'A well-told story should heighten all the reader's senses, drawing him into the character's world so that he loses his own sense of self long enough to gain some insight into his humanity.' - Sarah C. Honenberger |
Every once in a while the snow hesitated, letting unadorned air fall on the white cushion, slowly, silently, brushing aside the lingering flakes and letting the forest breath deeply of nothing. Then, as Penn watched from the cabin's steamy warmth, a few straggling flakes slid from the heavens, tumbling head over heals on the velvet carpet of night sky, gathering speed and numbers until white swirls danced in nautilus formations with the trees and fence posts and porch railings. Anne should have come with him.
For days now their argument had lingered, making the smallest pleasantry suspect. They hadn't had a complete conversation in months. She wanted him to resolve it, and he thought he had. He worked, he came home on time, paid his share of the bills, ate her mother's holiday dinners, wanted her in bed, yet was content to just sit and hold her hand.
She, on the other hand, stormed out if he didn't divine when she'd had a bad day. She insisted on eating badly cooked meals he'd prepared, then telling him how awful they tasted. She bought flowers on a lark and basketball tickets during the week. She dragged him to midnight movies but refused to pay the electric bill, since she used candles.
He loved her in spite of all that, because of all that. He plodded, she flew. Despite long weeks of silent recriminations when she came home late and undressed in the dark, so she could pretend he wasn't awake, he hoped she would see his patience for concern, not disinterest.
At Christmas time he spent hours analyzing the shops on Cary Street, searching for the perfect hat that would show off her blue eyes. He found a tiny pocket edition of W. H. Auden's poems with a purple leather cover and had them wrap it in dark green satin with red raffia. Upset that he had forgotten her birthday on December twenty-first, she pouted.
"Why didn't you remind me?" His question meant only what it said, but she bristled.
"That spoils it. It takes away all the magic."
"But at least you would have had a present. I can think of a hundred perfect things for you. I'll get something this weekend, and we'll celebrate.
"Never mind," she countered. "It won't be spontaneous. It's rigged now. Like reminding someone to tell you they love you. That'll probably be next. You're too sure of me. It makes you lazy." The anger rose in her chest, choking her words, making her eyes pale against her inflamed cheeks.
He thought she was beautiful but didn't dare tell her that when she doubted him already. Instead he let it go and wandered off, chalking it up to biorhythms or phases of the moon. The late nights stopped, but she began to sleep on the sofa.
"Anne, why won't you come to bed? I miss you. I just want to hold you. I'm sorry."
Burrowing into the cushions as if she'd melt in natural light, she faked sleep. Long after the holiday decorations had been restored to the basement boxes, the book lay abandoned and unappreciated on the table. She never untied the ribbon.
One morning the weatherman announced an epic snow storm.
| Steam followed her out of the bathroom, curling in wide swathes about her ankles and legs. She kept moving, pulling on clothes across rosy skin, making his whole body ache. |
"Anne, call in sick, and we'll go up to the mountains." The words escaped before he could stop himself. Steam followed her out of the bathroom, curling in wide swathes about her ankles and legs. She kept moving, pulling on clothes across rosy skin, making his whole body ache.
"You're teasing me. You'd never skip work. You have a perfect attendance record," she said.
"Come on, I dare you fairy princess of inspiration and spur-of-the-moment flights of fancy." Penn held out the phone to her, feeling silly in his snow boots and rain hat.
She slammed the receiver into the cradle. "Don't make fun of me," she said.
"I wasn't. Anyway... I'm going." From the back of the closet, he dug out his duffel, unused since their beach week last summer--a week of misery that made him cringe still just seeing the sand trickle out of the bag's seams.
That vacation had been terrible. At the last minute, his boss had asked him to help with a prospective account. Thinking to provide Anne company on the ride down, he had invited her sister, recently divorced. By the time he arrived two days into the week, the two sisters had driven each other into opposite corners over whether the ex-husband had been a selfish creep from the beginning. Quickly the direction of Anne's anger redirected itself at him. After all, he had set up the possibility of confrontation, and then had not been there to referee. Moon-showered walks on the beach, and lobster and funny moves had not appeased her. Then and now the thought of solitude and a silent snowfall appealed to him.
He stuffed everything he owned containing wool fibers into the canvas bag, crammed in the book Anne claimed would revolutionize the way Americans did business, and zipped it resoundingly.
"I'm off. Want to change your mind?" Penn asked.
In the ladder-back chair by the window she sat rigidly turning magazine pages with such determination that she ripped one by accident. Teeth clenched tightly together, she didn't answer.
He offered one more opening. "I guess I'll see you when the roads are cleared."
In his chest, his heart drummed an unfamiliar cadence. The possible consequences were endless. His boss could fire him, might give his big project to someone else, might forgive him since he knew the pressure he'd been under at home lately. How long could it snow, anyway?
After he backed out of the garage, he toyed with the idea of running in and sweeping Anne off her feet, kidnapping her. One time she'd pretended she was abducting him; mask and all, fake gun stuck to his temple in the parking garage. They'd had a wild, passionate night at the Jefferson Hotel, skipping dinner and crawling home the next day at noon, two hundred and forty dollars poorer. She'd pasted photos of the hotel lobby in their scrapbook and for months afterwards giggled every time she looked at them. Years had passed since she'd added anything to the photo collection.
One glance back through the living room window where she glowered in three shades of irritation convinced him that she would not be as willing a victim today as he had been back then. Smiling weakly, he waved and shifted the car into drive. "I'll call you," he shouted to no one in particular.