I pressed my lips together into a thin line, swallowing my objection. I continued to silently pack the containers into his large, insulated travel bag. The old woman’s words surged back into my mind, unbidden and eerie: When your husband leaves for the night, do not touch the snow.
A coincidence? It had to be. It was winter, after all. Shoveling snow was as inevitable as taxes. But still, the timing made the hair on my arms stand up.
“When exactly are you leaving?” I asked quietly, zipping up the bag.
“In about an hour,” he grunted. “The load is already packed and sealed. The paperwork is all ready and signed.”
Vernon finished his tea in one big, aggressive gulp and stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. “I’m going to take a shower, grab my things, and head out.”
He stomped upstairs to the bedroom, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I stood there for a moment, listening to the water running in the pipes, and then slowly sat down to eat the cooled soup I had made that morning. Outside the window, the wind howled like a wounded animal, and the snow fell ceaselessly in large, wet flakes.
I walked to the window, pulled back the curtain, and peered out into the yard. The single streetlamp by the gate barely pierced through the thick, snowy veil, illuminating the swirling vortex of white. The path to the gate was indeed almost completely buried; the drift reached nearly to the knee.
About forty minutes later, Vernon came down. He was dressed in his road clothes now—heavy flannel, sturdy jeans—with his duffel bag slung over one shoulder. I handed him the bag of food, wrapped in several layers to keep it insulated.
“Will you call when you get there?” I asked. I knew the answer. He usually didn’t call. But I asked out of habit, clinging to the ghost of the way things used to be.
“Yeah,” he threw back shortly, snatching the bag. He didn’t even look me in the eye. He didn’t kiss me goodbye—a ritual that had died years ago without a funeral. He just gave a short, curt nod. “Look, make sure you shovel that snow, you hear? Or it’ll drift up again overnight and you won’t be able to get out in the morning.”
The front door slammed with a dull thud that echoed through the house.
I heard the engine of his old pickup truck roar to life, coughing a few times before settling into a rumble. I listened as the tires crunched over the snow, the sound gradually fading into the distance until there was nothing left but the wind.
I sat at the kitchen table, wrapping my hands around a cup of cold tea, staring at the empty chair where he had just sat. It became quiet—too quiet. The house felt empty, and a strange anxiety began to squeeze my chest, though I couldn’t articulate why.
Do not touch the snow.
The old woman’s words surfaced again, clear and persistent. I shook my head, trying to physically chase the thoughts away. Foolishness. Old folks’ superstition.
But something held me back. I looked at my coat hanging by the door. I looked at the boots. Fatigue crashed down on me all at once, heavy as a sack of sand on my shoulders. The day had been long and exhausting. My legs buzzed, my back ached from the housework, and the blizzard was raging so hard that anything I shoveled now would just be covered again by morning anyway.
What was the point of freezing for a job that would just be undone by morning?
Decided. I wouldn’t go out into this bitter freeze to drag a shovel around. I would deal with it in the morning if it was really necessary. Vernon was miles away by now. He wouldn’t see. He wouldn’t know. And if he asked, I would blame the blizzard, say it was pointless to clean in such weather.
I went upstairs to the bedroom, changed into an old warm nightgown and a soft robe, and lay down on the bed with a tattered paperback I had started reading a week ago. But I couldn’t read. The letters swam before my eyes, refusing to form words. My thoughts tangled, returning again and again to that strange meeting in the store.
Who was she? Why did she look so persistently, so seriously into my eyes, as if warning of something terrible and inevitable?
Outside the window, the wind continued to scream. The house creaked under the strong gusts, groaning like a ship at sea. I got up, walked to the bedroom window, and looked out.
The yard was drowning in pitch darkness. Only the weak yellowish light of the single lamp by the gate snatched swirling snowflakes from the gloom. The path had completely disappeared under a thick white blanket. The gate, the porch, the rose bushes—everything was buried beyond recognition.
A strange, anxious feeling seized me, tightening my throat. It felt as if something absolutely had to happen this night. Something important. Fateful. Something that could not be brushed aside.
I returned to the bed and lay down, pulling the warm quilt up to my chin. I didn’t want to sleep at all, despite the bone-deep fatigue. I lay there, listening to the winter wind, unable to shake the dread growing in my heart.
The old clock on the nightstand ticked monotonously, showing eleven at night.
Vernon was probably far away, speeding along the snowy night highway, listening to the radio, drinking coffee from a thermos, thinking his own thoughts. What did he even think about lately? I wondered. We lived like strangers under one roof, connected only by a marriage license and a mortgage.
When had it happened? I sorted through the memories of the last few years like shuffling a deck of cards. Maybe it started after we realized we couldn’t have children. But that was so long ago—at the very beginning of our marriage, more than thirty years back. Back then, Vernon seemed to comfort me. He said the right words. He said we would live well, just the two of us.
Or maybe it was my illness three years ago—the surgery, the long, painful recovery. Vernon had become especially distant then, cold, as if I had become a burden. Or maybe he was simply tired of me. Tired of our monotonous life, of this old house, of my aging face.
I closed my eyes, forcing the heavy, pressing thoughts away. Tomorrow would be a new day. Maybe this was just the winter blues talking.
Sleep came in snatches, restless and shallow. I would fall into a fitful doze, then wake up sharply from an especially strong gust of wind rattling the window frames. In my dreams, I saw the old woman. Her piercing, all-seeing eyes. Her dry, gripping fingers on my sleeve.
Do not touch the snow, she repeated in the dream, over and over, like a spell.
I woke up early. It was still completely dark.
I looked with sleepy, sticky eyes at the clock: just past five in the morning. Outside the window, the sky was just starting to lighten a tiny bit, turning a bruised purple. The blizzard had finally stopped. The silence was absolute—dense and ringing.
I got up, threw a warm knitted robe over my shoulders to ward off the morning chill, and went down to the kitchen. I mechanically put the kettle on the stove, lit the burner, and walked to the window to check the weather.
I froze.