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Snowstorm

That winter we had crazy storms and it seemed as if the tea kettle was always whistling on the stove as we drank pot after pot of tea. Thank goodness for the gas stove as the heavy snows created frequent power outages and we could still boil water, drink tea, or in Nat’s case instant coffee, and eat.

Another freak storm blew through, the kind that seems to take everyone by surprise, except for a few enterprising weathermen, but we weren’t listening to them. We had lives to live, and we were frankly tired of being controlled by a few flakes be they snow or weathermen.

There was a pile up on the interstate. And the snowed piled up. We were waiting for Nat to call, let us know he’d gotten home, or if he was coming here.

He’d called Mama earlier, “Truck’s stuck. I might have to walk home.”

As the battery-operated kitchen clock ticked down the seconds, I watched as Mama grew more and more alarmed. Her shaking fingers tried to lift her mug of tea to her lips, but the liquid sloshed down the side.

No one needed to tell me that Nat had always been her favorite. He was mine too, the cherubic cheeks, mischievous brown eyes, belly laugh, and the best nature of anyone I’d ever met.

We stared out the window as the wind blew the snow fiercely, like something out of a mountaineering movie where people were desperately trying to stay alive despite the odds. But this wasn’t Everest. This was the Mid-Atlantic US of A and people didn’t fight to survive during snowstorms here.

And, yet, a day later we discovered otherwise.

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