A Trail in the Snow Read online

said, Come in, so he opened the door and stuck his head through and called: Anybody home?

  Oh, you boys! I saw you coming.

  We thought we would stop just a minute.

  Yes, of course, come in!

  They said all this to each other without yet making visible contact as the boys stomped their feet in the entry. Will walked farther in where he could be seen and bent to unbuckle the strap of his gaiters, while his brother, unseen, did the same behind him.

  You know Linda, Mae said, introducing them.

  Will nodded and looked towards the kitchen, bending to remove his boots. Even though Mae told them not to, the boys continued to take them off and set them in the entry while detailing the course of their trip across the high fields and down the steep run by the old milk barn that took them behind the mustard color square stucco house across the road from the Methodist Church. Mae marveled at their adventure, saying she couldn’t imagine they had come all that way; she remembered sledding on the same hill a long time ago, and remembered the mustard house as the old Marriott place, although she couldn’t remember who’d lived in it since. As they walked through the narrow passage going between the narrow built-in bunk bed on one side and a folded cherry dining table set opposite before perpetually closed French doors, Will remembered the old woman who had come out of the house to stand at the back steps with the broom and recalled too for some reason the spots on the side by the driveway that were darker colored where someone had drilled holes and then patched them.

  Linda sat at the small round oak table in the kitchen and Mae stood with her back to the long white enamel sink by the front window. Both of them smiled, seemingly interested in his every movement, as Will took the near open seat and pulled it out, sideways to the table. He sat and, though facing the sink and front window, could see by turning his head to the right the china cabinet behind him with the porcelain silver-laced Wyandot rooster on top. He continued to glance around as Linda went back to explaining the hidden meaning of the children’s storybook which lay open on the table before them.

  The blue jelly beans made everything blue when you ate them, while the red ones made everything red. There were green beans and purple beans as well as orange ones too. They were meant to be drugs. It was so obvious to see.

  Will nodded, his attention already redirected to a collection of miniature silver spoons displayed on the near end of the cabinet opposite where he sat, and then he glanced behind him, catching the eye of his brother who sat behind a low divider watching guppies sharing a bowl with two strands of pondweed, a sunken treasure chest and a large snail with its pale underside stuck to the inside of the glass.

  Mae told Linda that David had received his Eagle badge, and they both said he should consider becoming a teacher. He would be a good one, they agreed, and a good role model to boot.

  Will looked again and saw his brother smile, enjoying the compliment even as his face reddened slightly with embarrassment. And then Linda excused herself, saying she needed to get home to continue her thesis on the influence of drugs in children’s literature. Mae brought a steaming pot of tea to the table and set out three cups and saucers after she left, and Will moved over to make room for his brother.

  Stomping at the front door announced a new entrance, and Bob came in, shaking his galoshes off one foot and then the other. Mae asked him to go get the amaryllis blooming in the living room and so he went the opposite way first and returned carrying a pot containing three long stems tipped with red flowers, his arms outstretched before him.

  Taking the plant back, he said the boys down at the garage were talking about two feet of new snow by morning. Returning halfway, he slipped one of the galoshes back on. He bent and upturned his face, saying he better go see about the car as he put on the other boot before straightening and disappearing into the entry. Next the sound of him pulling open the front door preceded the sound of him pulling it closed behind him. Mae watched him through the window over the sink before musing, turning away: He walks like a duck paddling through water.

  Will said they better get going too, and walked with his brother to the entry. As they put their ski boots back on Mae saw through the kitchen window and then through the smaller panes of the window over the bunk bed another neighbor approaching.

  Here comes Georgina, she said, projecting Come in more loudly towards the door before confiding to the boys once again: She comes here periodically to get water.

  Georgina entered, a diminutive figure carrying two empty gallon plastic milk containers which Mae took and carried to the sink. While they waited for the tap to fill them, Will looked at Georgina, curious, though trying not to appear too inquisitive. She smelled strongly of manure and seemed mildly ill at ease, even more so when she caught him looking. Poking a finger up under the brim of her dirty red cap, pushing the Indian chief profile embroidered above it even higher off her wrinkled forehead, she smiled self-consciously then straightened her arms downwards inside the ample sleeves of her checkered red and black mackinaw, wiping both palms on the thighs of her soiled green slacks.

  My dogs need water, she explained unnecessarily. They get so thirsty in winter.

  Mae told her: Make sure you get enough for yourself, Georgina. The old girl nodded, taking the filled containers back towards the entry.

  Oh yes. Oh yes I will.

  Georgina carried the filled containers outside to a child’s pull wagon and returned with two more that were empty, repeating the operation twice more until all the containers were brought in.

  Are you staying warm enough? Mae waited to ask the question on the last trip back from the kitchen.

  Oh yes. Oh yes I am.

  By now Georgina’s voice seemed subdued from the accumulative effort it took to carry the full containers down the steps and climb back with the empties. Again Will considered intervening to help her. And yet he didn’t, fearing to somehow unsettle the sense of self-sufficiency already strained by her indebtedness to others. Taking the last of the containers in hand, Georgina added, even more quietly than before: Appreciate it. Yes I do.

  You wouldn’t like to take a mattress and bedspring as well, would you, Georgina?

  Mae, it seemed, meant the question as a joke, intending to revive the old woman’s spirits. She glanced, laughing quietly, looking toward the paired bed pieces, stacked on their sides, leaned lengthwise between the folded cherry table and a nearly concealed oak dresser in the far corner. But as Georgina stopped and turned back, she considered the question quite seriously.

  Oh yes, for my dogs. I could put them outside and cover them up in their pen.

  Georgina, I meant for you!

  Oh, I see. I see. I’ll have to see. I thank you for the water, though. I do. Yes I do.

  She backed through the door, saying thank you the whole way until it shut.

  Mae waited a few seconds more for the sound of her feet to move off the stoop before speaking.

  Poor Georgina, she whispered, I worry; she has such a hard life. And she’s looking so very old lately.

  Will looked down at the black cast iron cricket boot valet with the long curled antennae that stood at the side of the entry as Mae related the near mortification of catching her daughter one long-ago day bent over handlebars, softly grunting ugh ugh ugh in unmistakable imitation of Georgina struggling to ride a heavily laden bicycle up the hill.

  And then it was time for them to go. Will said goodbye as Mae stood holding the edge of the door until it closed, after which he and his brother stepped onto their skis. Taking a ski pole from the snow, Will wriggled one hand into the strap then pushed the tip down, setting the binding, before raising the pole in a long circling wave towards the kitchen window where Mae now stood watching. He caught a last glimpse of the sun, setting now low and red in the trees behind the house, before he turned for the road, propelling himself with backwards thrusts of both poles.

  Gliding down to the end of the driveway, he stopped and stepped awkwardly across the clear
ed pavement, glancing furtively past the old firing range towards where Georgina lived in a long narrow house with her dogs. Turning and pushing again with both poles, he kicked backwards with one leg, pausing and gliding, before pushing again with the poles. Finally kicking back with the other leg, he reached forward with the opposite arm, helping himself with an assist of the pole onto a plateau of unblemished snow. Proceeding above and beyond the road, alternating opposing arms and legs, he began to fly with a balance of rhythm and speed he knew for a while more would be witnessed, and likely admired.

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