by Paul Sating
“Where’s your father?” Cecilia snapped.
“Gone,” Jacob shook the snow off, hanging his jacket on a hook.
“Gone where?”
“Town. Took Thunder into town for help. Said we—”
“Don’t matter what he said,” Cecilia interrupted. And it didn’t. They all knew. The barn collapsed, the animals killed. Most of the firewood buried under feet of snow.
They knew.
***
There were breaks between storms, but the cold ensured none of the snow melted. The road and fields remained buried beneath the thick white blanket.
By the end of December, things were much worse. The hay used to feed Blueberry and their firewood was disappearing as the snow continued to pile. They had to be even more prudent with it. It felt like the fire was rarely fed. Virginia never knew what it meant to not be able to ever get warm. She did now. Even huddled together around the hearth, holding their hands as close to the flames as they dared, the heat never seemed to reach them.
***
Blueberry never saw January.
The preserves and rations were gone sometime around the turn of the year. Blueberry was a necessary sacrifice, but it was still painful to say goodbye. When that litter was born no one thought Blueberry would live past the week. Virginia was allowed to take a little time away from working around the farm to tend to the piglet. They bonded and, even though Virginia was no child, she unabashedly held a childlike hope that Blueberry would be able to make it. And she had; she’d outlived all the other pigs. Blueberry had been born into the world a weakling and left it as a paragon of strength and selflessness.
As February approached, the snow came in batches and Roger still hadn’t returned. If he made it to town he likely didn’t make it out. Virginia saw how everyone forced themselves into believing he would return as soon as the weather lifted and the roads reappeared. They refused to believe anything else because to think anything else was to recognize the very real possibility that he was gone. Virginia sensed none of them were strong enough for that.
Cecilia was no help. With her husband gone and the unbroken months of dark winter, Virginia and her siblings could only watch as their mother descended into her own dormant season. She rarely spoke, she hadn’t for weeks, and when she did have something to say it was often nothing more than a few grunts and short bursts of aggression.
They kept as much distance from her as they could. To Virginia, Jacob seemed to be the only one capable of supporting the family now. She appreciated his ceaseless work to keep them alive until help arrived.
As March approached, the gift that Blueberry provided was gone and they only survived the past few weeks on salted meat Jacob cured. He never mentioned where he got it and she didn’t want to ask. She was too hungry to care if it was horse meat or something worse, like a rat. She was grateful for his forward thinking but that didn’t mean she wasn’t absolutely sick and tired of eating it. Her disgust at what they might be eating soon gave way to disgust at the taste of the same sustenance, meal after meal.
Halfway through March, she would have done anything for some of Jacob’s salted meat.
***
By early March when everything edible was gone. Virginia tried to pass the short days busying herself straightening, cleaning, and fiddling. Avoiding idle minds also allowed her to avoid her mother.
Cecilia was no longer a contributing member of the family. Instead, she’d become a living ghost, spending most days in front of the window. Virginia knew what her mother was doing; she was hoping to see Roger racing Thunder back down the road, laden with every supply imaginable. Her mother would be daydreaming about them being together again, feasting over their reunion and the promise of the coming spring. But her mother wouldn’t get that wish. Not for weeks yet, at best.
Virginia doubted her father was coming home. Something in her gut, some awareness, told her he was out there, buried under the snow that obscured the world. He likely got lost in the white-out storms on his way into town. She promised herself she would mourn come springtime; for now, she needed all her energy to survive another day.
***
Near the middle of March, Virginia didn’t have to worry about her mother anymore.
Jacob was making repairs to the damaged barn roof and Meredith and Virginia were attempting to clear snow from the roof of the house. After struggling for a grueling hour, they headed inside for much-needed rest. It was so easy to get tired when you hadn’t eaten for a week. When they got inside they noticed Cecilia was gone.
“Where’s Ma?” Meredith asked.
Virginia didn’t know. They waited, trying to warm themselves by the doleful flames that clung to life in the fireplace.
Though the imminent arrival of spring meant longer days, the sun was already setting. Their search would have to wait until the morning when they could follow her tracks and uncover her fate.
As luck would have it, or as fate demanded, it snowed that night. Virginia’s heart sank when she woke to another cold morning and a fresh coat of snow.
They tried to find their mother’s tracks. Even Jacob helped. But they soon gave up, realizing it was futile.
Their mother was gone.
Meredith got sick a few days later and started sleeping most days away. Virginia lacked the strength to be much help. Weakened by starvation, she could only watch her sister fade into her own premature winter. Jacob spent most days snarling at the fire, cursing God under his breath and doing what he could to keep snow off the roof when he wasn’t out repairing the barn. He spent a lot of time out there, which angered Virginia. If she was going to die, she wanted to die with her remaining family near her. She understood Jacob’s anger at the cruel fate God had fashioned for them but that didn’t override her need to have him near.
Jacob’s anger seemed to fuel him. Whereas she hardly had the strength to get up and urinate outside, he worked hours on end on the barn and house. A few days before he even dug out a wide trail to the woodpile and started bringing pieces into the house and splitting it into smaller slivers in hopes that they would catch and keep the fire alive. Enough of the splinters did, bringing a withered smile to Virginia’s face at the newfound heat, puny as it was. Jacob sacrificed so much for them.
With the warmer fire, she knew she could let go and rest. And rest she did. Virginia woke a few days later to find Jacob kneeling next to Meredith.
Praying.
Virginia bolted upright.
Jacob turned at the noise. Tears stained his red cheeks. “Gone,” Jacob cried, and Virginia felt her heart clutch.
She screamed in denial.
She screamed at God for being so cruel, taking one so young.
She screamed with all she could, knowing it would do nothing for Meredith and only irritate Jacob. She couldn’t fault him when he lifted their sister’s body, telling her he would take care of burying their Meredith. She didn’t want to be around her broken mind either.
Exhausted, Virginia fell into a deep sleep. She slept … and slept … and slept … and …
Slept.
***
Her eyes flitted open sometime later. Virginia felt melded to the straw-matted pallet they slept on. It felt as much a part of her as she was of it.
Her father. Dead.
Her mother. Dead.
Meredith, so young. Dead.
Virginia and Jacob were all that was left of the family, the only two to make it this long. And her time was drawing near. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live. Not for the enjoyment of a new day or for seeing the promise of the first blade of grass or for the far-off prospect of marrying a nice boy.
No, she wanted to live so Jacob wouldn’t have to carry on alone.
A scraping rang from across the room. Virginia turned, wincing against the bright light invading the house.
The sun!
Her weak heart leaped to life. She had no idea how much time had passed but she knew that was sunlight and that was all sh
e cared about at the moment. The sun. She needed to feel the sun. Virginia struggled to throw off the blanket covering her. The room was warm, warmer than it should be from the weak fire that—
The hearth was dark.
She struggled to her elbows and to understand what was happening.
Jacob sat in front of the window. He was shirtless and his muscular back was sweaty.
“Jacob, how long have I been sleeping?” She swung her feet off the pallet to the floor. A spell of dizziness passed over her. She placed a hand on the pallet to steady herself. It was wonderful to not feel an icy coldness race up through the soles of her feet. It was so warm in the house; that realization alone brought some of her strength back.
“A few days,” he answered, without turning around. The scraping continued.
Virginia watched him work, amazed at his fortitude. His strength was remarkable. Commendable. The way his muscles flexed, the way he appeared to have grown healthier over the winter when everyone else succumbed to it, herself included; it was almost inhuman.
Virginia struggled to her feet, wobbling as she tried to get her balance. It was an achievement to stand and there was Jacob, furiously working. She wore her shame like a shawl.
How did he do it? she thought.
Did it matter? He was healthy; he would survive even if she didn’t.
And he might have the strength to find help.
Virginia stumbled, almost fell, catching herself on the hearthstone.
It was ice cold.
Her heart raced. This could only be a good sign, a sign of the nearing spring. She took a prudent step in Jacob’s direction, trying to find a wall, the table, a chair, anything to hold lest she kill herself from a fall. They were too close to surviving to die now. She could taste it. She could smell—
That’s when Virginia noticed the open window … and the fresh air blowing into the house.
Her body groaned as she hurried over to smell the breeze. The fresh, warm breeze!
What she saw at the window stopped her immediately.
Icicles that had hung from the porch roof for an eternity were gone. The fat snow that clung to tree branches for endless months had regressed, exposing bare branches. Virginia could see through the graveyard of hundreds of naked trees that were no more than skeletons now, casualties of the winter war. But there, beyond the trees and across the road was a—
The road!
She could see the road!
The snow was no longer deep. It retreated so far that the porch was free of its grip and the wild bush tops jutted above the white blanket. A bird called from somewhere off in that graveyard of trees. Life was returning to Hannibal!
Excited, Virginia spun to hug her brother and … gasped for air as the meat hook he held ripped open her stomach.
Everything came to her in a rush.
This was what he’d been working on when she woke.
The meat hook he’d been readying … for her.
Virginia’s hands went to his broad, muscular shoulders as she looked into his dark eyes. She leaned against him as her blood drained from her already weak body, pooling at her feet. She slumped against his solid chest as the world wavered, her vision blurring.
She now understood everything.
She understood where her father and mother had really gone.
She understood what happened to Meredith after she died.
And she understood how Jacob had remained so healthy throughout the brutal winter.
“Why?” she choked on the blood filling her throat.
Jacob bared his teeth. His dark eyes never faltered.
As her last breath faded, Virginia slumped, caught in Jacob’s thick arms.
“At first I did it because we needed to survive,” Jacob held her up, kissing her on the forehead and taking a long, deep smell of her hair. “But then I started to like the taste.”
END
The Snowman
“I’m the mother fucking snowman.”
Chelsea could barely make out the words; the world was a painful haze of booze and cocaine. Her head felt thick like someone filled it with concrete. Hard to hold up. In the haze, Eddie the Snowman was talking; she was sure of that much. She just didn’t care.
The world was pain; her body was the canvas upon which it was conceived, outlined, filled in; where dimension was added until it was finally realized.
She had the Snowman to thank for that.
“Fuck man, I can’t get comfortable,” the Snowman—did he even remember his name anymore—squirmed on the rotted sofa, spreading his naked legs and grabbing his hairy balls in a grip that looked tight. That had to hurt, didn’t it? Shit, even if it did, Eddie—the Snowman—would simply enjoy it that much more.
The Snowman was masochistic.
“That’s because you’re still flying,” she moaned, her skull vibrating with each word.
He flicked a hand at her. “Shut up, bitch.”
One of these days she was going to escape. One of these days she was going to find a real man who knew how to treat her the way she deserved to be treated. It was just a matter of time, but it was a time that would come. She would make sure of that. If she believed in a god she would pray that the day would come tomorrow. Today. But there was no god.
No god would let her fall like this.
Plus, waiting was difficult. She yearned to be respected by a man again, by anyone. But to Chelsea, that was a dream too far. Impossible.
From the floors to the ceilings, the apartment they shared with three other people was decaying. The peeling paint, neglected holes that dotted the walls, their home was a silent exposé on the effectiveness of violence and subjugation. She was pretty sure the cockroaches had become immune to the mold problem.
Numb to it the same way she was numb to life.
It hadn’t always been like this. Once upon a time, she was the model of a woman with a plan. She had her shit together. Driven and young, Chelsea once possessed a dangerous mix of intelligence and beauty that smart women leveraged to make millions on the backs of the misogynistic culture.
But every chance she ever had, every gift she was given, she’d wasted on narcotics-filled needles and nose candy that provided an escape from the strife of living. People didn’t understand. They didn’t appreciate how miserable it was to see the world through her eyes, to feel its decay on her skin. They looked at her and pitied her, not caring to understand the pressures which ultimately compressed her into a ruined mess of constantly disheveled hair and cracked makeup. Her perpetual mask of emotional desolation.
But her recovery, the promise of feeling alive again, was close.
She only had to melt the Snowman.
“I’m hungry,” he rolled over onto his stomach, his hairy, pimpled ass exposed to the daylight for the first, but not last, time today. “Go make me something.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“And I don’t feel like being hungry,” he snapped his finger. “Now, go make me something, Chelsea.”
She moaned, hating him, but got up and crossed the twenty feet of linoleum to the kitchen.
The Snowman always got what the Snowman wanted, thanks to being the lifeline for every junkie in Olympia.
A few cheap beer bottles lay, toppled over, at the back of the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. The empty milk container mocked her. She had three eggs in the carton. That wouldn’t feed both of them.
Looks like I’m eating out, she groaned as her stomach protested its delayed fulfillment. Or her stomach was smart enough to realize there might not be enough money in the account to pay for a fast-food breakfast. Fuck, what if he says we’re broke?
“When aren’t we?” she mumbled to the uninhabited refrigerator.
The Snowman grumbled, still face down on the couch. “What?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
She grabbed a pan from the cupboard and threw it on the stove top. It clanked on the iron grates and the Snowman grumbled his dis
pleasure. He hated noise. Chelsea did her best to ignore him. There was a time when she would cry anytime he got upset. Now, she was too dead inside to care.
When will his heart explode? she wondered. Could putting thought to it make the dream come true?
But snowmen didn’t have hearts. Years of liquor, coke, cigarettes, barbiturates, and cheap beer eroded anything that might have passed as a heart, replacing it with an impermeable core, untouched by corrosion.
Chelsea realized she was daydreaming. Too late, registering the sizzling pan. Shit, the eggs! Chelsea turned them over. Burned.
He’s going to fucking kill me.
How was she going to tell him? Infernos were calmer than a hungry Snowman. But if she was honest maybe he’d finally give her money to buy groceries. It wasn’t something he usually did, even when times were good. Chelsea didn’t even know where he stashed all the cash he made from pushing coke on business owners and politicians downtown. But if he knew they had nothing to eat, odds were good he’d be looser with his cash. Maybe he’d even part with a little extra and would forget about it long before he was sober again. Enough cash so she could buy herself a second pair of jeans, maybe?
The thought excited her. She scraped the eggs into the garbage and didn’t even bother to wash the pan. She’d scrape out the burned parts later. The iron was hot; she needed to act while he was still coked out of his mind or the moment would pass and he might do something worse than not give her enough money to feed herself. The last time she pissed him off it took her over a week to walk without a limp. A week of staying inside so people didn’t guess at what he’d done. She couldn’t be cooped up with him again for that long.
