by KT Morrison
Snowscape
Six Weeks In Winter
KT Morrison
Contents
About the Author
Also by KT Morrison
1. Arrival
2. Cold Notes
3. Welcome Party
4. Nocturne
5. Morning Routine
6. Hometown
7. Drawn
8. Discovery
9. Exploration
10. Steep Hills
11. Mantle
Afterword
About the Author
KT Morrison writes stories about women who fall in love with sexy men who aren’t their husband, and loving relationships that go too far—couples who open a mysterious door, then struggle to get it closed as trouble pushes through the threshold.
Visit My Website!
ktmorrison.com
Also by KT Morrison
SERIES
Landlord
Obsessed
The Cayman Proxy
Separate Schools
EPIC NOVELS
Cherry Blossoms
Maggie
Learning Lessons
Happy Endings
NOVELS
Going A Little Too Far
Pool Party
Après Ski
NOVELLAS
Watching Natalie Cheat
Watching Natalie Again
Inconceivable
Mary’s Pledge
ANTHOLOGIES
The Taken Anthology
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
Models on cover are meant for illustrative purposes only.
All characters are over the age of eighteen.
SNOWSCAPE
A Six Weeks In Winter book
35,000 words
First Edition. February 7, 2019.
Copyright © 2019 KT Morrison
Written by KT Morrison
Cover by KT Morrison
Arrival
Evan’s plane left on time at twelve-thirty, and she and John stood by the windows at the east side of the concourse and watched Flight 313 take off, ascend, shrink to a white sparkling dot in the huge azure sky then disappear. Her baby boy all grown up, a man now, on his own and flying to a foreign country.
She swore she wouldn’t cry, and she didn’t, at least not in front of Evan—he still had some of that teenage Mom, you’re embarrassing me! residual angst, and she’d grown accustomed to hiding her emotions from him since he was eleven—but once her son was up in the air and getting more and more distant, she couldn’t hold the tears back anymore.
“Uh-oh, here we go,” John moaned, but he put his arm around her, and gave her a squeeze. That made it worse and now she sobbed. She buried her face into his flannel shirt, his big beard tickling her forehead, frayed Carhartt coat smelling of gas no matter how many times she washed it.
“Leave me alone,” she laughed and sniffed. John put his other arm around her and told her to go on and get it out. She refrained, instead wiggling her nose around, fishing a tissue out of her pocket and giving her pump a honk, her back turned to John. He was checking his watch.
“What do you want to do now?” he said.
She shrugged, leaned her elbows on the railing that ran along the walkway and looked out at the sky again.
John said, “Good looking sky.”
“Cold,” she said. And cold was good. When it was clear and this cold the snow stayed away; and when the snow was away John was with her. And she needed him now. She stared up into the blue, imagining she could still see the wink of Evan’s plane, but he was lost up there now, off to Italy for six weeks, where it would be warm and sunny and he would be happy and living his life to a fullness she’d always hoped.
She was a thirty-nine-year-old woman with a twenty-one-year-old son; a young and hapless mother at the age of eighteen that somehow found her wits enough she had raised two good kids, both of them sharp and happy and attending university.
John rubbed her back now, squeezed her shoulder, and she stood upright again next to him. With his hand on her back, he guided her away from the window, leading her deeper down the concourse.
* * *
They were heading to the food court when John saw a familiar face coming their way through the crowds of travelers. He wasn’t sure at first, the face seemingly larger, fatter, redder and devoid of the stubble he would expect. In fact, he’d convinced himself he was mistaken, and batted away the idea of approaching, but soon saw an unsure look on the approaching man’s face probably similar to his own. Both of them began to smile as they grew close.
The man said, “Hey-ay, look at this guy!”
“Vic?”
They cut across foot traffic to come face-to-face, Janie close behind. He said, “Wow, hey, what’s up, partner?”
“Same old, same old, you know...”
They shook hands, looking each other’s faces over with halted smiles. John said, “How’s Bentley Steel treating you?”
“I miss the old days.”
“Hey, Jane, this is Vic, you remember him?”
Vic said, “We met once. Nice to see you again, Jane.”
“I remember,” she said, and shook Vic’s hand.
John said, “He was the sales rep for Ang-Mar, you know, all the salt and sand, the stuff we have in the retail. Now he’s out selling scrap steel.”
Vic said, “How’s that boy of yours—you got him out running the plows yet?”
“That’s why we’re here—sending him off to Italy.”
“I wish I could send mine away to Italy,” Vic said with a smile and winked; they shared a laugh.
Jane said, “He’s at university, doing six weeks abroad.”
“What—no? That’s incredible, he was always good with his hands around the shop, he doesn’t want to take over the family business?”
John said, “I wish—he wants nothing to do with it. I’m going to be working till I’m eighty.”
Vic laughed, said, “Well, good for him, at least there’s one smart Holcomb.”
John said, “There’s two. Remember my girl?”
“Marissa?”
“Hey, he remembers,” he said to Jane and thumbed at Vic. “She’s in college, too.”
“Wait—that little girl?” He held a hand out and level at his waist indicating the size their daughter used to be. “One was always in your office, liked to make paper airplanes, cute one with the braids all the time...?” He drew winding fingers to indicate imaginary braids running down the sides of his head; Jane had always done Marissa’s hair for her and he knew Janie missed those days when her little girl would sit at the kitchen table and get her hair braided and tell her about school; they’d just talked about it with Evan in the truck on their way here.
“First year at college. Wants to go to med school if you can believe it. You see why I’m going to die working.”
“Oh, whoa, a doctor, though? She’ll take care of you in your old age, huh?”
“One year at a time, I’m not going to close up just yet.”
“Jesus, though, eh? Where does the time go, John?”
“At least we’re still young, relatively speaking,” John said.
Vic laughed, said, “Good to get an early start on a family, now you can enjoy yourselves while your bodies are still holding up.”
John cocked his head and gave a wink, planted his two hands on the growing flannel belly that parted the open flaps of his jacket.
“You wear it well, big guy,” Vic said and John caught his eyes shifting to take in Janie, the guy’s salesman lizard brain calculating what he could get aw
ay with saying about John’s attractive wife. How she looked ten years younger than him, how she looked like she was in her twenties still and how John might pass as her father even though they were only one year apart. Forty extra pounds and a beard add the years, and twelve hour work days did a number on me, m’man, but you don’t have to say a word about how pretty my Janie is. Vic said nothing, seemed to smile knowingly, then checked his watch. “Oh, shoot, speaking of time flying, I gotta run to make my connection. They got me going to New Hampshire these days.”
“More territory, more money,” John said and whapped Vic on the arm.
They shook hands with good strong grips and Vic said, “Just more problems, John.”
They laughed together again, said their farewells and wished Happy New Years and he and Janie watched Vic throw his bag over his shoulder and join the bustle of people on their way to the south end of the terminal.
“Good guy that one,” he said wistfully, but really reflecting on the nostalgia running into Vic had brought on. The last five years had seen a lot of big changes.
* * *
With an hour to kill between Evan’s departure and their boarding student’s arrival, John took her to the Anchor Grill, a sit-down restaurant outside the airport’s food court. They sat in a booth near the front, John ordered the Angus burger with cheese and bacon and she had a salad (but she did swipe a few of his fries). They split a pitcher of Labatt Blue Light but she only drank one glass. It was Sunday, and the game was on, Chargers and Rams, so John mostly viewed the TV over her shoulder while she looked out to the airport terminal and people-watched.
The closer it came to 1:30, the more anxious she got. She texted with her daughter to see how things were coming along; she texted with Roxy, her decade-long friend, neighbor, and confidante, at home with Marissa and overseeing arrangements at the homestead, to double check on Marissa’s report. When the first quarter of the football game ended, John checked his watch, bounced his eyebrows at her, put out a hand to be held. She did, taking his extra-large mitt in both of hers, running her thumbs over the hard, calloused shapes of his knuckles. He closed his fingers around her thumb and squeezed her. “It’s about that time,” he said.
With her hands in her pockets, she toddled along behind her husband as he paid the bill at the checkout and then they were out in the terminal again, walking side-by-side getting separated by oncoming travelers until they made it to the escalator to take them to the arrivals terminal on the lower level. They gathered around United, standing at the back of an almost filled-up bank of theater seating, looking through the glass window as passengers from Rome disembarked.
The guest in their home over the next six weeks was a young man the same age as their son. A student as well, but not engineering like Evan; Maceo De Sanctis was an artist. His stay in their home was arranged through a program called Home-Exchange and Chesborough College just outside Rochester. They’d spoken to the young Italian man twice now on Skype and even spoke to his mother and father though the communication between them was difficult. Neither of his parents spoke English but Maceo was quite good and was coming to America to get better. It was Maceo’s very home that Evan was departing for. While Maceo stayed in their home, the Home-Exchange program and University of Buffalo had their son in the De Sanctis’s home just outside of Rome. They seemed like wonderful people and she hoped his parents thought the same of her and John.
“Hey, you see him yet?”
“No,” she said, eyes scanning through the crowd. There were more than a few men in the right age group, and frankly they all kind of looked similar with dark eyes and dark hair. But no one stood out. She said, “I told you we should’ve brought a sign.”
“I don’t want to make a spectacle,” he said, and she elbowed him.
Then coming through double sliding glass doors from TSA and into baggage claim was one more twenty-year-old man with dark hair and dark eyes. It was definitely Maceo. She hadn’t expected him to be so tall—he’d been sitting with his family during their Skype sessions. He stood a head taller than anybody else in the crowd. She said, “Hey, John, that’s him right there.” She pointed.
“Tall bugger,” John said.
They watched him collect two suitcases, a travel bag slung over his shoulder. He kept his head down as though he were shy, coming through politely, gesturing with his hands to get between people who were milling about without destination. He emerged, finally, through the second set of glass sliding doors and into the waiting theater. John went first, stepping forward saying, “Maceo?”
The young man lifted his chin (though he was tall enough he would still be looking down on John), then smiled wide, dipping to drop the bags on the floor. “Oh, hello, hey,” he said, “Mr. and Mrs. Holcomb...”
“Hey, Maceo,” John said and put one of his big hands out to shake, but Maceo was already coming in, leaning forward, putting one arm around the small of John’s back and touching a cheek to either side of his face. John smirked, his hand still held out awkwardly but getting into it. “Hey,” he laughed, saying, “good to meet you, so glad you’re here,” and Janie was laughing, too, but at the funny Italian cadence John was speaking in.
“Mrs. Holcomb,” Maceo said now, turning her way, dipping at the knees again, and bending, doing the same to her as John, putting a hand at the small of her back. But instead of cheek-to-cheek, he kissed near her ear on both sides. They gave her the goosebumps and the giggle she’d stifled from John’s sudden Italian accent bubbled up. She said, “You’re really tall.”
“Yeah, hah,” he said, making a saluting gesture, and showing how his hand leveled from the top of his head over theirs, smiling the whole time and being good-natured.
John said, “You could’ve come on a basketball scholarship.”
Maceo nodded, keeping his smile on her, and she had the distinct sense that he didn’t know what that meant. She bumped John’s side with the back of her hand and said, “Leave him alone about being tall, I don’t think he knows what you mean.”
“Basketball, yes,” Maceo said, and gestured with a hand like he was shooting a three-pointer.
“See?” John said, chiding her.
“Whatever,” she said, “we’re so glad you’re with us. How was the flight?”
Maceo said, “Mostly I sleep, I watch a movie, it was good, Old Man with a Gun,” and John stooped to pick up one of the suitcases. Maceo brushed him away saying, “No, no, it’s okay,” but John insisted and now upped the ante, taking both the bags. Maceo thanked him earnestly.
She could tell he was nervous, there was a stiffness in his voice, and he was probably concerned about his English abilities now that he was in America. It was fine and dandy when you were the best English-speaking person in your neighborhood in Rome, but now he would be put to the test. But he was charming, and there was no way you could deny it: really good-looking. More so than he’d seemed on their computer screen. Definitely the kind of guy that would make you look twice, and it wasn’t just the height. He had a well-shaped face, masculine and sculpted, and a great head of hair; short on the sides but long and swooping up top; light in color which she hadn’t expected, his hair seemed dark on Skype, but she could see now it was chestnut with lighter sunburned streaks in it. He’d dressed for the Buffalo winter, though, like he was still prowling the streets of Europe; a black peacoat with the collar turned up, a burgundy scarf flowing around his sharp jawline.
She said, “Let’s get out of the airport, Maceo, I hate this place and we’ve been here too long already.”
John said, “We got people at home excited to meet you, you hungry?—there’s going to be food,” even though she’d asked him not to give away the surprise reception back at their place.
Maceo said, “Food, yes? I like food...”
John said, “Me too,” and still holding the suitcases, squeezed his elbows against his sides to show off his stomach.
Maceo said, “American food? Hamburgers?”
“Shoot,
” John said, “I already had one...”
“We’ll have all sorts of things,” she told him, “a potluck.”
They were weaving through the crowds again, heading towards shining daylight doors that would take them out to the parking. Maceo said, “What’s potluck?”
“I don’t know,” she said, thinking about it. The last two weeks she’d spent perusing websites about Italian food and culture and even gone to the library to get CDs on learning Italian which she played in the kitchen while she was working. She said, “Buffet style, like, everyone brings something with them...”
“Si, si, thank you so much,” he said.
“Now the real question,” John said, accelerating and huffing and puffing, carrying a load in both hands, coming up beside Maceo, “you ready for a Buffalo winter?”
Cold Notes
John watched the kid’s face when they went outside. Welcome to the maelstrom, kiddo. He didn’t know what it was like in Italy, but he knew it wasn’t like here. He ran plows up and down these streets, moving millions of tons of Buffalo snow so people could get to work every day. Eight feet of snow on the annual was what he moved, and there were day stretches where they might get half of that all at once. Sometimes it was twenty-degrees, that was pretty bad, but, hey, how do you feel about zero? Zero degrees wasn’t out of the question, and neither was minus-ten. Had to be some art program at Chesborough to get the kid out of sunny Rome and into this mess.
He took great glee at the shocked look this young guy had on his face stepping out and having ice-air sizzle the surface of his handsome face. The kid recoiled, stepped back as if the cold had assaulted him. And it had.
