He protested every step of the way to the stairs, claiming he’d be out in the morning, much to my grandmother’s whines.
Finally, stopping at the first step, she sighed and turned to me. “The stubborn oaf. Alright dear, if you wouldn’t mind turning out the lights before you head up. I need to get Bob to bed. He settles better with me right by him.”
I assured her I would turn out the lights before watching them trudge and lovingly bicker up the stairs.
Once my grandparents left, the news station, which had been turned up twenty notches too loud, trumpeted itself into my brain. “This is gonna be a big one, folks. A projected 10 inches will fall tonight and probably twice that for tomorrow. Winds should hit 40 mph. Stay off the roads, batten down your hatches, and break out your emergency food supply if needed. Check on your neighbors. It could be a doozy for a few days.” The weatherman paused in his speech, putting one hand up to his ear as if listening to something. “I am just getting word that highway 90 is now shut down, they are directing most cars to go back the way they came.”
Cue anxiety levels.
I grabbed the remote off of the counter in the kitchen and turned off the TV. Out of habit, I picked up the landline phone on the wall and checked for a dial tone. The loud hum sounded in my ears. Did I forget to mention? No cell service here. Once the landline goes, we would be completely on our own. I wasn’t going to allow myself to get nervous. I was a grown twenty-four-year-old working woman who could handle feeding cows and keeping the fire burning. While I knew I wasn’t alone, I had begun to see just how frail my grandparents had become in the past year. I had been my grandpa’s right-hand ranch woman most summers growing up. He had always been strong as an ox. My grandma had been the loud socialite. Things were changing, they were slowing down, and I couldn’t bear the thought of them not being here one day. If my grandpa was getting sick, I may have discovered the exact reason I felt I needed to be here.
Needing something to keep my mind occupied, I set a kettle of milk on the stove to heat. Grandma had served us cold milk instead of hot chocolate and it hadn’t been enough to satisfy me. I wanted the liquid heat that soothed my nerves. I skipped right past the coffee maker on the counter, making a beeline for the hot chocolate powder Grandma kept out for me. Caffeine, in addition to my jittery nature, did not a pleasant combination make.
I poured hot milk into my mug and added a few heaping spoonfuls of cocoa powder. And then a few more spoonfuls. My grandmother’s cheery presence was everywhere in the room. The kitchen cabinets were painted a sunny yellow, with red and lime green accents by way of red hand towels and lime green porcelain roosters nestled by the stove. Across from the open kitchen was the cozy living room, filled with two couches facing each other and a coffee table in between. Two rockers flanked the third side of the room, pointed toward a television sitting above the fireplace mantle. To the left of the kitchen was a small breakfast nook, surrounded by windows.
Because of the timing of this impromptu trip, between semesters, I had nothing to grade. My fingers felt like they should be working in some capacity, so I grabbed a book from my grandma’s bookshelf and moved to the table.The wooden chair squeaked as I sat down too hard, spilling hot chocolate all over my sweatshirt. I set the cup on the table before grabbing a napkin to wipe myself. Ignoring the stain, I grabbed my book, propped my fuzzy socked feet on the table, and sipped my drink while pretending to read.
The house shook with the force of the wind hurling past, the roof creaking and groaning. I peered out the window—the snow hadn’t let up. I gulped down the rest of my drink and moved into the living room, settling onto the couch with a blanket.
Pop quiz, Lucy: What if the power goes off? What do you do?
Answer: Start a fire in the fireplace. Grab flashlights from the closet. Bring up wood and start a fire in Grandma and Grandpa’s room. Since my room had no fireplace, I would sleep on the couch downstairs. Eat a lot of cereal.
Pop quiz: What if the water line breaks or the pipes freeze?
Answer: There is lots of water in the storage room downstairs. You’ll have plenty to drink. You have definitely gone longer than two days without showering.
A loud bang sounded at the door. I squealed, jumping a mile out of my skin. Like a cat in the cartoons, where it’s hair stands up at the end, claws out, rounded back—that was me.
Pop quiz: What happens when there’s someone at the door when there should definitely not be someone at the door?
My first super mature instinct was to run upstairs, lock the door, and crawl into the bed with my grandparents like I used to do twenty years ago, and just pretend I didn’t hear anything. I sat there for a moment, stunned to inaction until my brain could form a cohesive thought.
I stood up and did a half run, skip and jump thing toward the back door and grabbed for the rifle tucked behind the coat rack. A loaded rifle. Ever since all of his grandkids were old enough to know not to touch it, my grandpa had kept it at an easy reach and had often used it to shoot at coyotes or foxes intent on mischief. It had been very normal to be playing Barbies with Grandma one moment and the next, hear a blast of a rifle off the side of the house. This week, I was a girl in the middle of nowhere with two elderly grandparents probably snoring in bed already and no other help around for at least twenty miles in either direction. It wasn’t lost on me that my grandpa had left the gun within easy reach. Another loud pounding on the front door.
So I guess it wasn’t the wind. I took a deep breath, my heart in my throat, gun in my hand, and crept toward the door like the grownup I was. But only because the other grownups had gone to bed.
Let me reiterate. Nobody should be here. My grandparents had no neighbors close by. Somebody was eitherintrouble or…trouble. And both of those thoughts terrified me.
The rounded glass at the top of the doorway was the smudged kind, where you could see shapes and shadows but nothing clearly. Butclearly, there was something on the other side of that door. Something tall and bulky.
Knowing they wouldn’t be able to hear me calling out “Who is it?” with the wind outside, I braced myself, held the rifle slightly behind me, and opened the door a crack with my left hand.
My eye first took in a bulky tan coat and gloves. A glance downward showed jeans and a worn pair of cowboy boots. So far, our surprise visitor seemed normal for these parts. Although to be fair, serial killers wore jeans all the time. My eyes lifted higher, past his coat to see a man, maybe mid-twenties, football player build, with dark brown hair peeking out underneath a black cowboy hat tipped slightly downward as if to keep the snow off his face. He wore a scarf tied around his face and neck, like a masked bandit, which made it difficult for me to gain any sort of idea as to who he might be.
He lifted his face upward, meeting my gaze, and immediately his eyes crinkled as if he was smiling widely underneath his covered face.
2
Pop quiz: What happens when, what appears to be a very attractive cowboy shows up on your grandpa’s front porch during a huge snowstorm?
“Lucy?”
What happens when he seems to know me? I opened the door a bit wider but was grateful he didn’t make any move to step forward just yet. Who was he? He looked familiar yet I couldn’t place him. The scarf wrapped around half of his face was not helping.
“Yeah?”
As if realizing he was probably hard to recognize, he unwound the scarf covering his mouth and half of his neck. He had scruff on his face. Not a beard, but more than a five o’clock shadow. It looked as though he had had a long couple of days and hadn’t had time to shave. There was something about those deep brown eyes with the long lashes that suggested a memory somewhere I couldn’t quite place.
