“Do not touch the snow until morning,” the old woman repeated slowly, distinctly, as if she were hammering every single word into my consciousness with a mallet. Her fingers dug into my sleeve even tighter, bordering on painful. “Promise me. This is very important. Your life depends on it. Believe an old woman.”
“Yes… okay, okay,” I agreed mechanically, just wanting to extricate myself. I pulled my arm free and involuntarily stepped back. My heart was beating a frantic rhythm against my ribs; I felt uneasy under that intense, almost hypnotic gaze. “I won’t shovel. I promise.”
The old woman finally let me go. She nodded slowly, as if satisfied with the pact, and then—surprisingly agile for her age—she walked out of the store. I watched her dissolve into the snowy whirl beyond the glass doors, a ghost fading into the storm.
I shook my head, trying to chase away the strange sensation creeping up my spine. The poor old woman must not be all there, I reasoned. I felt a wave of pity for the elderly—lonely, poor, living in their own worlds of fantasies and superstitions. Maybe from need and loneliness, the mind gets confused, and so she spouts nonsense about snow and husbands.
Stepping outside, I was immediately blasted by a snowy vortex. Icy flakes plastered my face like wet confetti. I shivered, wrapped myself deeper into my old scarf, and power-walked to the bus stop, where a small group of chilled, miserable-looking people had already gathered.
Vernon and I lived on the outskirts of the city, in a quiet suburb where the houses stood on large, sprawling lots. The house had originally belonged to my parents—a sturdy old place with thick walls, built back in the seventies. I had been the mistress of it for many years, the keeper of its secrets and its dust.
I had revitalized the once-neglected garden, planted apple trees that now gave a generous harvest every summer, and cultivated flowerbeds—roses near the porch, peonies lining the walkway. Thirty-two years married, and for the greater part of them—almost thirty years—we had lived in this very house. It was more than a structure; it was home. It was me.
The bus was stuffy, crowded, and smelled of wet wool and damp bodies. I squeezed my way to the window, leaned my forehead against the cold glass, and watched the city blur by. The words of the strange old woman echoed again. Do not touch the snow!
What sort of eccentricity was that? Honestly! Just this morning, while hurriedly scarfing down breakfast before heading to the depot, Vernon had grumbled that the driveway absolutely needed to be cleared.
He’d complained that the drifts were piling up high and the walkways were completely covered. He had practically ordered me to take care of it by evening so the paths would be clear; otherwise, he claimed he couldn’t turn the car around.
And here some strange, senile lady whispers weird things about snow and husbands. A stupid coincidence. Nothing more.
The house met me with dark, empty windows and a chill that seeped into the bones. Vernon had gone to the depot in the morning to prep the truck for the haul, and, in his typical fashion, he hadn’t bothered to turn up the heat.
I went in, stomped the snow off my boots onto the mat, and peeled off my wet coat. I walked across the freezing floor to the kitchen, cranked up the thermostat, and put the kettle on the stove. I unpacked the groceries, neatly putting everything in its designated place—vegetables in the pantry, chicken in the fridge, bread in the box. Every movement was habitual, practiced over decades of muscle memory.
The house gradually warmed up. The baseboards creaked cozily as the heat rose, and the kettle began to whistle its high-pitched tune. Vernon was supposed to return by six in the evening to pick up his things and the food for the road.
I began to cook, moving like a machine. I cleaned and cut the chicken, putting it on to boil for a rich, hearty broth. I chopped vegetables for the salad that Vernon liked to take with him, and took out the meatloaf from the freezer, which I had prepared a week ago specifically for this trip. He preferred home-cooked food to roadside diners; he always said there was nothing but “chemicals and dirt” out there on the highway.
At exactly six o’clock, the front door slammed.
The cold burst into the house, riding on Vernon’s coat tails. He walked in with a heavy tread, shaking snow from his jacket right onto the floor I had just swept, paying no attention to the puddles forming around his boots.
He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a weathered, hard face and cold gray eyes. Fifty-nine years old, but he looked solid and strong, despite a quarter of a century behind the wheel of an eighteen-wheeler. Twenty-five years of roads, thousands and thousands of miles across the country, had hardened him into something unbreakable—and unfeeling.
“Well, is everything ready?” he asked instead of a greeting. He didn’t even look at me. He just walked straight into the kitchen, expecting to be served.
“Yes, Vern, I’m getting it all together now.”
I moved with practiced efficiency, pulling out the Tupperware containers I’d set aside earlier. I began neatly arranging the cooled soup, the thick slices of meatloaf, the crisp salad, and the squares of golden cornbread.
Vernon sat heavily at the kitchen table. He reached for the old ceramic teapot, pouring a dark stream of tea into his mug before dumping in three heaping spoons of sugar. He stirred it noisily, the spoon clinking against the ceramic like a repetitive alarm, but he didn’t say a word. His eyes were glued to his phone screen, his thumbs typing something rapid-fire, never once flicking up to look at me.
I stole a glance at him—at the profile I knew better than my own. When had this begun? This creeping alienation, this wall of ice that had slowly built up between us? Was it a year ago? Two? Maybe five or ten?
In the early years, he would return from trips tired but vibrating with energy. He’d hug me right at the threshold, smelling of diesel and coffee, eager to tell me about the road, about the crazy drivers he’d seen, about the diners in Nebraska or the sunsets in Arizona. We would joke. We would laugh.
Now, there was only this heavy, suffocating silence. There was only irritation in every movement, in every glance he threw my way, as if I weren’t his wife of thirty-two years, but a tiresome servant he couldn’t quite fire.
“Clean the snow this evening once it gets dark,” Vernon threw out the command without looking up from his phone. “The driveway is completely buried. If it keeps coming down, it might drift even more by tomorrow.”
“Vernon, it’s already almost dark, and the blizzard is really bad out there,” I started to protest, my voice wavering slightly. I cut myself off the moment I saw him raise his eyes. They were cold, flat, and hard.
“I said this evening,” he cut in sharply, his voice slicing through the warm kitchen air. “You aren’t a child, Alara. You can handle it in half an hour. I didn’t have time to do it; the haul starts early tomorrow morning, and the cargo is important. Don’t make this a production.”