Rachel Lee - A January Chill

“Hi.” His voice had sounded strained, weary.

“Are you sick?” It was a pointless question. He looked exhausted, but he didn’t look ill.

“My mother. I was up all night with her in intensive care.”

“I’m sorry.” And she truly had been. Still was. Barbara Wingate was a lovely woman. “Pneumonia?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s she doing now?”

“Better. They said I could go get some sleep.”

She pointed to the coffee. “That’s a great sleeping potion.”

For an instant, just an instant, he looked as if he might crack a smile. But then his face sagged again. “I’ll be here all night.”

“I don’t think so. You’ll collapse, yourself, if you don’t get any sleep.”

“I’ll be fine.” Then, without another word, he tossed off the last of his coffee, rose and walked away.

And now, standing at the sink, Joni heard herself sigh. He hadn’t even said goodbye, as if simple social courtesies were forbidden, too. And all because of Witt.

The phone rang, and she heard her mother pick it up in the living room. A little while later, Hannah’s laugh wafted to her. Good news of some kind. That was a plus. God knew they could use some.

Not that life was all that bad, but there were times when Joni thought they were all dying in this little town. Silver prices were lousy, and the silver mine was on minimal operation, which meant a lot of miners were on layoffs that were supposedly only temporary. The molybdenum mine was doing better, but there was some talk of cutbacks there, too.

This had always been a boom-and-bust town, and it looked as if they were once again on the edge of a bust.

And she didn’t usually feel this down. She wondered if maybe she was getting sick, too, then decided she just didn’t have time for it.

She drained the dishwater, rinsed the sink and was just drying her hands when her mother came into the kitchen.

“Witt’s coming over,” Hannah said. “He said he has some good news.”

Not for the first time, Joni noticed the way Hannah’s face brightened and her eyes sparkled when Witt was coming over. It was the only time Hannah ever looked that way.

“Great,” she said, although after talking to Hardy Wingate today, she was feeling surprisingly unreceptive toward the idea of seeing her uncle. Silly, she told herself. The feud was more than a decade old, so old they should all be comfortable with it. Why was she feeling so uncomfortable? Because she was afraid Witt would look into her eyes and read betrayal there, all because she had talked to a man she’d known since her school days?

How ridiculous could she get?

Witt arrived fifteen minutes later, apparently having walked from his house across town. When he stepped in through the front door, he brought the frigid night in with him, and Joni felt the draft snake around her bare ankles.

Witt was a bear of a man, over six feet, and broad with muscle from hard labor. He filled the doorway and then the small living room as he stripped off his coat and muffler. A grin cracked his weathered face, and his eyes, as blue as Joni’s, seemed to be dancing.

He wrapped Joni in a big hug, the way he always had, his arms seeming to make promises of safety and eternal welcome. Even when she was irritated with him, which she was every now and then, Joni couldn’t help responding to that hug with one of her own.

“You’re cold,” she told him, laughing in spite of herself.

“You’re warm,” he countered. “You’re singeing my fingers.”

“That’s because Mom keeps it so hot in here.”

Witt released her and turned to Hannah. “Still a hothouse flower, huh?”

Hannah laughed but shook her head. “Sorry.” The truth was, as Joni knew, her mother had spent too many cold nights as a child, and keeping warm made her feel as if she lived in the lap of luxury, even if the lap was a small, aging Victorian house on the side of a hill in a tiny mountain mining town.

“Well,” said Witt, greeting her with a much more restrained hug than he had given Joni, “if I suddenly dash out into a snowbank, you’ll know it’s because my clothes started smoking.”

Hannah laughed; she always laughed at Witt’s humor, Joni thought, not for the first time.

Hannah offered her usual gesture of hospitality. “I was just about to make coffee. Join me?” Hannah never made coffee in the evening, but she always said this same thing to a guest. Long ago, when she’d been eight or nine, Joni had asked her why.

“Because,” Hannah had explained, “it’s polite to offer refreshments to a guest, but I don’t want them to feel like they might be putting me out, so I always say I was about to do it.”

Joni had thought that was kind of silly. Why not let your guests know you were doing something especially for them? But she’d been watching Hannah’s hospitality charm people for years.

“Sure,” Witt said, following her toward the kitchen. “Coffee’s great, but yours in the best.”

He always said that. For some strange reason, tonight that irritated Joni. What was wrong with her? she asked herself. Why was she getting so irritated by things that were practically family rituals?

They gathered at the dining-room table, another family tradition. The only times they ever gathered in the living room were at Christmas or when they had company from outside the family.

Hannah brought out a coffee cake she had baked that day and cut a large slice for Witt. Joni declined.

“All right,” Hannah said when they all had their coffee. “What’s the good news, Witt?”

He was grinning from ear to ear, wide enough to split his face. “You’ll never guess.”

Hannah looked at Joni and rolled her eyes. Joni had to laugh. “I know,” she said to her mother. “He bought a new truck. Cherry red with oversize tires.”

Hannah laughed, and Witt scowled. “You’ll never stop teasing me about that truck I drive, will you?”

“Of course not,” Joni told him. “It’s a classic. Older than me, and so rusted out I can see the road through the floorboards.”

“Well, just so you know, I am gonna buy a new truck.”

No longer joking, Joni put her coffee mug down and looked at her uncle in wonder. “Are you okay? You’re not getting sick?”

“Jeez,” Witt muttered. “She’ll never lay off. Hannah, you should have got the upper hand when she was little.”

“Apparently so,” Hannah agreed. But her eyes danced.

“No,” Witt told his niece, “I’m not sick. I’m not even a little crazy. And if trucks didn’t cost damn near as much as a house, I’d’ve bought a new one years ago.”

“So what happened to make you buy one now?” Joni asked.

“I won the lottery.”

Silence descended over the table. It was one of the longest silences Joni could remember since the news that Witt’s daughter, her cousin Karen, had been killed in a car accident. Silences like this were frought with shock and disbelief.

It was Hannah who spoke first, almost uncertainly. “You’re kidding.”

Witt shook his head. “I’m not kidding. I won the lottery.”

“Well, wahoo!” Joni said as excitement and happiness burst through the layer of shock. “Double wahoo! That’s wonderful, Uncle Witt! Enough to buy a new truck, huh?”

But Witt didn’t answer her. Instead, he simply looked at her and then at Hannah. Another silence fell, and Joni felt her heart begin to beat with loud thuds. Finally she whispered, “More than enough to buy a truck?”

Hannah’s dark eyes flew to her daughter, then leaped back to Witt. She reached out a hand and touched his forearm. “Witt? How much did you win?”

Witt cleared his throat. “It’s…well…kinda hard to believe.”

“Ohmigod,” Joni said in a rush, feeling hot and cold by turns. “Uncle Witt…” She turned to look at her mother, as if she could find some link back to reality there. But Hannah’s face was registering the same blank disbelief. Things like this didn’t happen to people they knew.