Mrs. Enderrin blanched, the color draining from her face as she grabbed the frame of the front door for support. Her eyes took on the look of a frightened child.
Mr. Berube looked at Brad and nodded. “You folks might want to gather up and head out while the roads is still passable.” He returned his attention to Mrs. Enderrin. “You want, I can button the place up for you.”
Mrs. Enderrin tried to cover her rising panic. “Thank you, Mr. Berube. I would appreciate it.”
The short man nodded at Mrs. Enderrin, glanced once more at Brad, then opened the door to leave. “You folks be careful drivin’ out that driveway this evenin’. Snow plays tricks on that path, makes it look like there’s road where they isn’t. You run into a problem, just give me a holla.”
And with that, Mr. Berube disappeared into the thickening snowfall.
As the door closed, Denny returned from the pantry, the damp towel tossed cavalierly across his left shoulder. Mrs. Enderrin looked at her son, communicating a fear to him with her eyes that Brad didn’t understand.
“A quarter century storm,” she said. Her hands were shaking as she released the doorknob.
Denny suddenly became solemn.
“Let’s get you two packed and out of here,” he said.
“Should we wake Jimbo?” Brad asked.
Denny looked at him. “He can’t leave. I have to stay with him. You two need to go on ahead.” Brad noticed for the first time how drawn the man’s face had become.
Brad knew that anyone who had lived in northern Pennsylvania for more than one winter had experienced the fierceness of a winter storm. After a few years, the most violent blizzards were accepted without much fanfare, like the cost of admission for living in a northeastern state blessed with four seasons and the natural beauty found in each. For the first time since his childhood, he felt infected with unease about a coming storm, a fear absorbed from his hosts.
He tried to dismiss the sensation as just a primitive emotional throwback to a pre-Neanderthal ancestry that included a fear of the dark, an unevolved, instinctive worry about the uncontrollable elements.
He couldn't have known that it was much more than that.
Chapter Nineteen
Easerly, Pennsylvania
Thursday
November 22, 2012
Within 40 minutes, the leftovers from the Thanksgiving meal had been packed and put by the door. Mrs. Enderrin gathered the coats from the living room closet, handing one to Brad. She then gave her son a hug that seemed to go on for days, the two metal crutches forming an "x" behind his back. Tears began to fill her eyes. After putting on his coat, Brad turned away to give them a moment of privacy. He bent down and picked up the box of used food.
“I love you, Denny,” Mrs. Enderrin said, her voice cracking. “Take care of your father for me. Tell him that I love him.”
At first, Brad thought it odd that she didn't just walk the few steps to the end of the hall to say goodbye in person, but then realized that the elder Enderrin was probably already asleep.
“I will. I love you, Mom," Denny answered, holding his mother in a camouflaged hug while she put down the rubber-tipped walking sticks to re-establish her balance and independence.
"Brad, I’m really glad we got a chance to meet," Denny said, now turning to the departing guest.
“Double ditto,” he replied, nodding his chin upward since his arms were filled with the now-lighter box. “Hopefully we’ll get together when you get back to town.”
The worried look in Denny’s eyes melted into one of near sadness. “I would like that,” he said.
Mrs. Enderrin pushed open the door to let Brad out first. Once her guest was out and on his way to the car, she took one last look at her son, then closed and locked the front door.
The snow had accumulated enough to begin making a light crunching sound with each step. Brad led the way, kicking a path to the SUV. He went to the back of the Lincoln and waited for Mrs. Enderrin to open the rear door.
The elderly lady was walking a lot slower than when she arrived, as if she was reluctant to leave. She opened the trunk with the push of a button on her key ring, then got into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
After storing the box in the trunk, Brad kicked the snow from his shoes, took his own final look at the Currier and Ives scene behind him, then got into the car.
Mrs. Enderrin wheeled the SUV around the driveway, then pointed the nose toward the rip in the woods.
“I’m sorry the day had to end on such a bad note,” Brad offered.
The driver’s eyes never left the path. The snow barely covered the brown of the dirt road, having been filtered by the trees on either side. Some spots had become slippery, but the heavy vehicle navigated the ruts and frozen puddles easily.
“Thank you so much for inviting me,” Brad continued. “It was a day I’ll never forget.”
Mrs. Enderrin wrestled with a mix of emotions battering her soul.
“I’m glad you came," she finally answered. "Denny really seemed to enjoy your company.”
“He’s a neat guy. Easy to talk to. Guess he gets that from your side, huh?”
“Good to know he got something from my gene pool," Mrs. Enderrin replied. "He has his father’s hard head.”
“I think we inherit that with the Y chromosome,” Brad said. “My mom always felt the same way about me.”
“You and Denny are a lot alike,” she said as the Lincoln reached the connection to the main road, expertly wheeling the SUV back onto pavement that was lightly dusted with a few blotches of white stuff. “I sensed it when I was at your office. You’re both private people, but with an extroverted approach to life. And both of you have been hurt by the ones you loved.”
The sound of the tires carving dry canals through the slush and patches of easily yielding snow became a soothing song that filled the silence, as the two occupants pored through their own internal memories of the interrupted day. For Brad, it was like riding with Mrs. Enderrin's alter ego, a quiet woman who seemed far more frail and distraught than the strong and straightforward driver who had delivered them to Easerly less than eight hours ago.
The miles began to accumulate on the odometer as Brad and Mrs. Enderrin returned to civilization. By the time they got closer to town, the plows were firing their first salvos of defense against the strengthening storm, seeding the roads with rock salt and scraping a few inches of snow from the pavement.
In another hour, they arrived at Brad’s rented home.
"Thanks again for the dinner, and for the day," Brad said, his hand grasping the door handle.
"No, Brad, thank you," Mrs. Enderrin said, gently grasping his upper arm through the nylon jacket. "You probably won't understand this, but you brought some happiness to an old woman today."
Brad didn't know what to say to this role reversal, unexpectedly thrust into the position of being the person doing a kindness instead of the recipient of someone else's philanthropy on such a meaningful holiday.
He released the door handle and reached across the seat, offering a clumsy hug.
"If there is anything I can do, if you need anything, don't hesitate to pick up the phone and call me," Mrs. Enderrin whispered into his ear.
"Same back to you, Vi," Brad said, releasing his grip and looking into the sad but settled eyes of his client and friend. "I owe you more than I can put into words, and I'll never forget this Thanksgiving."
Brad thanked his host again, then stepped out of the SUV and headed for the front door, knowing the emptiness that waited within. After inserting and twisting the key, he turned one last time and waved, hearing the car horn beep twice before the new Navigator pulled away from the curb and into the growing slush.
While hours remained in the day, Brad knew that Thanksgiving was over.
Chapter Twenty
Ridley, Pennsylvania
Thursday
November 22, 2012
As the night’s deepening shade announced the cessation of an
other day, Brad began wandering around the house in search of a meaning not to be found in those barren rooms. While surrounded with the Enderrin family, his loneliness watched from the shadows of his heart, held at bay by the banter and sharing of souls. But here, in a building haunted by ghosts of a life lived in another place, the loneliness grew bolder. As the last glimmer of daylight slipped beneath the horizon, loneliness had reclaimed Brad’s mind as its personal dominion.
Brad went to the closet and gathered the only shield in his broken-hearted armory, and began fighting back in a battle he knew he was destined to lose.
As he poured his first glass, the memory of the holiday overwhelmed him. It was unfair that the joy of a day could be used as ammunition by his own heart come sundown, a pointed contrast of happiness against his current background of alone. He began the endless string of questions with no answer key: how could Mr. and Mrs. Enderrin endure for this many years when he and his own wife couldn’t make it a decade? What was the flaw in him that made it so easy for Sharon to leave?
His eyes inventoried the room, each item mocking him. He noticed his tie, abandoned on the closet doorknob. What good was a necktie? A prop for the façade of a successful businessman, whose success didn’t extend to his own home. Then there was the TV, his electronic friend; keeping him company because no one else wanted the job.
By the fourth glass, the pain and hurt and hatred mingled into a cocktail of growing untargeted anger intertwined with deep sadness.
His eyes fell on his silent cell phone lying on the table beside the recliner. It was an advanced piece of technology, filled with apps, gadgets, and the potential of opening the entire world with the press of a few buttons. Devoid of any warmth or humanity itself, it represented a means of achieving a connection between souls over invisible wires. It was logical. It was scientific. It was 21st century magic.
Brad thought about the day he had just spent with the Enderrin family at their cabin, a come-to-life Norman Rockwell painting. On one hand, he felt the warmth and inspiration of what happily ever after should look like. Like all images, whether artistic or photographic, it was a mere moment in time, one of billions that accumulate and eventually compile into a life. It didn’t share a glimpse of the behind the scene struggles, failures, and triumphs required to forge such a single moment of serenity, but served as a testament nonetheless that warmed even an outsider like the itinerant insurance agent sharing the family meal.
On the other hand, a melancholy that bordered on resentment pinged his stomach, as the day served as a torturous example of that which was beyond his grasp; a family he felt he would never have, never be.
The thoughts sucked him down into a whirlpooling blackness of despair.
Looking again at the silent cell phone, Brad saw not a communication device but a lifeline, a boathook his impaired mind believed he could use to reel in the remnants of a life he insisted was not yet completely broken on unforgiving rocks.
He picked up the cell phone. His sluggish fingers didn’t need his blurry eyes as they pushed the screen in a pattern that was engraved into his mind like a bizarre kind of unraised Braille, finding the speed dial combination that would bring Sharon’s voice to his ear.
A few seconds later, the sound he heard wasn’t his former wife. Instead, three individual tones ran a climbing mini scale, followed by a woman’s recorded voice.
“The number you have dialed, has been changed. At the customer’s request, the new number is not available.”
Brad was sure his wonder phone had somehow issued the wrong series of digits. He pushed the recall button, only to receive the same message.
“Damn phone,” Brad mumbled, then called up the image of a keypad on the screen. He knew the seven digits he now pushed as well as he knew his own name, or his own Social Security number. After having the same phone number at the home they shared for the last four years, even a quart of bourbon couldn’t wash it from his brain.
Upon hitting the “send” key, he heard the melodious yet unwelcome tones again, followed by the message which claimed the phone number had been disconnected.
Like a calculator with a fresh roll of paper cranking out a long addition problem, the list maker in Brad’s head began spitting out a lineup of reasons for what was obviously a phone company snafu: the computer had suffered a data scramble; a phone line somewhere had gotten crossed; human error by a phone technician or office worker; maybe a balky tone generator in his own smart phone. Among the options and alternatives, it took him an inordinate amount of time to consider what most would have considered the most logical conclusion. When that idea began to blossom, it became a hothouse flower overfilling its glass-paned quarters, its multitude of colors overwhelming the senses.
Sharon had moved on with her life in just three days, starting over with a new phone number - an unlisted number.
The symbolism of the change itself was jarring enough. The fact that she had chosen to keep the new number a secret from the world, or at least from him, was a fresh dagger. It felt personal, even spiteful, wrapped in the clear message that she did not want to hear from him.
The mix of emotions, beginning with shock and hurt, continued swirling inside him until it clarified into a raw, hot rage. Brad looked slowly around the living room again, this time looking at someone upon whom to vent that fury, some outlet for the primitive and primordial anger he was incapable of containing. Finally, finding no one to scream at, no object worthy of receiving his outburst, his rage finally exploded in a throwing motion as he hurled the cell phone against the unyielding brick face of the small fireplace. The phone shattered into a sparkling shower of electronics and plastic.
Exhausted and curiously feeling victorious, Brad dropped into the recliner and summoned his only remaining friend with the push of a button on the TV remote control, and slid willingly into the dimension of the inebriated.
***
In another part of town, another broken heart suffered, one filled with loss and pain and loneliness. But unconsciousness was not to be merciful for her. The night would drone on.
Sylvia Enderrin knew about demons. She would be fighting hers alone in the darkness, because no one was coming home tonight.
Chapter Twenty-One
At 6 a.m., Brad’s brain was jarred by the electronic tones of a telephone. Consciousness had not yet made an appearance, so the sound went unanswered for 10 rounds.
By the ninth ring, Brad began to rejoin the world. Foggy and confused, he didn’t remember the cell phone he had shattered the night before, so the ringing phone posed no confusion for him.
He answered the portable phone by his recliner, barely able to croak out a decipherable “hello”.
On the other end, the greeting was a sob. The sob continued for several seconds before breaking into a nearly incoherent wail.
“They didn’t come home!”
He tried to place the older woman’s voice. Whoever it was, she sounded as if she had inherited the drunken world he had abandoned when he passed out last night.
“Who is this?”
Another sob, which crescendoed into a howl.
“They didn’t come home. It was the storm.” Wracking sobs interrupted the words. “It was, it was, the storm and they didn’t come home and it was the storm, the storm, and they’re not, they didn’t, it’s…” and the sob turned into deeper crying.
“Mrs. Enderrin?”
“He said they were coming home but they didn’t come home and the storm, they didn’t come home…”
Clarity finally filled Brad’s bloodshot eyes as he pieced together the clues spouting from the phone’s earpiece. Denny and his father didn’t come home last night, probably snowed in at the cabin.
“Mrs. Enderrin, it’s okay. Have you heard from them? Did they call?”
“Nooooooo!” was the sodden reply, followed by more crying.
With a clearer mind, Brad might have considered other options. However, hearing the pain on the other end of the line,
he could only come up with one response to try and sate that pain.
“It’s going to be okay, Mrs. Enderrin. I’ll go back and get them.”
Instead of a blubbered thanks, the lady broke into another stream of grief-slurred gibberish.
“They didn’t come home, and it’s, the storm, it didn’t, and I-“
The phone went dead.
Brad stared at the phone, partly in surprise at the abrupt end to the conversation, and partly in surprise at what he had offered.
Accompanied by an Excedrin number 12 headache, Brad put down the phone and gathered his thoughts.
He wasn’t exactly sure how he had ended up making such a ludicrous gesture, but he knew it was one he had to fulfill.
Still wearing the clothes he wore to yesterday’s dinner, Brad began lacing up his boots and preparing his mind for the task ahead.
He remembered the highway route to Easerly, and hoped he would recognize the turnoff into the woods when he reached it. His four-wheel drive pickup should be able to work its way down to the cabin, if there were no fallen trees.
Then a word tapped him on the shoulder. Snow.
It had started snowing, and had snowed all the way home. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he remembered the snow still falling when he passed out last night.
Buttoning his wrinkled shirt, Brad walked over to the front window and raised the shades.
The world outside his window was blanketed in whiteness.
Apparently, the snowplows had surrendered during the night, allowing the snow to paint the landscape with fourteen inches of its mono color. Every sign of urban ugliness had found salvation in the virginal whiteness of snow’s camouflage - cars, litter, rust, dead grass, pavement, all buried beneath a layer of blankness, like an artist’s new canvas. It was a beauty only to be found in purity.
The beauty was lost on Brad. All he could see was an annoying obstacle to the promise he had just made over the phone.
He looked into the sky. The snow had stopped, but it was only taking a coffee break. The dark gray sky testified that the storm wasn’t finished with its delivery.
Howl of a Thousand Winds Page 12
