Life as We Knew It

  At some point Matt's going to stop chopping firewood and when he does he can take up art again, to go along with his philosophy studies.

  I went through the other stuff in the attic, but the pencils were definitely the high point. So I thanked Mrs. Nesbitt and went home. Just to be sneaky, I went in through the front door and took the color-by-number set up to my bedroom before returning to the sunroom.

  We may not have a chicken for Christmas dinner, but at least there'll be presents.

  December 1

  For the third straight day the temperature was above zero this afternoon, so I took Mom's skates and went to the pond.

  There was no one there. (I'm really starting to think that whole Brandon thing was a hallucination.) In a funny way, it was better that I was alone, since I never am at home. Mom can definitely hobble around now, so I don't have to hover around her all the time, but it's way too cold in the house to spend much time anyplace but the sunroom.

  I skated around the pond, nothing fancy and incredibly slow. I had to be careful, since there were chunks of ice missing. I guess people have been hacking away at it for water, the way we will once Mrs. Nesbitt's water runs out.

  The air is so bad I don't know how Matt and Jonny manage. I'd skate for a few minutes and then start coughing. I probably didn't skate for more than 15 minutes total, but I was exhausted by the time I finished, and it took most of my strength to get back home.

  Matt, Mom, and I are down to one meal a day, but at least we're eating 7 days a week. And maybe the temperature really is warming up, and that'll make things better.

  SEVENTEEN

  December 2

  Fridays Matt goes to the post office first thing in the morning. Lately he's been coming home in the early afternoon. Even though the days are all gray, there's still a difference between daytime and night and it gets dark very early now.

  Mom, Jon, and I were in the sunroom and it must have been before noon because Jon hadn't gotten anything to eat. We had two oil lamps going because, even in daytime with the fire in the woodstove, we still need two lamps to have enough light to read by.

  Jon was the first one to notice. "Does it seem darker to you?" he asked.

  He was right. It was darker. First we looked at the oil lamps to see if one of them had gone out. Then we looked at the woodstove.

  Mom tilted her head up. "It's snowing," she said. "The skylights are covered with snow."

  With the windows covered by plywood, we can't see what's going on outside. But since the only change in the weather for months has been the temperature, there hasn't been much need to see what's happening.

  The kitchen window is covered with plywood, too, and we can't get to the windows in the dining room, so we all went to the living room to see what was happening.

  It must have been snowing for an hour or more. It was coming down at a furious pace.

  As soon as we realized it was snowing, we also realized the wind was blowing. "It's a blizzard," Jon said.

  "We don't know that," Mom said. "The snow could stop in a minute."

  I couldn't wait. I grabbed my coat and ran outside. I would have done the same for rain or sunlight. It was something different and I had to experience it.

  Jon and Mom followed me. "The snow looks weird," Jon said.

  "It's not quite white," Mom said.

  That was it. It wasn't dark gray, like the piles of plowed snow in March. But it wasn't pure white, either. Like everything else these days, it was dingy.

  "I wish Matt were home," Mom said, and for a moment I thought she meant that she wished she could share the moment with him, the excitement of snow. But then I realized she was worried about him getting home. The post office is about 4 miles from here, which isn't that far if you're biking, but could take a long time to walk, especially in blizzard conditions.

  "You want me to go get him?" Jon asked.

  "No," Mom said. "He's probably on his way home now. And it's not like he'll get lost. I'd just feel better if he were home."

  "One good thing," I said. "If there's any kind of accumulation we'll have a water supply."

  Mom nodded. "Jonny, get the barrels and the garbage cans, and put them outside," she said. "We can collect snow in them."

  Jon and I took everything that could hold snow and put them by the side of the house. By the time we had the last recycling bin out there, the garbage can already had an inch of snow in it.

  Jon was right. It was a blizzard.

  We went back in but none of us could concentrate on our books. We kept our coats on and sat in the living room, watching the snow fall and waiting for Matt's return.

  At some point Jon made himself some lunch. While he was in the sunroom I asked Mom if I should go get Matt.

  "No!" she said sharply. "I can't risk losing two of you."

  I felt like she'd punched me. Matt couldn't possibly be lost. We couldn't survive without him.

  Mom didn't say anything after that and I knew to keep my mouth shut. Finally she went back to the sunroom and when she did, I went outside and walked toward the road just to see what conditions were like. The wind was so fierce it came close to knocking me over. The snow was falling almost sideways and I couldn't see more than a few feet ahead.

  I barely made it to the road, but when I got there I couldn't see anything anyway. Matt could have been 20 feet down the road and I wouldn't have known. Mom was right. I couldn't possibly have made it to town. I could only hope Matt could make the long walk and that he'd known enough to leave once the snow had begun falling.

  I went back in and made up some nonsense about going outside to check on the snow collection system. If Mom suspected differently she didn't say anything.

  We went back and forth between the sunroom and the living room. Mom went out just past the front door and stood there for a few minutes until I made her come in.

  I could see how excited Jon was, the way a kid is when it snows. It was killing him to suppress his excitement. It was killing Mom to suppress her fear. And it was killing me to see both of them trying to hide their feelings.

  As the day progressed the sky grew darker and the wind stronger.

  "I really think I should go find Matt," Jon said. "I could take one of the oil lamps."

  "Maybe he should, Mom," I said. At this point Jon is stronger than me and a lot stronger than Mom. He might even be stronger than Matt, just because he's been eating more. If Matt needed help, Jon was the only one of us who could give it to him.

  "No," Mom said. "For all we know Matt is staying in town with a friend to wait the storm out."

  But I knew Matt wouldn't do that. He'd come home. Or at least he'd try to. He'd be as worried about us as we were about him.

  "Mom, I really think Jon should go out," I said. "Just a little way down the road but with a lamp. It's getting so dark Matt could go right past our drive and not realize it."

  I could see how much Mom hated the idea. I decided to try a different approach.

  "How about if I go out first?" I said. "And then in a few minutes Jon could take over for me and then I could take over for him. We'd rotate, and that way neither one of us could get into any trouble."

  "Yeah, Mom," Jon said. "I'll go first. Send Miranda out in a few minutes."

  "All right, all right," Mom said. "Fifteen minutes and then I'll send Miranda out."

  Jon looked really excited and in a funny way I didn't blame him. Mom made sure he was thoroughly bundled up: coat and gloves and scarves and boots. She told him not to go too far and to hold the lamp as high as he could to give Matt a beacon.

  I waited alongside Mom. We didn't say anything. I didn't dare and Mom was way too wound up to make small talk. Finally she gestured to me to get ready.

  "I hope this isn't a mistake," she said.

  "We'll be fine," I said. "I bet I'll bring Matt home with me."

  But by the time I reached the driveway I wasn't even sure I'd make it to where Jon was. It didn't seem to matter how many layers of clot
hes I had on, the wind was so fierce it cut right through everything. I especially felt it on my face. I put the scarf over my mouth and nose, but even so my face burned with the cold. The snow and the darkness made it impossible for me to see anything except what the lamp illuminated. I stumbled several times and the wind blew me over twice. The snow seeped through my pants and even my long johns grew cold and wet.

  At one point I pulled the scarf away from my mouth so I could gulp air. But I fell into the snow and swallowed a mouthful, which got me coughing. I wanted to give up and go back to the sunroom, to the woodstove. But Jon was out there waiting for me to relieve him. My idea. My big bright idea.

  I have no idea how long it took me to get to Jon. He was jumping up and down, the light swinging wildly.

  "You stay warmer that way," he told me.

  I nodded and told him to go back to the house. I gestured toward where I remembered the house to be. "Tell Mom I'm fine," I said, even though we both knew it was a lie.

  "I'll be back in a few minutes," he said.

  I watched as he began trudging back. But in a minute or two I couldn't see him anymore, even though I knew he wasn't very far away.

  As I stood out there I began laughing at myself, at how desperate I'd been to be alone. Now I was as alone as any human being could be, and all I wanted was to be back in the sunroom with Matt and Jonny and Mom and Horton all taking up space.

  I knew I'd be okay as long as I stayed put. I wasn't going to get lost and Mom would see to it I wasn't out long enough to freeze to death or even to get frostbite. The only one of us in danger was Matt.

  But with the wind whipping around and the snow blinding me and my entire body freezing from the cold and the damp, it was hard to feel safe and secure. In addition to everything else, I was hungry. I'm always hungry except right after supper, but I was hungry the way I get right before supper, so I figured it must be around 5.

  I realized Jon was right about moving around so I jogged in place. I was doing okay until a gust of wind caught me off guard and I fell into the snow and the oil lamp went out.

  It took all my strength, physical and emotional, to keep from hysteria. I told myself I'd be okay, that Jon would find me, that Matt would get home, that the lamp could be relit, that everything was going to be fine.

  But for a moment there I felt as though I'd been thrown into a snow globe by some powerful giant, that I was a prisoner and would never be free. I felt as though the world really was coming to an end and even if Matt made it home, we would all die anyway.

  There was no point getting off the ground. I sat there, holding on to the useless lamp, waiting for Jonny, waiting for Matt, waiting for the world to finally say, "That's enough. I quit."

  "Miranda?"

  Was it Matt? Was it the wind? Was it a hallucination? I honestly didn't know.

  "Miranda!"

  "Matt?" I said, struggling to get up. "Matt, is that really you?"

  "What are you doing here?" he asked and the question was so dumb but so reasonable I burst out laughing.

  "I'm rescuing you," I said, gasping, which only made me laugh louder.

  "Well, thank you," Matt said. I think he laughed then, also, but the wind and my madness made it hard for me to tell.

  "Come on," he said, reaching down to pull me up. "Let's go home."

  We began walking against the wind toward the drive. Matt walked his bike on one side and held on to me on the other. At one point the wind blew me down and I pushed him down and he pushed the bike down. It took us a moment to get back upright and by the time we had, we could see Jon's oil lamp bobbing in the distance.

  There was no point calling out to Jon, but we used the lamp as a guide and slowly made our way toward it. When we reached Jon he hugged Matt so hard I thought he'd drop the lamp and we'd all be there in total darkness. But the lamp stayed lit and we forged our way back to the house.

  We went in through the front door and when we did, Matt called out, "We're home!"

  Mom came racing as fast as she could toward us. Of course she hugged Matt first, but then she embraced me like she'd been as afraid for me as she had been for him.

  Mom made all of us dry off completely and change all our clothes and then we sat by the woodstove to defrost. All our faces were red, but Matt swore he was okay and not frostbitten.

  "I would have gotten home sooner, but I didn't want to leave my bike," he said as we sat by the fire. "It was just Henry and me at the post office, and for a while we didn't realize it was snowing. Finally someone came in and told us it had been snowing for a couple of hours and we'd better get home right away. I would have gone with Henry, but he lives nearly as far from the post office as we do only in a completely different direction so that didn't make any sense. I was afraid if I left the bike I'd never see it again. You know how things are. Besides I didn't know if it was going to keep snowing or if it was just a squall. I hoped I'd be able to bike some of the way home, but that was impossible."

  "You're not going back to the post office," Mom said. "I won't have it."

  "We'll talk about that next Friday," Matt said. "In the meantime I'm not going anywhere."

  At first I thought Mom was going to put up a fight, but then she just sighed.

  "I'm hungry," Jon said. "Isn't it suppertime?"

  "I'll make some soup," Mom said. "I think we could all use some."

  We had soup first and then macaroni with marinara sauce. A two-course meal, proof that this was a special-event day.

  We spent the evening going to the front door and peering out at the snow with a flashlight. I'm going to go back there once I finish writing this and then I'll go to sleep.

  I don't know if I want it to snow all night long or if I want it to stop. If it snows, that's more water for us. But there's something frightening about this storm, even though we are all safe at home.

  It doesn't matter. I can't do anything about it. It'll snow or it won't no matter what I want.

  I just want this day to be over with.

  December 3

  It snowed all night and it's snowed all day.

  The recycling bins are full of snow so Jon and Matt brought them in and we moved the snow into bottles and jars. Then we put the bins back out.

  The garbage can was half full of snow. We figure there's been close to two feet of snow and it doesn't look like it's letting up any.

  "We'll be okay for water now," I said, just to make sure. "The snow will last outside for a long time, so we can just bring it in and boil it when we need water. Right?"

  "I don't see why not," Matt said. "I don't think we'll worry about water for a while. Besides, maybe it will snow again."

  "Thanks, but no thanks," Mom said.

  "It doesn't have to be a blizzard," Matt said. "But a few inches now and again could come in handy."

  "And we're okay for wood?" I asked. I was in the mood for reassurance.

  "We should be fine," Matt said.

  I've decided to believe him. It's not like we can go to the Wood 'n' Water store if we need any.

  Now that I think about it, I'm not sure we can go anywhere. The roads won't be plowed, and I doubt anyone is going to shovel 4 miles of snow.

  It's a good thing we still like each other.

  December 4

  When we got up this morning we found it had stopped snowing during the night. We couldn't see anything from the sunroom (which is really dark from the snow covering the skylights), but we went first to the living room and then to the front door and checked things out.

  Because of the wind, the snow had drifted around. There were some stretches of land that hardly had any snow at all and other places where the snow was close to 5 feet high. I've never seen snow that high and I couldn't decide whether to be excited or scared.

  We went back into the house. Mom took some of last night's snow and made us hot cocoa. Chocolate with an ashy taste is still better than no chocolate at all.

  "Well," Matt said when we were all warm and co
zy. "Are we ready for some problems?"

  I would have said no but what good would that have done?

  "We need to clear the snow off the roof of the sunroom," he said.

  "Why?" Jon asked.

  "Just a precaution," Matt said. "Snow can be heavy and we don't know if this is the last of it for the winter. We don't want the roof caving in on us."

  "I don't want you on the roof," Mom said. "It's too dangerous."

  "It'll be a lot more dangerous if the roof caves in," Matt said. "That could kill us. It WILL kill us actually because if we lose the sunroom, we lose the woodstove. I'll be careful, but it has to get done."

  "You said 'problems,'" Jon said.

  "The ladder is in the garage," Matt said. "So are the shovels."

  "Let's see if there's snow in front of the garage," Mom said. She went to the sunroom door and tried to open it. But no matter how hard she pushed, the door stayed shut.

  "There must be snow against it," Matt said. "But we can get out through the front door."

  So we did. But instead of being able to look out the sun-room door to see how the garage was, we had to walk over to the driveway to get a look.

  Just walking a couple of feet was exhausting. You had to lift each leg high to get it onto the snow, like exaggerated giant steps, and then the snow was so soft your leg sank right through it.

  "It should be pretty easy to shovel," Jon said.

  "That's good," Matt said. "Because we're going to have a lot to do."

  We made it to the sunroom door. The snow was 4 feet high. No wonder Mom couldn't open it.

  "Well, that's on our list to shovel," Matt said. "Now let's see how the garage is."

  The garage was real bad. The snow had drifted higher than the padlock.

  "We need the shovel," I said. "Are you sure it's in the garage?"

  Matt and Jon both nodded. Mom took a deep breath and then she coughed. "We'll have to move the snow away by hand," she said. "The garage doors open out, so we don't have a choice. I think pots and pans will make the job go faster, and we'll all work on it. Jon, go to the house and put the pots and pans in a garbage bag and bring them back here. We'll do what we can by hand until you get here."