Paul Curtin - Gray Snow

DAYS HAD PASSED since Andrew’s death and the uneasiness in the house hadn’t subsided. Many times, dinners were eaten in almost complete silence. Michael refused to eat anything he didn’t watch being prepared. He washed his own dish before serving any food. His behavior reminded her of Sean’s. She wondered if maybe the reason they had never gotten along was that they were so much alike.

She sometimes found herself looking out between the boards on the windows at the dead landscape, dreaming of green trees and the fresh scent of cut grass. The smell of burnt wood was continuous. The air tasted like used charcoal. Each glance outside reminded her of the new normal that had come upon them, without any option for escape. As far as she could see, the snow that was supposed to be white and pure was grimy, and the sun never shone. Nothing could change it.

And there were terrible dreams, always involving Sean, or at least some form of him. There was something different about him, in those dreams. It was as if she could see inside of him, saw his heart beating, but it was shriveled and the blood coursing through his veins was filled with a sickly, dark gray plaque. His eyes were black. Everyone was circled around the fireplace. Sean would brandish his pistol and aim down the sights. It was always Michael first. Right in the chest. Then he would shoot Kelly. Elise would rush toward Aidan as Sean aimed the gun at him, but she was always too late. She watched her son exhale his last before looking up to see Sean pointing the gun at her. She winced, shutting her eyes, and the light from the muzzle flash would pour over her closed eyelids, and she would wake up. She knew it was just a dream, but the emotion lingered into her waking hours.

Her stomach leaped when she saw Sean enter a room or if she spotted him with his axe coming in from chopping wood. They would lay next to one another at bedtime, and he would reach out and rub her back and neck. While her body enjoyed the sensation, her mind kept imagining him reaching up around her throat, taking it in his hand, compressing it. She tried to ignore the thoughts, but the harder she tried the more intense they became.

One morning, she watched Sean get up before dawn and dress himself to get the wood for the day. As soon as he was out the door, she rose, bundled up, and snuck out the garage door.

The garage was quiet except for the wind brushing against the siding outside. Her fogged breath swirled around in the still air. She considered turning back, talking to him at another time, like when he didn’t have a sharp weapon in his hand. She pressed on.

Each step signaled to her brain to turn around. She pulled the door open. The icy wind blasted against her face but died down. She took a few steps into the path Sean had shoveled out and patted down with his boots. It hadn’t snowed in a week, but it was perpetually cold and dreary. The sun hid behind low clouds.

A grunt rose in the distance followed by a dull, smashing thud. Her husband brought the axe down onto a log, and the two split pieces cracked open and flew in different directions. He lined another chunk of wood onto the block and slammed the blade through it.

All the moisture in her mouth had dried up. She inched closer to him, trying to make noise by kicking and crunching the snow. He was unpredictable when startled, and she didn’t want to get shot accidentally.

He split another log, grunting as he did it, and then rested his tool on the ground next to his body. He pulled his scarf down under his chin and blew a voluminous puff of vapor into the air. She edged closer, almost stomping, about fifteen feet from him. Finally, he turned toward her.

His eyebrows rose, and he looked around as if his mind switched into a different gear. “Babe, it isn’t your day to cut wood.”

She smiled under her bundled up scarf and came closer to him. “I wanted to see what you were doing,” she replied.

He planted the axe into the snow. “Chopping wood. Like always.”

He wasn’t buying the excuse. She looked around at the cords of wood stacked in rows and then to a tarp bursting with wood under it. Further beyond was a path into the forest where Sean had felled multiple trees with the electric chainsaw before the generator was taken. “I’m not sure we need to keep chopping more wood.”

“We always could use more,” he said, tilting his head. “You came out here to talk about chopping wood?”

She said nothing for a minute. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Well, I could have guessed that,” he said, picking up a few pieces of split wood and tossing them toward the tarp. “You could talk to me inside, you know?”

“I wanted some privacy.”

He froze for a second and then tossed another log. “Privacy.”

“I don’t know how to have this conversation, Sean, so please don’t make it harder than it has to.”

He straightened his upper body and put his hands on his hips. For a few moments, he looked toward the house, biting on his lip, and then looked to her. “You want to know if I did it.”

She tried to say something to balm the harshness of the question, but all that came out was, “Sean, I don’t—”

His nostrils emitted vapor as dark as smoke. “You think I did it?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“But you think I did it.”

“I’m not playing games with you, Sean. I don’t know.”

“Would you still love me if I said I did?”

Her tongue searched for moisture to soothe her parched throat but found none. “Did you?” she got out.

She looked into those dark eyes she had stared into so often and loved so deeply. Each second that passed was torture. She just wanted him to exclaim that he wasn’t capable of it, that her brother’s claims were all wrong. His eyes fixed on hers, like they were piercing through her.

“Did you do it?” she asked with more force.

“No.”

She examined his eyes for a few more seconds and then felt the weight from her shoulders lift, allowing them to relax. Her head dropped, her chin touching her chest. He wasn’t lying. She could always sense it, like his eyes were giving her a peek into his soul. He didn’t have his look—the one he had when he was lying.

She didn’t realize he had closed the gap between them, but soon he had his arms around her. She returned the hug, shedding tears while he stroked her back with his gloves, the swishing sound of synthetic fibers rubbing against one another filling her ears. Her body felt lighter than it had since the start of the disaster, like a storm had come and terrorized her, but had passed. Relief spread through her bones in the arms of her husband.

And that lasted a short while before the uneasiness returned. She pushed it down. Pushed it down and down and down.

MICHAEL LAY AWAKE staring at the ceiling as shadows from the fire danced around it. He hadn’t slept that night. In fact, he hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time for two straight weeks. Every time he grew relaxed, his body felt like it was falling, and he would jolt awake with terror pulsating through him. His first thought was always about Sean.

He imagined opening his eyes and looking down the barrel of Sean’s gun or Sean standing over him with an axe in hand. Every night, though, he would wake to find Sean in his sleeping bag or gone somewhere.