Cold Comfort (5 page)

At eleven o’clock, I once again drew back the curtain in the parlor and stared at the street light on the corner in search of passing snowflakes. But there wasn’t a one. All I found were the dark, spindly outlines of branches with their dangling leaves.

It looked as though the fates were not going to cooperate with my silent plea.

“Are we done yet?” I asked Aunt Minnie who was hobbling in pain across the kitchen as she piled some pots and pans atop the kitchen table.

“Almost. I just have to stuff the dates.”

“Stuff them tomorrow.”

“But—”

“C’mon, we’ll finish everything in the morning.” I grabbed my aunt by the arm and dragged her from the kitchen to the bathroom. Under protest, I anchored my hands upon her shoulders, finally forcing her to sit atop the closed lid of the toilet.

“But I just have to—”

“You just have to soak your feet.” I threw a rubber stopper into the drain of the claw-footed bathtub and flipped on the cold water spigot.

“But what kind of host will I be if I don’t get everything done in time for dinner tomorrow?”

“An apologetic one.”

After slipping off my aunt’s shoes and rolling down her knee-high support hose, I found swollen feet and ankles.

“Not good,” I scolded. “What was the point of the chiropodist?”

Pleadingly, she said, “But, I want this dinner to be special.”

“And it will be…” I took her hand in mine, “mainly because we’re still able to celebrate together.”

Aunt Minnie reached over and threw her arms around me, giving me a bone-crushing hug. When I heard her sniffle, I clung to her just as fiercely, filled with guilt for trying to intentionally jump ship earlier in the day.

After Aunt Minnie’s feet had soaked a while, I helped her to dry off and get settled into bed. The little energy she had left depleted, and she collapsed into exhaustion.

* * *

I packed everything away in the refrigerator and made sure the stove and TV were switched off in the kitchen. Then I made a beeline for the guest room, where I kicked off my shoes and crashed onto the bed, fully clothed. I fell asleep—a hard, solid sleep that met me as soon as my head hit the pillow. The next thing I knew, I awoke with a start, feeling completely refreshed, as if I’d slept a full eight hours. But when I looked, the green, day-glow numbers on the digital clock read 12:52 a.m.

Images and thoughts crammed my head and kept me awake. And no matter how much I tried to resist, my mind was full of remembering, tumbling with emotions that unwillingly kept pulling me back to those years Jack and I spent together when we were students at the Rhode Island School of Design…

We hit it off right from orientation day and became instantly inseparable. We were artists and dreamers, innocents with high aspirations and even higher opinions of ourselves and our talents.

We became fast friends, best friends—the kind of friends who could finish each other’s sentences and articulate each other’s artistic visions whenever stumped on our creative projects. Over the four years, when our romantic relationships with others soured, we rallied each other with pep-talks and dated, platonically, on what would otherwise have been lonely Saturday nights. We’d go for long walks, for pizza. We’d talk for hours about nothing and anything, share a plate of wings and some laughs down at the pub, commiserate on the objects of our affections, throwing darts at their imaginary pictures.

But things cooled senior year when Jack’s girlfriend at the time declared that she had a problem with the fact that his “best pal wore a bra.” I laughed when I’d overheard her blast him with those exact words in the middle of the dining hall at lunch one day.

After the incident, I teased Jack. “Do you think she’ll have a problem if I’m the best woman at your wedding? If I started asking to borrow your jock strap, would that make her feel better?”

The jokes wore thin, as did our relationship.

I could feel Jack gradually start to pull away, making excuses and finding less time to spend with me. I thought about calling him on it, but I didn’t want to have to explain. After all, how could I, without having sounded like sour grapes? If he really cared about me, shouldn’t he have instinctively understood my side, my feelings?

For a while, I tried to act unaffected, as if things were just as easy and carefree as they’d been before. But pretending became too much of an effort. There was such loneliness in that. Was I wrong to feel passed over? Pushed aside? Abandoned? The blow of each slight felt like punches thrown at my gut until I could no longer gather enough strength to talk to him normally.

Avoidance became easier, and we drifted.

At our senior formal, my date and I and Jack and his infamous girlfriend sat with four other couples at the same table. But beyond the water glasses and dinner plates, I felt invisible, completely left out of Jack’s world. Things only grew worse as the night wore on, and I caught a glimpse of Jack and his girlfriend on the dance floor. Watching them cling to each other, their bodies pressed close, caused a sick feeling, an emptiness, to stretch inside of me.

That’s when I realized that I not only loved Jack, but I was, indeed,
in love
with him. His girlfriend was obviously far more perceptive than I had given her credit.

I never found a way to tell Jack my real feelings.

By graduation, it seemed as though he’d made his choice.

He didn’t choose me.

* * *

I moved to New York.

Jack stayed in Rhode Island and kept on with Little-Miss-I-have-a-problem-with-your-bra-wearing-best-friend. Around the holidays, he called, and we caught up, talking mostly about work: my shooting freelance dog food ads that paid some bills and the photojournalism job I’d been offered with the Associated Press; the prospect of a per diem position for him as part of a design team for a museum renovation in Boston that ultimately fell through. A part of me felt guilty sharing my success with him, as the string of artistic rejections he’d suffered seemed to be wearing down his spirit.

After we finished hashing through small talk, Jack told me, as if in after-thought, that he and Little-Miss-what’s-her-name had gotten married over Thanksgiving weekend.

Upon learning the news, a weight filled my heart as if crushing it from the inside out. The phone trembled in my hand as a sudden curl of jealousy unfurled in my mind.

He capped things with, “…We’re expecting a baby any day now.”

“A baby… Wow!” My mouth was dry as I mentally counted back nine months.
He must’ve gotten what’s-her-face pregnant in college.

Jack and his bride were married by a Justice of the Peace. They took the money they would have spent on a wedding reception and honeymooned in St. Maarten. When I offered my congratulations and good wishes, my mouth wobbled, but I pressed the phone to my ear and did everything in my power to act sincerely happy for him, making sure he wouldn’t hear the faint quiver in my voice.

I remember hanging up and running to the bathroom, sobbing hysterically. I retched until my insides felt stripped out.

The tiny flicker of hope I’d held out for Jack had finally been extinguished.

Hours turned into days then months. A year later, at Christmas, Jack phoned and left a rather generic Merry Christmas message for me. He didn’t say to call him back, so I didn’t. I just couldn’t. It was too much to bear. It left us to drift further, until years piled up, and the chasm between us became too wide to cross.

Life went on.

I remained single—in a succession of failed relationships which culminated in my accepting a marriage proposal from a man who was never really right for me. Deep down, when the diamond ring was slipped on my finger, I think I knew I was settling. But I wouldn’t fully understand my feelings—that what I had thought I’d felt for this man was never really love—until after our bitter, broken engagement did a real number on me. In the end, I tried not to dwell, keeping myself busy by taking photo assignments that nobody else wanted, those that kept me well out of reach especially during the holidays.

It had taken me a long time to finally get over things, just like the years it took for me to close the Jack chapter of my life. That was, until I flung open the door to that fish store and saw him again. Here I’d assumed that time had diluted my ache and pain. But Jack’s unexpected reemergence in my life reopened wounds I thought I had sewn tightly shut with great effort and resolve.

In the dark of the long night, Aunt Minnie’s words spoke to me again:
But your heart… Don’t you think it’s time you learn how use it again…

Tears moistened my cheeks and dampened my pillow as I considered the prideful girl I used to be and the unforgiving one I had become.

* * *

When I looked at the clock again, it was 5:30. Darkness was loosening from the night sky, giving way to emerging daylight that brightened the windows. I yanked back the covers and rose from bed.

But in the same moment that my bare feet hit the cool, wooden floor of the guest room, the whole house suddenly shook, and the power tripped. I could hear the shrill squeak of the smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors and the instantaneous groan of the furnace as all were forced to snap off.

I rooted my feet inside my slippers and tightened the sash of my bathrobe as I drew back the bedroom curtain and revealed the stark blue glow of morning cast upon a world of white.

Snow pressed down on the city. Hearty flakes flooded past the window and softened the edges of everything. Telephone and power lines were outlined in white. They drooped low, bending beneath the intense, accumulating weight. There had to be at least five inches of snow capping the roof of the building across the street as if a thick layer of coconut icing were topping the sharp angle of a tiered cake.

Suddenly, I heard a rumbling, then a splintering crack come from outside. My sights darted, scurrying, unable to distinguish from where the sound was coming until I heard the shuddering impact of something having fallen. There it was, I spotted it down the street—a giant tree limb, still dotted with red-orange leaves, was anchored upright in a drift of snow as if a sapling had instantaneously sprouted.

No doubt, the power outage must’ve been the result of a downed line, maybe even due to a fallen limb.

Things didn’t look good and they only grew more ominous when I heard Aunt Minnie’s voice clamor behind me. “I never should’ve listened to you and gone to bed so early… Now we’re never going to get that turkey cooked!”

“Never say never… We’ll figure something out,” I replied.

“How? Did you forget that my oven’s electric?”

Five

Through the early morning shadows filling the kitchen, the hot blue-flames from the burners atop the gas range served to keep Aunt Minnie and me warm. While the two of us sipped instant coffee, static and weather updates spilling from the transistor radio kept us company.

I stared through the window at the white tops of the trees that shook against the granite swell of the windy sky. Leaves and twigs were tossed about, shivering into the air, as vigorous squalls of snow swayed power lines that appeared as though they might snap.

Aunt Minnie kept firing off pictures, even shots of the thermostat as it plummeted. The chilled, fifty-four degree morning air trapped inside the plaster walls of the old house made it feel a lot colder even through our bundled sweatshirts and sweaters.

Shortly after nine o’clock, I suggested to Aunt Minnie that we make a fire and keep it lit.

As I carried an armful of wood from the foyer into the parlor, I was blinded by a great big flash from Aunt Minnie’s Smartphone as she snapped a picture of me en route.

“Crisis or not, all these little details are going to be great on the blog… I’ll get a million hits, I bet.”

I just swung my head and rolled my star-filled eyes.

The firebox was old and dusty. I ripped newspapers and fanned the strips, laying the shreds to rest atop the iron grate in the firebox. As I piled in a few pieces of wood, I asked, “So when’s the last time you made a fire in here?”

Aunt Minnie put a finger to her chin and looked up toward the crown molding. “I think it was the Reagan administration… Or was it Gerald Ford’s term?”

“You mean this thing hasn’t been cleaned in decades?”

Aunt Minnie frowned and shook her head, meekly.

“Well, we want to get the chill out of the house, not burn it down. Here goes,” I said, striking a match and lighting the newspapers.

Aunt Minnie blessed herself, then pressed her hands together.

The paper caught, quickly flaring. But instead of the smoke rising up the chimney, a large cloud wafted out of the tinder box and into the room. The fire merely smoldered while Aunt Minnie and I coughed, fanning the air.

“The flue. Try the flue. Make sure it’s open,” Aunt Minnie said.

I reached my hand up into the steel firebox and felt for a latch. But when I tried to disengage it, it seemed soldered shut. I mustered all of my strength and groaned as I pulled the lever. A shrill, screeching metal-on-metal sound rose into the room, along with a loud, echoing snap. In my hand, I held a small, iron-looking bar.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

Flash!
Aunt Minnie took another picture.

“So are you going to call Jack or am I?” she asked.

“We don’t need Jack.”

“We sure do. They’re saying we might be without power for days, and it’s going down to the twenties. Jack offered that he might be able to get us some firewood.”

“What good is wood if you don’t have a working fireplace?”

“Maybe Jack can fix it.”

“You’re putting way too much faith in this guy.”

“Well, what’s our alternative?”

Aunt Minnie outstretched her arm in my direction, Smartphone in hand.

“I’m not calling him,” I told her.

“Then,
I’ll
call him.” Aunt Minnie perched a finger above the keypad and asked, “What’s the name of his shop?”

“I don’t know.” I placed the book of matches atop the fireplace mantel and paraded into the kitchen. “You live here. You ought to know the name of it.” I lifted my coffee cup from the kitchen table. My fingers trembled when I steered the cup to my mouth so that some of the now iced instant coffee, congealed with curdled milk, spilled over the rim and dribbled onto my gray sweatshirt.