Chapter Eighty-Three
A dusting grazed the lawn. Just a dusting. They decided not to cancel church.
“How’s the weather?” Rose texted me just before 6:40.
I had a bad feeling about it. Checking KSDK revealed a storm of up to twelve inches north of the metro area. But we had to go out anyway. Puck was at the Silverspoon’s cozied up at a counter with a dish of sausage and scrambled eggs. And another tall glass of milk. And The Bear was playing music at church.
“This was too short,” Gloria chuckled. “I was hoping it’d snow in and he could stay.”
I wish they had canceled church, actually. Two minutes before Puck followed the short line of kids up to the front of the sanctuary with his green palm, Mom walked in and sat beside me. Dad, Francis, and Carrie were shuttling Rose’s cats back from her apartment to prepare for the worst. A few minutes later, Carrie texted and called…
“Roads terrible. Leave now.”
No one seemed to know whether to cancel the service right off or not, so they kept going. I take the advice of my weather siblings, though, and not long after Mom and Linnea left, we took off too, past three elders and deacons shoveling the front.
Don’t get me wrong, it was beautiful of course. Heavy shavings of white piled up on every branch. A total white-out. And what’s not to love about three guys hustling over to help push your puttering Mazda past the stop sign where it just couldn’t budge any longer? One of the guys actually passed us on the perpendicular road, stopped, turned around, parked his car across the street, and was just about to walk over and help when they got us unstuck. Jacob waved a thanks as we slipped on down the road. But still, everyone probably should have stayed home. Unless they just like watching demonstrations of good will so much, that it’s absolutely worth it to get stuck on the side of the road.
“IS IT HAILING?” Puck screeched from the back seat.
Oh, my son…
Safely home, I checked Rose’s two o’clock flight from Miami. On Time. Strangely. Fortunately we had extra food for the week. I knew that box of fish sticks Puck requested would be a good idea, somehow. While The Bear shoveled the drive to get the car in the garage, Puck created a tray of peppermint tea, peanuts, and Kleenex for his return indoors.
We watched Mr. Rogers together for lunch over pans of toasted ravioli, chicken tenders, and those fish sticks. Bomb pops for dessert. And why not? Crackers pawed the glass, hoping for a chase in the snow with the birds. She doesn’t know what she’s asking for. Never a day in the wild. The afternoon went on so completely quiet. These times are rare. At least one branch on the pine across the street cracked off as we hit the seven-inch mark before one o’clock.
“On board,” Rose texted me.
Brave pilots.
Slowly some life came back to the whiteness. Sort of a shame to see it leave. Car tracks, shovel tracks. I guess people had more to do on a Sunday afternoon than hot soup, cocoa, and books by the fire. Actually, I’m not sure we have any real honest-to-goodness chimneys in this neighborhood. The 1960’s. People didn’t know how to build houses.
Gus enlightened me on the food he had packed away Saturday night, what Gloria had already told me that morning – plates of meat, carrots, and glasses of raw milk…
“The more you eat, the better you sleep!” he told me with a chubby rose-faced grin.
“Is that what Nana told you?”
“Yup! And I believed her!”
After The Bear was roused from his winter’s nap, he took Puck outside to build a fort in the snow with a storage container, while Crackers pawed the glass behind them, hoping for fun. Snow still falling. We had twelve inches before four o’clock. Picked up a little thundersnow too, I think.
“Mom! Come see!”
The boys sat at the table creating experiments with drinking glasses, water, salt, and eggs. Testing floaters and non-floaters. Puck was pretty proud.
“I’ll see if they’re delivering pizza today,” said The Bear.
Sort of a tax-return celebration evening.
“Mom, we’re trying McDominoes!” Puck informed me from the couch.
McDominoes. Not my favorite, but hey…
About three more branches had cracked off the pine tree.
We had our pizza party in the basement after a huge white pick-up delivered it, and watched a silly Disney silver flying saucer film. Then the kiddo got into his new jams, the big hit.
“I look just like Uncle Joe!” he told me happily.
Yes, Joe, too, wears plaid pajama pants. And he got to bed about an hour and ten late. It was a snow day.