. She would be much better at this than I am. Hell, wasn't she the one who called Teddy in the first place? I needed to talk with her, with anyone except Teddy or Abelardo Llobet. It would be nice if her husband, George, was home, but George was almost never home. He was a pilot for Available Airlines ("If you are, we are" was their slogan). But you'd think that George would be grounded for this snowstorm to top all snowstorms. And as it turned out he was, in Greenville, South Carolina.
I told Teddy I was going to go inside and call the VerGroot ambulance corps to send over someone to help us, someone with chains or four-wheel drive or sandbags or all of the above; and then I was going to call the Virginia O'Connor Memorial Hospital to tell them that Abelardo was on his way; and then I would call Susie.
Teddy said, "We have to look for the umbles. They're the signs of mild hypothermia: stumbles, mumbles, and fumbles."
"Just keep an eye on him," I said.
I called the ambulance corps for backup. They were on their way, I was told.
The woman answering the phone at Ginny O Memorial asked me if I knew how bad the roads were.
I dialed Susie next door. I could almost see her from my house. On days when the wind was right, I could definitely hear her. "What the hell is going on over there?" she said.
"I've got a snow-crazed Nicaraguan, and Teddy got stuck in my driveway. What do I do?"
"I'll call Herc and tell him he has to send over someone else from the corps. Teddy was not who I had in mind when I called. And where the hell were you, anyway?" Hercules Delafield, our esteemed mayor, had in his high school days loved Susie. He still did. He was constantly seeking occasions to assist Susie in any way. Alas, she wanted very little assistance. I imagined his delight at getting this phone call.
"At Donald Eco's with Dandy. He needed another transfusion."
"You can tell me about that later. As well as about your Nicaraguan friend. Are you aware how cold it is out there?"
"Very cold," I said.
I got out Waldo's favorite forest green parka, and his black ski overalls, and his thickest socks, and his L.L.Bean hunting boots, and a red-and-white-striped hat I'd knit for him but he'd refused to wear, and red mittens. Back outside, Teddy said, "Paradoxical undressing is a sign of moderate hypothermia. He needs to be hydrated and rewarmed gradually."
"I think we need to get him dressed," I said. "Abelardo, I brought some clothes for you. Aren't you and Waldo the same size?"
"There is nothing but mystery to be seen. That's why it's so important to have faith," he said.
"Can you put these pants on?" I said. He lay down on the snow and spread his arms and spread his legs and swished them back and forth as if he'd been making snow angels all his life, the movements were so smooth and practiced. I could imagine circumstances—a tropical beach, perhaps—where this might not be so disturbing, where it might even have a certain appeal.
"Your friend is not cooperative," Teddy said.
"Someone else is coming to help," I said. "Come on, Abelardo. You'll feel a lot better when you're warmer."
His body stiffened as I raised him up and started inserting his left arm into the parka's sleeve. Ezra had been like this as a baby, always resisting clothing in all its forms. The rigidity of his tiny limbs had impressed me. If in later life he applied this force to any task, what could he not accomplish? Because of my years battling Ezra's recalcitrance I now felt almost comfortable forcing Abelardo's freezing arms into the parka. The overalls would be harder. And they had to go on before the socks and boots. Forget the overalls, I decided, and hoped I wouldn't regret it. But the whiteness of his feet and the horror of his long yellowish toenails�
�Waldo had never mentioned these toenails—convinced me that he needed his feet covered immediately. It is remarkably difficult to put socks on feet that don't want to cooperate, on toes that refuse to contract and point.
Teddy said, "Most warm-blooded animals have a layer of fur, hair, or blubber that keeps them warm. We humans need to wear clothes."
I kept up the struggle with Abelardo's rigid feet, and finally managed to get the socks on. The boots were almost impossible.
"Teddy," I said. "Maybe if you could help him stand up I could get his feet into these boots."
"It should not be hard to remember the simple rules for cold-weather safety. We say c for cover, o for overexertion, l for layers, and d for dry. They spell COLD. If you can't remember that, you're not paying attention."
"Well, he speaks Spanish. He says frio? I said. F for fuck you, r for ridiculous, i for inane—no, I never said that.
"I don't speak Spanish. I speak English and always have. English is the official language of the USA."
Through the gaunt and snowy trees that stood between Emerson Street and me, I saw red lights flashing, and could have wept for joy.
"We hid all her clothes and books away so safely, no one will ever find them. Bones are another matter," Abelardo said, preaching to the snowdrifts. His feet remained stiffened in their capital L position.
In the freezing cold, well below freezing, I stood between two people who couldn't speak to me or to each other. And it was my fault: I had failed in my duties as hostess and as citizen; I was deficient in the basic skills of COLD; I had ignored the signs of distress right in front of my nose while busily searching for color signs on my dog's gums.
Hercules Delafield was striding up the driveway. He was wearing tall fur-trimmed boots and a fur-trimmed parka and a Russian fur hat. At least it looked Russian. Handsome Herc, he actually looked at peace with his surroundings.
Hercules waved and shouted cheerfully, "What the fuck?" Then he picked up his pace. "Teddy, go warm up the ambulance," he shouted.
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