by Paul Curtin
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
She nodded a bunch, and they kept going. She rocked on top of him, Sean asking a few times if she was okay because the tears wouldn’t stop. He had no idea what was happening, what she was doing. That feeling, of betraying him in the most intimate of ways, stuck in her gut like a barb, clinging to her intestines, pulling, digging. When he climaxed, the look in his eyes. She would never forget the love there, the lust, the pleasure. No fear of death. No sickness. She lay still on him, wanting to keep him inside for as long as possible, kissing his cheeks while tears coursed down her own.
He whispered, “I love you,” and she told him the same. And she meant it. She meant it so much.
They lay afterward together under the blankets, Sean putting on a pair of long pajamas and socks beforehand. When he returned to her and yawned, she knew the pills were taking hold. She swallowed and nuzzled up against him, absorbing his heat, the tingle inside herself still lingering, remembering what he felt like inside her, cherishing it and storing it for the long, lonely nights to come.
Fifteen minutes later he was asleep. She rose and put a hand on his chest. Said his name, but he didn’t reply.
She waited, watching him breathe in and out slowly. Stayed that way forever. Then she dressed herself, listening for Aidan upstairs, for Sean waking up. Nothing happened. She would go through with it. She had to. She had to.
The shotgun was filled with duds, knowing Sean, so she grabbed the gun, still holstered on his jeans. She attached it to her own hip, feeling the weight of it there, its bulk. Removed it from its holster and held onto it, now feeling its power. She had shot this very weapon countless times, knew the damage it could do. A sickening sensation bubbled up from her legs through her whole body. She re-holstered it.
Sean didn’t wake. So she looped her arms under his armpits and dragged him backward. He was heavy. Heavier than she was expecting. She moved him in slow, deliberate sprints followed by a few seconds of rest. He kept sleeping.
When she unlatched the door to the garage, he groaned. She stopped. He muttered to himself and then a stream of drool ran down his cheek, but his stirring went no further. She blew a rogue hair away from her eyes and bowed her head. This was wrong. This was all wrong. Dragging her husband outside to freeze to death. She looked over to the staircase and imagined herself going up those steps to Aidan. To deliver the news. Aidan’s face when she said it. How this would crush his soul.
She shook her head. Just get it done, she thought to herself. It’s the only way. It’s the only—
Her hand was already turning the doorknob, cracking it. She threw on a heavy coat, hat and gloves, and opened the door. The chilled air from the garage rushed over them. Sean didn’t move. “Please don’t wake up,” she whispered to him, a little because she feared what he might do, more because she didn’t want to have to explain herself.
She dragged him into the garage, waddling back and forth with his weight in her arms, his feet dragging against the frozen concrete, his head bowed downward, body like a dead fish. She reached the door leading to the backyard before she had to take a break. Her lungs felt constricted, like there was scarcely any oxygen in the air. She laid his head against her feet, put her hands on her knees like she had been punched in the stomach, gnashed her teeth together, and allowed a painful, subdued moan to escape from behind her teeth. She wanted to scream. Wanted to cry out and curse and stamp her feet. None of this was right. Leaving her child without a father. Leaving her hopes and dreams of dying at a ripe old age with her husband out in the freezing cold. Life was never meant to be like it was, so painful and filled with tears. Life was never supposed to be where survival meant killing the person she held most dear. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Not like this.
She knelt and held his head in her hands and kissed his forehead and stroked his hair, her wet hot tears dripping onto his neck. Her husband of almost twenty years, the love of her life, the only man she had ever really wanted to be with. She whispered over and over that she was sorry, asking for forgiveness she would never get, then she took him back into her arms and dragged him toward the backyard.
There was no holding it in anymore, her groans now became full-blown sobs. She got the backdoor open and started out into the backyard as the light receded from the clouds. Her arms grew weaker as she pulled on his body. She prayed. Prayed hard for forgiveness, not sure if she would ever get it. Not sure if God was even listening anymore but praying regardless. Halfway through the backyard now.
When Sean opened his eyes.
She hopped backward and dropped him, the back of Sean’s head smacking against the hardened frozen soil, Sean screaming out in pain. Elise backtracked into the snow, her hands slapping around her hip for the gun but not finding it.
He rubbed his head and looked around at the dark snow piles, at his scarcely-dressed body, at his wife, and then back at himself, his face flashing confusion. “Elise?”
She had the gun out now, standing between Sean and the home.
He blinked, and it was as if he knew what was happening. “Elise.”
“Please, Sean, don’t.”
“Elise,” he said, still on the ground, his hand over his forehead, sounding confused. Acting confused. It had to be an act. Playing her. “What’s going on?”
She settled the pistol’s bead onto his chest. Everything inside her screamed for her to stop. This was rule number one: don’t point weapons at people, particularly those you love. And never point a weapon unless you’re ready to use it. But she wasn’t ready. “You weren’t supposed to wake up.”
He had one hand raised toward her. “Just calm down, okay?” Consternation spread across his face. All his planning—all his violence and the death he had caused—meant nothing facing down the barrel of his own gun. “Let’s just calm down, okay?”
“You weren’t supposed to wake up.”
“I don’t know what you think you’re—”
“You killed him. You killed Andrew.”
He said nothing for a while. “Elise—”
“I found the pill bottle.”
“You’re not thinking straight.”
“Stop it,” she yelled. “Stop it. Don’t try. You killed him. And you sent Kelly out to get shot. And then you killed Michael.”
Sean said nothing.
“Try to deny it. Go ahead.”
“You’re right.”
Elise lowered the weapon an inch. The bitter cold wind kicked up against them and settled. For the first time Elise noticed the snow falling around them—bright white, fluffy snow. She raised the gun again and took two steps back.
“I did it. All of it, okay? All of it.”
“He was just a kid.”
“He was eating our food every day. Consuming our resources—”
“Is that all we are to you? Just people consuming your resources?”
“You aren’t. Aidan isn’t.”
“God, Sean. How can you say that?”
“I know what it sounds like, okay? I know.” His teeth were chattering now, nothing to keep his heat in, and losing it fast.
“So we’re all just in your way.”
“You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I’m thinking just fine.”
“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for us. For our survival. Us. Do you think if Michael killed me—and he was trying to kill me—he would’ve been able to fix anything around here if it broke? Or been able to plant crops if the winter ends? Or have even the slightest idea how to keep this family alive?”
Elise swallowed.
“What happens when the supplies get low?”
She said nothing.
“What happens? How’re you going to do everything? Chop wood? Maintain the house? Clean the furnace? Cook meals? Because Aidan won’t be able to help.” He was standing up now, h
is arms outstretched. “I did what I had to do, Elise. I did what I had to do for us.”
“You did it for yourself.”
He took a step forward.
“Stop,” she yelled. “Stop, Sean. Stop. I’ll do it.”
He took another step forward, and she shifted a little and fired the weapon to his right. He stopped moving.
“Elise. I’m sorry. Please. Please listen to me. What are you going to tell Aidan? That now his dad is dead too?”
“Stop.”
“We need each other. We need each other more than anything.”
The tears froze to her cheeks before they could drip any further. The look on his face. This was a man unprepared to die. She wanted to believe he was being honest and that he was seeking forgiveness. After everything he had done. But she couldn’t know. Couldn’t see whether his heart was truly black or whether he was just all gray, a tangle of virtue and sin inseparable within.
Another harsh breeze blew over them, and Sean winced. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
He walked closer. She fired again, over his head this time, so close that he ducked. He approached her with another step. “Damn it, Sean. Stop it.”
“I love you, Elise.”
“Stop it. Stay where you are.”
He didn’t. He got closer and closer, his teeth chattering, his body shaking now, the wind sucking the heat from him each passing second. She kept the weapon trained on him even as he approached, now just a few steps from her. Her finger held taut against the trigger, looking into his eyes, those eyes she loved so dearly, those eyes that had told her so many lies she could no longer distinguish what was true and what was false.
He pulled the gun from her hand. She let her arm drop and bowed her head, expecting to look back up and see him aiming the weapon at her now.
The end.
Sean was staring down at the weapon. He exhaled a long, slow, vaporous breath through his teeth. His hand carrying the weapon raised upward, and Elise flinched, closing her eyes. But the sound wasn’t a gunshot—it was the pistol’s slide racking backward. She opened one eye, then the other. Sean dropped the magazine from the pistol and ejected the round in the chamber. He exhaled and said, “Let’s not do this again,” pressing the empty pistol onto her chest as he passed her.
She turned to watch him disappear into the garage. She clasped her hand over her mouth and cried. Her chance was gone. Any justice for Michael and Kelly ended there. If Sean was right, and God was gone, no justice would ever come. There was no blueprint moving forward, to guide her past the truth of everything Sean had done. To show her how life was supposed to somehow go on, with everything so stained and dark and wrong.
Maybe Kelly was right: maybe the lucky ones got to die. The rest had to live on.
Aidan clung to her leg like a barnacle on a ship’s hull. She didn’t know what to say to a young boy who had already experienced so much death. She didn’t know how to reassure him she would not be next, or that his father wasn’t next, and that he didn’t have to worry. She wasn’t sure if it was true.
Sean split a log in the distance, grunting as the blade came down. He removed his hat for a moment and looked at her. She met his gaze, and he nodded. No telling what he was thinking since the incident two weeks earlier. His words told her he forgave her. His eyes said the same. But he had lied before about graver things.
There was no assurance of anything anymore. The world had become cold and hostile, with no mercy. She looked at the clouds, the rolling gray, and wondered if life would ever be forgiving again. Whether God might have any mercy left for them.
They both stood for a minute, and Sean went inside. The wind whipped over top of her. She didn’t even feel it after a while. A numbness clung to her bones. Finally, her son tugged on her coat.
She looked down at him. His big eyes—his father’s eyes—looked back at her. Her heart melted, and she bent and kissed the top of his head. “I love you, Mom,” he whispered.
A tear fell from her eyelashes. “I love you too, Aidan.” She patted him on his head. “Go on inside to your dad, okay? We can check on the garden again tomorrow.”
He nodded and trudged through the snow. Elise stood still for another minute, closing her eyes.
“Mom, look,” Aidan shouted up ahead.
The light beyond her closed eyelids suddenly brightened. Her eyes shot opened, and she turned to see her son halfway toward the house. Above him to the west, the clouds rolled and stirred. In one strip of gray, the darkness split to unveil a bright light. Visible rays cut through the slit and cast their radiance over the yard and forest.
She stumbled forward, stripping off her hat, and falling on her knees at the glory before her. The sunshine washed over her like long-delayed rain on parched land. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She closed her eyes, and the warmth sank into her skin.
She smiled and laughter escaped from her lips. She never thought she would feel the sunshine ever again, and yet there it was:
Bright and present. Unceasing.
Thank you for reading Gray Snow.
If you would, please take a moment to return to where you purchased the book and leave a review. It would be much appreciated. Reviews help new readers find my work and decide if the book is for them.
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Acknowledgements
Thank you to everyone who helped develop this novel, including Jacob and Elizabeth Wershing, and all the members of the Columbus Creative Cooperative (now Ohio Writers’ Association), who workshopped an early manuscript and helped me clean it up.
Thank you to everyone who provided encouragement to me as I struggled to get this one out.
Biggest thank you, as always, to my wife, Kaiti. Your input was worth the wait.
About Paul Curtin
Paul Curtin enjoys reading, backpacking, and camping, but only when the mosquitoes can’t get him.
He lives in Columbus, OH with his wife and family.
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