“Did anyone hear anything around four this morning?”Rory added sugar and cream to his coffee.
“I did.Frank didn’t,” Florence said.“What do you think it was?”
“A branch hitting the window?”Rory asked.
“I thought of it.We couldn’t see anything.”
“I went downstairs to check, but didn’t see anything.I must have missed the two of you,” Rory said.
“Yeah, we went back to bed.”
“I did too, but couldn’t get back to sleep,” Rory said.
“Neither could we.”Frank got them refills on their coffee.
“What do you want to eat for breakfast?”Florence asked.
“Ham and cheese omelets?”Lacy asked.
“That’ll work.”Florence got up to go into the kitchen, and Lacy hurried after her.
They ate their breakfast, then cleaned up the dishes.
Rory said, “I’m feeling housebound.”
“I’m not sure we can get outside.”Lacy gingerly opened the front door.The amassed pile of snow began to fall into the house, and Lacy quickly shut the door.“Sorry.”
Florence and Frank came over and wiped up the melting snow.
“I’ll check the back door,” Rory said.
They all went that way, but the snow was packed up even higher against that door.It was so packed, it didn’t fall into the house like the snow at the front door.He quickly shut the door and locked it.
“As high as the snow is, we could probably jump out of the second-story window and land safely,” Rory said.
“And sink in it over our heads if the snow is too powdery soft.Then we would need a rescue team, and nobody is probably going to be able to get out in this weather for anything,” Lacy said.
“What about the garage door?Snow will probably block it the same as the front door, but we can try it,” Frank said.
They all headed out to the garage door.
Florence knew it would be just like the front door.Sure enough, as soon as Frank opened the garage door, they were faced with a wall of snow.Everyone got their phones out and took pictures for posterity.
“You can send that to Ted and Hal to show them how stuck we are,” Lacy told Rory.
He smiled.“I imagine the ranch is in a similar situation.The guys are going to have a time feeding the animals, though the animals will all be in the barns for protection.”
Frank closed the garage door.“I guess we’re stuck here for a while.At least we have plenty of food and drink.”
Rory hated showinghis vulnerability in front of Lacy and the others, admitting he felt claustrophobic.Maybe he would feel better if he talked about it.“My issue with feeling claustrophobic gripped me when I was stuck in a cabin during a blizzard for a week.My parents were supposed to join me.I was eighteen at the time.They couldn’t get to me, and I couldn’t leave the cabin.I had no phone service during the ordeal.They were frantic about reaching me.”
“Oh, that’s horrible!”Lacy said as they went back to the living room and sat down on the couches.“What happened?”
“I had brought food I liked to eat, so I had enough food.I was fortunate that none of the pipes froze, or I wouldn’t have had water.I was always used to being around people.I started working for Hal and Tracey when I was sixteen.And before that, I lived at home.So this was a vacation to spend with my family.It was Valentine’s Day, and I didn’t have a sweetheart.But we had the worst blizzard that year.”
“Like this year?”Lacy asked.
“If this keeps up, it might be just as bad as that year,” Florence said.“I was housebound for five days until some of the townspeople could clear the roads and my driveway.The snow had stopped, but the piles were so high, and it continued to be cloudy and cold, so it just wasn’t melting.”
