Nick

They sat around the old wooden kitchen table with its checkered oilcloth, speaking softly as if some stranger might be listening. Emily got up to put some more kindling in the cook stove. Hooking the handle in the lid with one hand, she threw in dead sticks and dried corncobs with the other. The flames leaped back to life and the heat prickled her reddening cheeks. Shadows and light bounced around on her wrinkled face and the silver twinkled in her wrapped braids. As the lid went back down with a clang, she eased herself into the chair beside her husband Arthur.

“I don’t know if we can afford to do this, Nick.” Sadie spoke with a tense and somber expression.

Outside, snow was softly falling, adding to the hushed tone inside. The white-washed two-story farmhouse with its naked front porch seemed huddled within the frosty moonlit night. Falling snowflakes stacked up on the cold metal dinner bell at the side door. Cows crowded together in the barn, their breath fogging up the air as they munched on hay that had been hastily thrown in the trough.

“We want children, Sadie. Now that we know you can’t have any, this is the perfect solution.” Nick, her husband of just over three years, tried to plead his case. He had just returned from fighting in the Big War. Most men came back hardened and insensitive, but the war had made Nick softer. Now, he had more empathy for his fellow man after seeing firsthand the atrocities of battle. Something deep inside was forcing him to be a better person than he had been before the war.

“But we’ve just bought the house. Maybe we should wait until we’ve saved a little. Kids cost a lot of money, and you’re not making that much running the projector at the theatre at night.”

“Clarkie said I could work at the station during the day all I want to. It’ll be enough. You know Rosie is too young to raise a child.”

Rosie was Sadie’s youngest sister. Only eighteen with no prospects of marriage or a job, she had just given birth to a baby daughter. How she had gotten pregnant nobody knew, and she was not talking. A wannabe country music singer, she frequented rural bars and sang for tips. As the youngest daughter in a family of nine, her older parents, overwhelmed by the drudgery of farm work and too many mouths to feed, had given her free reign. Sadie was the oldest girl in the family, second-born after Johnny. She was bossy and used to telling the rest of her siblings what to do.

“But I’ll be the one stuck at home to take care of the baby. Suppose I want to get a job. You know Muriel said I could work the ticket window if I wanted to. Maybe I want to. We have plenty of time to adopt if that’s what we decide”.

“You could take the baby with you. You’d only be there for a little while. What’s Rosie going to do? We don’t want the baby going to strangers, do we?”

Everyone around the table was looking glum. The two sons still at home, Johnny and Jim, had all they could handle working the farm with their dad. Bronchitis had kept Arthur indoors most of the winter. Poor health and a hard life added years to his age not apparent in numbers. Even in winter, there was a lot to do on a farm, especially one with dairy cows. With spring drawing near, they needed every penny they could get their hands on for seed and fertilizer.

“If Rosie stays here with the baby, some of you are going to have to help out. Jim and I can’t do it all.” That was a big statement for Johnny, who hardly spoke at all. They sat in silence as the words sank in.

“We’ve still got a couple of days till Rosie comes home from the Maternity Hospital. We’ll make our minds up by then.” With that said, Sadie got up to leave, and Nick joined her at the door.

Even with no decision made, Nick was hopeful on the ride home. Discharged from the Army just over six months ago, he and Sadie had been lucky to buy the small house on the G.I. Bill. A baby would make life perfect.

“Let’s stop by the hospital on the way home and see Rosie and the baby.”

“All right, but we’re not staying long. This snow is really starting to come down.”

As they rode down the long winding dirt lane, snowflakes began falling in earnest with the wind blowing them almost sideways. The naked limbs of the walnut trees on each side of the lane seemed to be screaming in the cold, swirling air. Creeping along, they turned left onto the hard road and instantly began to slip and slide on the frozen ice. Even the high beams couldn’t cut far into the black mass ahead.

“Do you think we should go back and spend the night at Daddy’s?”

“We’ll go slow. I think we can make it home. Maybe we won’t worry about the hospital tonight.”

It was eleven miles to the main highway to Greensboro. By the time they got there, Sadie’s knuckles were white and stiff from the cold as she clutched the edge of her seat. The turn onto the highway was on a curve, and the road itself banked downhill for drainage making it hard to see oncoming traffic. They had not passed any cars since leaving the farm. Nick slowed to a crawl and tried to see into the blackness as the wind picked up the tiny grains of snow and catapulted them past the car’s headlights. Drifts were forming and would soon make the roads impassable.

“It seems like we’re the only ones left in the world,” Sadie mused as the illusion of isolation closed in on them.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, an animal, a deer perhaps, cut through the high beam of their headlights, and just as quickly, it bounded out of sight. Reacting automatically, Nick jerked the steering wheel hard to the right to try to miss it, and the car spun around several times. When they finally came to rest, the hood was buried into a large snowdrift, but at least they were still on the car’s wheels and the motor continued to run.

“We’d better see if we can dig ourselves out.” A little dazed from the accident, Nick opened his car door to near blizzard conditions. He did not see any animal, not even tracks.

Together, they might have a chance, but they would have to hurry. Stepping out into calf-high snow wearing only their regular shoes, Nick and Sadie began wiping as much of the drift from the hood and front bumper as they could. Then they began digging trenches behind the tires with their bare hands. Even working as fast as they could, their hands and feet were soon numb from the cold, and they had to return to the less frigid air inside the car. Their lungs hurt from breathing the coldness, and they were both shaking.

“Try it, Nick. We have to get out. We’ll freeze to death if we stay here.” With teeth chattering, Sadie wrapped her arms around herself and huddled into the tightest ball she could on the front seat. Beginning to feel desperate and scared, in her mind she conjured images of their discovery the next day, frozen, dead from the cold.

“We’ll get out. Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to us.”

Nick put the car in reverse and slowly tried to back out of the drift. The tires just spun around gaining maybe two or three inches. He geared to neutral and let it drift back into the ruts. After trying to rock the car several times by changing gears, he still could not climb out of the holes he was making in the slick, icy snow.

“You try backing out while I get out and push.” Taking out the floor mats, Nick shoved them under the back of the two rear tires. He stomped and pushed his way through the drift. He planted his feet at the front of the car and angling his body for leverage, put his hands on the hood, ready to shove as hard as he could.

Sadie, blowing her warm breath on her half frozen hands, slid over into the driver’s seat. Following Nick’s shouted directions through the open window, the wheels slowly began climbing out as Nick pushed with all his strength. Finally, all four wheels rolled up and out onto level ground.

“I think we did it.” Grinning, he opened the door and gave Sadie a big hug. “We’re a great team!”

Sadie slid over and Nick jumped back inside. Hugging each other like two grizzly bears, they were soon warm enough to start traveling on toward their destination. As they got out on the highway again, the wind started to lay and the snowflakes dropped vertically instead of sideways. The heater’s warmth soon raised the temperature inside.

“It looks like it’s easing up some. Maybe we could stop by the hospital after all before going home. I feel like we just had a narrow escape. I don’t want to take anything for granted anymore. Let’s go see Rosie and the baby.” Sadie’s visions of death seemed to have altered her outlook on life.

Nick smiled to himself as he listened to Sadie’s words. He had gotten used to close calls and knew never to take anything for granted. He reached over and squeezed her hand.

Although it was slow going, the rest of the ride was uneventful. By the time they got to the hospital, the snow had stopped. Getting out in the parking lot, Sadie and Nick paused to take in the beautiful surroundings. Everything looked untouched and new in the silvery light from the full moon. The wind’s work had built pristine hills and valleys where none had been before. Rounded mounds of snow decorated the spruce and pines, making a stark contrast with their deep green needles now releasing a strong scent through the night air.

“Everything looks so new and clean, and the air smells so fresh. I feel like together we can do anything. Facing death makes you appreciate life that much more. I guess that’s what I learned from the war.” Nick put his arm around Sadie and drew her near.

“I love you. Let’s go see that new baby.” Hand in hand, they hurried toward the dimly lit entrance.