Thomas and Henry

The calendar hangs crooked by the stove. I lean in to stir the kettle and my eye catches the date: Thursday, January 12, 1888. I don’t give it much thought. The fire’s going, the house is warm enough, and through the window the morning looks plain and still. A few light flurries drift down, the kind we’ve had off and on all winter, the air calm and quiet.

Thomas stands where I tell him to, nine years old and already serious about it, while I button his coat clear up to his chin. Henry won’t keep still. He’s six and full of motion, hopping from one boot to the other, his cap slipping crooked every time I straighten it. I tuck their scarves high and push their mittens down into their sleeves so they won’t lose them on the walk. Their dinner pails sit by the door - bread wrapped in cloth, a bit of salt pork, one apple to share if they mind each other. Thomas reaches for his slate, Henry for his book, both tied up with twine. I smooth Henry’s hair and kiss each of their heads. “Stay together,” I tell them. Thomas nods like it’s his duty now. I watch them cross the open fields toward the schoolhouse until they’re small against the pale morning, then close the door and turn back to the kettle.

Since Anders died four months ago, the house hasn’t settled the same. He caught pneumonia early in the winter and was gone before the ground ever froze proper. The work didn’t leave with him, though, so I set myself to it - clearing the breakfast things, sweeping the floor, tending the fire, setting bread to rise. When the house is in order, I turn to the shirts I’ve taken in to wash and mend for Mrs. Halvorson, my needle moving steady while the light holds. It’s slow work, but it keeps flour in the bin. By midday my hands are sore and red.

I step outside to fetch more wood. The wind cuts across me, sharp and sudden. Winter being winter, I tell myself, and carry the wood back inside.

I sit at the table and eat a slice of brown bread with butter gone soft in the warmth. By now the boys will have settled into their lessons—Thomas careful with his sums, Henry watching the stove more than the board. They’re good boys.

When I turn back toward the room, the cold comes on sudden, like the heat’s been pulled clean out of the house. The wind strikes the walls hard, rattling the windows, and just like that the day turns.

It comes on faster than it ought to. One moment I can make out the fence line beyond the yard, the next it’s gone, swallowed whole. Snow drives sideways past the windows, thick and stinging, the wind rising loud enough to make the glass shiver.

I keep working. There’s no sense in standing still. I feed the fire, drag the chair closer, set another kettle on. The wind keeps at the walls, but the house has stood through winters before. The clock ticks on like it always has.

Then the storm deepens into something else entirely. The wind changes its sound, rising into a constant roar that fills every room, as if it’s found a way inside. Snow hammers the house until the air itself feels heavy. The walls groan. The cold seeps through no matter how high I stoke the fire.

The heat near the stove fades all at once, leaving a cold place that doesn’t answer when I move closer.

A sharp crack splits the noise and one of the windows gives way, glass bursting inward. Snow pours in fast and merciless. I haul the table across the room and shove it up against the opening, my breath coming hard, my hands shaking. Somewhere above me there’s a heavy thud, like something tearing loose, and for the first time the house feels fragile.

I move to what’s left of the window and look out. There’s no sky, no ground - only snow moving hard and fast, the wind driving it every which way. It doesn’t feel like weather anymore. It feels like the world has been pared down to wind and cold, and everything else sent away.

The force of it drives me back. I catch myself on the table and sit down hard, my legs gone thin. It comes to me then - that this is the hour they should be walking home.

They don’t have their heavy coats.

Thomas would’ve buttoned Henry up the best he could, but it wouldn’t be enough.

The fields are wide and bare.

The road runs straight and open.

Once you’re on it,

there’s nowhere else to go.

I’m on my feet before I know I’ve decided. I pull on my coat, fumble the buttons, wrench the door open. The wind hits me full on, knocking the breath clean out of my chest. I take two steps and go down hard, snow packing into my mouth and eyes. I try to rise and can’t-the wind pins me there, presses me flat. Panic takes hold, loud and wild, and I claw my way back by feel alone until I find the doorframe and drag myself inside.

I slide down the door, shaking, my breath burning. Something breaks loose in my chest and I bow my head until it passes. The cold follows me in anyway. Snow drifts across the floor. I force myself up to tend the fire and rake the coals. I go back to the window and stand there, staring into the white as if looking hard enough might make a path appear.

Nothing does.

I strip off my coat first, the wool stiff with ice, small icicles clinging to the hem. The shawl follows, heavy and soaked, then my skirt, which drops to the floor with a dull, wet sound. I fumble the buttons of my bodice and pull it free, the cold biting sharp the moment it’s gone.

I draw the chemise over my head, step out of my drawers, peel off my stockings one by one. The stays come last. Everything I had on lies in a dark heap at my feet, steaming faintly in the cold air.

I wrap myself in a blanket and sit bare beneath it in the chair by the front window. The lamp goes out.

I don’t relight it

Outside, the storm owns everything.

No road.

No fields.

No sky.

Just wind and snow.

The boards groan.

Snow hisses through the cracks.

I sit very still.

I listen.

For a knock.

For a voice.

For anything.

Nothing comes.

Time loosens its grip. The clock ticks somewhere behind me, steady and wrong. I stop marking the hours. The fire burns low. I don’t get up to feed it.

I don’t know when the dark thins. I only know it does. Gray light seeps in, slow and unsure. The storm has ended. Snow stands piled nearly to the sill, higher still in drifts. The fence is gone. The road is gone. The fields have folded into one another. The house looks half sunk, pushed down into the earth.

For a moment I hear footsteps upstairs. Thomas’s voice, telling Henry to mind himself. I even call their names once.

Nothing answers.

I pull the blanket tighter and keep watching.

Far off, something moves against the white -three men from town, breaking their way through the drifts with shovels and rope. They move slow and careful.

I don’t rise. I don’t call out.

I stay where I am

bare,

wrapped in wool, cold settled deep into my bones - watching them come closer through the wreckage of the blizzard.

The house is quiet.

The world is still.

And I keep staring out the window, waiting.