Paul Curtin - Gray Snow

“Molly is laying in a grave right now because of him.”

She slapped him so hard even Andrew winced. “How dare you?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“How dare you?”

“Elise, please.”

“How dare you?”

“I was wrong, okay? I was wrong. About everything. Is that what you want to hear?”

“I don’t want to hear anything out of you. It’s like you think every thought, every idea you have is gold. Listen here,” she said, pointing in his face, “this is not your home. You are here—fed, alive—because Sean has allowed it.”

“God, Elise. Don’t you see what’s happening?”

“You’re alive because he’s allowed it.”

“Elise,” Michael said, “he’s a time bomb.”

Andrew snuck back toward the door and slid out of the bedroom, Elise calling out for him to stop but Andrew ignoring it. He leaned against the door after he shut it. Closed his eyes.

A thought tickled at the back of his mind, a memory, and he almost turned around to express it out loud. About the look Sean had right before Molly died, his eyes bloodshot like a charging bull, seeing him touching the holstered pistol on his hip, thinking in that moment that Sean was going to kill him, that this man had snapped. Part of him thought Michael was right—that Sean was a danger to everyone. Molly was in the ground because of his behavior. But it was an accident. He didn’t really know what Sean had been planning to do.

He opened his eyes. Sean was at the end of the hall, his face veiled in shadow. Not a single muscle in Andrew’s body moved. He didn’t know how long Sean had been standing there, or what he had heard. Finally, Sean turned and walked down the stairs.

Andrew exhaled, reached out to steady himself against the wall, and broke down. Molly deserved better than to have her death used to drive a wedge among her family. Her memory, her legacy—the legacy of their unborn child—deserved more than that.

WITH THE BACK of his head against the wall of the reserves, sitting on the cold, dusty concrete floor, Sean rubbed his eyes to drive the headache away. He watched his breath rise in a gray fog and then refocused on the dwindling supplies before him. The cans and jars, once packed tightly, now covered just a few shelves. He picked up the paper and pen and ran the math again.

A week ago, there was a supply of food that would have lasted five months. Today, there was six. Six whole months. When he accounted for Kelly only eating half her day’s ration, the number increased two weeks. Molly’s death had bought them another month. He hung his head and slammed the pen down. It should have been obvious. One less mouth to feed meant that there was more food to spread around.

He dry-heaved. Even calculating the food was sparking memories of her. Everything did. He would walk up the stairs and see her door and his mind would wander to the times he spent talking with her there. When he stared at the kitchen table, he remembered her doing her homework; the pencil tapping against the wood surface as she thought through a problem. Even eating meals sent him back to a time when she was a little girl and they would go out to eat—just the two of them. Now nobody would go out to eat anymore. And he would never hear his daughter tapping on the table upstairs again. Never hear her voice—that sweet, soft voice. Never see her smile, except in fading pictures. Never know if he would have been a good grandfather.

He would gladly give a month of food for her life. He would give all his rations to have her back.

His stomach turned sour, and he set the pad of paper down. Walking up the concrete stairs, he held his stomach, closed his eyes, and gripped the railing. When he swung the door open, Andrew leapt out of the way to avoid it. There was always someone in the way. Never any privacy. Always seeing the same faces of the same people.

The boy backed up toward the kitchen island and grabbed the stack of bowls from the counter, remaining at an angle that allowed him to keep Sean in view. He was scared, and Sean kind of liked that. He should fear Sean. The little bastard had thought he could act like a big man and enjoy all the benefits of marriage without all the hard work. Without the commitment. Tried to steal his daughter. He always knew the ‘respectful kid’ thing was a routine, just a guise to seduce his daughter. He wondered how she could have fallen for it. How she didn’t see how slimy the boy really was.

The boy. Sean wanted to believe he had just been trying to scare him the day Molly died, but he couldn’t be sure. The memory was distant and disconnected somehow, like a thick fog hung over it and he couldn’t penetrate deep enough to see what his true feelings were in those moments. He had wanted to kill the kid—his anger was so hot and heavy and consuming. But he wasn’t sure whether he would have followed through.

The boy took the dishes through the dining room instead of passing Sean. Sean scooped up the remaining silverware and followed. He came around the corner and saw Elise over the fire, stirring a soup with a large spoon, steam exploding out of the pot. All the food came from cold jars and yet his wife made it viable for consumption. Such a funny thing: all this trouble for something that seems so insignificant.

There it was. Just like that.

A thought. An idea.

One he knew he couldn’t ignore.

It rushed to the front of his mind and clouded almost everything else. Elise looked at him, saying something, but he didn’t hear her. He heard nothing. She might as well have been a mile away. He nodded and said, Yes, but even his own words seemed detached from reality, like he wasn’t actually speaking. The thought pulsated in his skull like a siren.

She looked concerned, and he read her lips when she asked him if he was all right. He smiled a little and said he was fine, but she didn’t seem convinced. She motioned to the spoons in his hand. He moved closer to the living room and handed her the utensils, but he felt as if nothing had left his hands or had even been there to begin with. His heart thudded, and he worried everyone else was hearing that singular thought. With how loud it drummed in his ears, they must have.

But nobody seemed to notice, or at least they didn’t let on that they did. Everyone took a seat around the fire, but Sean remained standing. Aidan came up to him and smiled. He grabbed his hand and plopped down in a nearby seat, encouraging Sean to sit too. All the faces looked back at him. Michael shot a glance to Elise, and she stepped into Sean’s line of sight.

Shocked as if she’d snuck up on him, he stepped back and watched her lips move, but his hearing was nothing but a loud ringing. The idea cemented harder with each second. She was probably asking him if he was okay, and he said he was fine. He didn’t know how loud he had said it, but it seemed to satisfy her. He rested into the seat. The fire crackled.

Soon he realized that Elise was praying and everyone else had their heads bowed. He looked at them, his eyes resting on the boy, Michael, and Kelly. He watched as they each raised their heads and started eating the soup.

At first, he tried to block it, but soon the noise started to break through. Michael brought a spoonful of soup to his lips, and the slurping sounded as loud as a firecracker. Sean saw the boy hold the bowl to his lips. As the boy’s teeth ground out the chunks, Sean could have sworn that the noise grew louder and louder until it was all he could hear. Teeth gnashing against one another. Soon, he heard everyone slurping and chewing and swallowing.