Joe was just finishing up his report when he looked up to see Sheridan, April, and Lucy crowding the door. They were still wearing their pajamas and slippers.
"If we don't eat breakfast soon, I think I shall faint," Lucy said dramatically. Breakfast actually went quite well, the euphoric mood of his children carrying them all through it. Joe flipped pancakes to them from the stove, and they caught them on their upraised plates while squealing. For Marybeth and Missy Vankueren, Joe delivered pancakes to the table. Missy picked at her breakfast, foregoing both bacon and syrup.
"Do you have any idea how many fat grams there are in these pancakes?" she asked Joe. The three girls looked up, waiting for his answer. He didn't disappoint them.
"Ten thousand apiece?" Joe speculated. Even Marybeth laughed at that. Missy made a dismissive face.
For his girls, a storm that forced all the adults to stay inside, play with them, and cook for them constantly was the best of all possible worlds. With the mood created by the Christmas decorations and the wrapped packages under the tree-as well as the unexpected visit by their grandmother-there was simply no better time. Sheridan said she loved storms. She declared that the worse the storm, the better she liked it.
As the girls ate, Marybeth did an inventory of her cupboards and the refrigerator, and declared with obvious relief that they had enough food and milk to last for several days without a trip to the grocery store. Joe added that the freezer in the garage was filled with elk and pronghorn antelope steaks, roasts, and burger.
"We can't just eat red meat!" Missy protested.
"Why not?" Joe asked. The three girls laughed.
"He has a captive audience," Marybeth observed to her mother.
"I see that," Missy said, sipping her coffee Although it looked impossible, Joe wanted to see if he could get his pickup running and free of the drifts. Wearing insulated Carhartt coveralls, a knit cap and facemask, and knee-high boots, Joe turned away from the wind and let the snow hammer his back. Despite the heavy clothing, the pure relentless ferocity of the storm chilled him. He'd had to dig into a drift that had formed around his pickup to find the tires before he could even start putting the chains on them. It had taken an hour on his hands and knees to slide the chains over the rear tires and secure them, and the icy steel links had frozen his fingers through his thick gloves. Two tires down, two to go. He kicked through the heavy snow until he found his already covered shovel.
As he dug out the front wheels, he looked up at the house. Lucy and April were watching him through the window. They were still in their pajamas, and both had candy canes stuck jauntily in their mouths like cigars. They waved, and Joe waved back. They watched him for a while as he put the remaining snow chains on. When he finally stood up and knocked packed snow from his clothes, they were gone.
Joe found himself staring at the window even though they were no longer there, specifically the spot where April had been.
April had appeared after Marybeth had been shot in the stomach, and their own unborn baby lost. There would be no more children. If Jeannie Keeley was in town and wanted April, there would be a battle. Marybeth wouldn't stand idly by. Neither would Joe. Shaking his thoughts aside, Joe climbed into his pickup and started the engine, slamming the truck forward, then back, letting the chains bite into the drifts. Gradually, he was able to maneuver around so that the truck faced the road. In an emergency, it would be easier to go forward than to try to back out. That was as much as he could do for a while, he thought, until the road was cleared. No one was going anywhere today.
Lumbering through the drifts like a monster, he fought his way back to the house.
Inside, after shedding his outer clothing, he found Marybeth, Missy, and the three girls crammed into the small room that housed the washer and dryer.
"Dad, you've got to see this," Sheridan called out.
They parted to let him look.
The dryer's door was open, and snow filled every inch of it. Apparently, the swirling winds outside had forced snow up through the outside wall vent, packing it inside.
"This is amazing," Marybeth laughed.
Joe smiled-it would be a day of playing board games, baking cookies, and unusual proximity in their small house. As much as he felt he should get back out to the mountain, he simply couldn't. He listened on his radio as one of Barnum's deputies tried to reach the mountain by snowmobile, only to get lost in the blizzard, clip a tree, and turn back. All Joe could do was to stay in contact with dispatch and wait out the storm like everyone else.
He finally resolved to embrace his immobility, and he changed from his uniform to sweat clothes and made chili for everyone for dinner. He cubed elk steaks to brown with diced onions and peppers in his cast-iron pot. As the chili simmered, he added more ingredients and the aroma of tomato sauce, garlic, and meat filled the house. It was a good smell. Cooking also meant he got to stay in the kitchen while Marybeth and Missy visited in the living room, which was fine with all of them. That evening, the girls cleared the chili bowls and silverware from the table while Missy tried in vain to call her husband on her cell phone.
"He never leaves it on," she said angrily as she sat down at the table. "He only turns it on when he wants to tell somebody something." Her tone was bitter, and Joe exchanged glances with Marybeth. Neither really knew Missy's third husband well, but there had been rumors lately about the possibility of his indictment for land-use fraud. Missy had said little of this, except that the impending "issues" were one of the reasons they'd wanted to get away to their condominium in Jackson Hole in the first place.
"I guess you're stuck with us," Sheridan said as she opened the box of a Monopoly game.
Missy patted her on the head. "I enjoy being with you, darling." Sheridan rolled her eyes as soon as Missy looked away.
"Sit with me, Princess," Missy directed Lucy, who gladly did as she was told. Missy liked Lucy's sense of style, and Lucy liked Missy's huge traveling bag of makeup and hair-spray.
After a protest from April, Sheridan returned to the table with Pictionary instead of Monopoly. They divided up into teams. Joe was on Missy's team, which meant that he gave himself permission to have another bourbon.
During the game, while the sand ran through the one-minute timer and the designated "artists" drew frantic sketches on pads for their teammates to guess at, Joe found himself paying special attention to April. She was the most determined artist on his team, and she drew very deliberately. When her pictures were complete, she was deliriously happy with herself, and she beamed. Joe had noticed before that April didn't have the lively features and sparkling eyes that Sheridan and Lucy had. Marybeth had said that "the sparkle got beaten out of April early on." He remembered that phrase as he watched her now.
After a round that Joe and Missy won by correctly identifying April's drawing, April whooped and punched the air with pure joy.
"I like it that you're getting more normal," Lucy said to April. "You're not so weird anymore."
"Lucy!" Marybeth said, alarmed.
But April didn't explode and start swinging, or withdraw and freeze her face into a pinched glare, as she had in the past. Instead, she smiled and reached across the table and mussed Lucy's hair. Both girls laughed. Joe thought April seemed flattered. Sheridan beamed with relief, her eyes sliding from her mom to her dad.
During the second game, with Joe about to draw and Sheridan poised to flip the timer over, Joe suddenly looked up. "Listen," he said.
"What?" Missy asked, alarmed.
"Do you hear that?"
"I don't hear anything."
"That's right," Joe said. "The wind stopped."
"Too bad," Sheridan chimed, turning the timer over and setting it down. "This is fun."