Changes of Heart (17 page)

The storm never quite became background noise.

The house shuddered and creaked and rattled and moaned under its virulent pummeling, and the occasional pockets of quick silence as the wind careened in from a different direction were somehow louder and more frightening than the storm’s onslaught. During those moments the snow—already accumulated to almost three feet—presented a bizarre panorama of gentle-edged sculpture, with sweeping, four- and six-foot waves lapping at the sides of the old house, and a barren spot of brown, dead grass the size of the Thanksgiving table of a large family surrounded by sloping, solid walls of snow. After the moments of respite, the wind destroyed its handiwork like a cranky and spiteful child but began rebuilding again immediately, shaping new drifts and images.

“I saw a storm in the Sahara that was like this, except with sand,” Sarah said, stepping back from a window. “It made me feel very small and insignificant, but I don’t think it scared me like this does.”

“This house has seen stuff like this before, Sarah,” Danny said. “We couldn’t be in a better place—we have shelter, food, and heat. We’ll wait it out.”

“I don’t think we have a choice in the matter,” Maggie said. “But Danny’s right—we couldn’t be in a better place.” After a moment, she added, “Or with better people. Suppose we weren’t all such good friends? As big as this house is, things would get awful tight if we didn’t get along so well.”

Ian waited a moment. Then he snarled, “Will you please stop your nagging, Maggie? You’re driving us all nuts!”

Danny, at first startled by Ian’s outburst, joined in. “Tessa, your giggling grates on me like fingernails on a blackboard. Go to your room, ya little twerp!”

“At least my clothes don’t smell like a wet dog,” Tessa said. “And how about sharing that box of Cheez-Its you have hidden in the dining room?”

Sarah and Maggie’s eyes met, and both of the women smiled. Sarah sighed. “All three of them are fourteen, Maggie.”

“I noticed that,” Maggie said. “And it’s a young fourteen too.”

For a while, the snapping of the fire and the voice of the storm were the only sounds in the candlelit room. Tessa broke the silence.

“I think it’s fair to say that I’m the best Monopoly player in the world, and I know right where my game is.”

“You’re awfully young and filled with childish notions, Tessa,” Ian said. “It’s really part of my ministerial obligation to help you see the truth, even if it hurts your pride.”

“Wait a minute here, folks,” Danny said. “Do you think I’ve amassed my vast fortune, my real estate empire, my international reputation, through luck?” He sighed dramatically. “Monopoly is too easy for me. But I’ll play—at least to teach you all a lesson about finances.”

Maggie cleared her throat. “I’d like to play,” she said in a falsely plaintive voice, “but my checking account is down to six dollars. Does that disqualify me?”

“I want to be the banker,” Sarah demanded.

It was an interesting, if somewhat freestyle, game. About halfway through, Maggie paid Danny five hundred dollars to take her turn to fetch wood from the basement for the fireplace. Grumbling, Danny got the wood. Twenty minutes later he agreed to lend Maggie a thousand dollars—but she was required to go to the pantry immediately and scrounge for snacks for the players.

Sarah played conservatively and accumulated an immense wad of cash—which she was forced to hand over to Tessa when she landed on her daughter’s Park Place with four houses on it. On the next roll, Ian landed on the same square. When he refused to pay Tessa’s usurious lending rates, Tessa forced him into bankruptcy. When Maggie was caught attempting to surreptitiously slide Ian a few hundred dollars, she was fined two thousand dollars and forced to miss two consecutive turns by Sarah, the flint-hearted banker. During that time, Maggie wasn’t allowed to collect if others landed on her properties.

Danny was forced out of the game by two disastrous landings on Tessa’s holdings. Maggie soon followed him. Sarah
was cash-rich but held few property cards, and those she did own were piddling things—a railroad, Baltic Avenue, and a couple of others. Tessa whittled her mother into the poorhouse in a matter of a half dozen rolls.

“See?” The girl grinned. “I told you.”

The hilarity of the game dwindled away. The weather had worsened; the wind was a painful shriek and the house shuddered under its assault. Sarah wandered off to the kitchen, and Maggie followed her. The light from the two candles cast a deceivingly warm glow to the room, which was cold, just like every other room of the house but the living room.

“We should probably put these candles out,” Sarah said. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be without light. We have most of a case of them... but still...”

“Yeah,” Maggie said. “Maybe so. Do you have enough matches?”

Maggie could see Sarah’s smile from across the room. “I completely forgot about matches, but Tessa bought a half dozen boxes of those strike-anywhere kind. So, yes, I’m sure we have enough.”

“Good.” Maggie looked toward the living room, heard voices, and turned back to Sarah. “I’m scared. I really am. My stomach is trembly, and every time a gust hits I jump.”

“We’re all a bit scared, I think—even the guys. But we’ll get out of this OK. I know we will. Danny’s like a mountain man—he knows what to do in emergencies, and Ian’s one of the brightest men I’ve ever met. Before this is over, I think his sense of humor is going to be as important as firewood.
And you, Maggie—you’re tougher than you think you are. You’re a gutsy lady.”

“I wish.”

“No, I mean it. You’ve been through a whole lot of trouble, and you’ve picked yourself up after you were knocked down. That takes strength.”

Maggie leaned against a counter and picked a pretzel out of a bowl. As she nibbled at it, Sarah moved a step closer to her. “I think your strength is a large part of what Danny and Ian see in you.”

“That’s another problem,” Maggie said. “I can’t control their feelings, but at times I want to scream at them that it’s too soon for me to become involved in a relationship again. And, even if I wanted to, which one of them would I choose? They’re both great guys, and if something does happen, one of them’s going to get hurt.”

“People get over hurt,” Sarah said softly.

“That’s what I’ve been told.” Maggie sighed. “Let’s go out by the fire. It’s like an igloo in here.”

“In a second. Just let me say one more thing. Follow your heart, Maggie. Keep your faith and follow your heart. I know it’s a cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less true or valid.”

Maggie’s small smile was genuine. “You make everything sound easy.”

“Not easy, but worthwhile. C’mon, let’s see what the peanut gallery is up to.”

In the living room Tessa had on the radio, and she and Danny and Ian were staring at it, as if their eyesight could help them hear through the static more effectively.

“... no letup in sight. In fact, the storm actually seems to be intensifying. The temperature is nineteen degrees below zero, but that figure is meaningless because the windchill can approach fifty below in open places. Power is gone throughout the storm area, and crews can’t get on the road to begin repairs. The cell telephone transmission tower went down yesterday, so it’s not your phone that’s dead, it’s the system. Please, folks—don’t even think about attempting to go anywhere in any type of vehicle, including snowmobiles. This storm is a killer such as Montana hasn’t seen in many decades. Again, stay where you are. Do not attempt to—”

“Better turn it off, Tess,” Danny said. “We don’t want to run down the batteries.”

Maggie picked up the blanket she’d been using on the couch and dragged it to the wall adjacent to the fireplace. “What time is it?” she said. “It feels like we’ve been here forever.”

Ian tilted his wrist toward the fire and read his watch. “Twenty to eleven. I guess we all ought to think about getting some sleep. Maybe tomorrow...”

Maggie knew that the words of the radio announcer were too fresh in all their minds to even begin convincing themselves that the next day would be any different.

“We have a couple of air mattresses and more blankets upstairs on the beds. We’ll need more wood and we’ll need to melt snow for water.”

“We won’t run short on snow,” Ian said. He stood. “Want to haul some more firewood into the basement, Danny?”

“Sure. We might as well stock up for the night up here too, and then the two of us can take turns feeding the fire.”

Maggie pushed herself up from the floor. “I’ll carry wood with you guys—and I want to be in on tending the fire overnight.”

“I’ll help too,” Sarah said. “Danny’s right—we need to bring lots of wood in.”

“Sarah,” Ian said, “your hands are too important to bang them up hefting logs. When this is over you’re going to be needed very badly, and if your hands are stiff or bruised or if you happen to catch some fingers between logs, you’ll never forgive yourself.”

“I can carry wood! Let’s not be ridiculous. There’s no reason I can’t do my share of the work, and I won’t have—”

“Sarah,” Danny said sharply, “Ian’s exactly right. We can’t have you risking hurting yourself.”

“What about your hands, then?” Sarah snapped. “Don’t your patients count?”

“Hey, ladies and gentlemen,” Ian said, stepping between the physician and the veterinarian. “Come on, this is silly. Danny wrestles with horses and cows and dogs and all sorts of potentially dangerous critters every day, Sarah. He’s not going to get hurt, and he’s a lot stronger than you are.”

“Not when she’s angry, I’m not.” Danny grinned.

“You keep that in mind, Dr. Pulver,” Sarah said, also smiling.

“It was the Monopoly game,” Tessa said. “You’re all testy because I whipped you so badly.”

“That must be it,” Maggie added.

She was about to say something else when the tree limb exploded through the living room window, spraying the area with shards of glass. The wind struck the fire like a gigantic fist, and spewed embers and bits of burning log onto the couch, the carpet, everywhere. Maggie screamed and spun away from the fireplace, slapping at the back of her head, her palm stinging as it crushed the ember lodged in her hair. Tessa screamed too and beat at her face and chest with her hand. Sarah moved to help Tessa, pulling the girl to the floor and whacking at her with both hands. Danny grabbed the edge of the coffee table and flipped it in front of the fireplace, trying to block the wind to the now-roaring fireplace. “Get the embers out!” he shouted. “We gotta get all...” The last of his words were lost to the wind.

Ian ran for the two buckets of melted snow in the bathroom upstairs. He stumbled on the first stair and went down hard but was up and scrambling in a heartbeat.

Maggie stomped on the embers on the rug, smashing them out, the bottoms of her feet screaming in pain. She wasn’t sure where her boots were, and there was no time to look for them. Panic formed images of the Morrison home burning, driving them out into the storm, where they wouldn’t last more than a couple of hours.

Ian bolted into the living room with a bucket in each hand.

“Here, Ian!” Danny shouted. “The couch—put the couch out!”

Ian dumped the first bucket at the end of the sofa, where the fabric and stuffing were engulfed in flames. Danny
yanked a burning cushion and, staggering against the force of the wind, stumbled to the gaping window and hurled it out into the storm.

Tessa and Sarah pounded and stomped at burning spots on the carpet, using their feet and their hands.

“Danny,” Ian shouted over the wind, “we gotta block that window.”

“A table,” Danny answered. “We need another table to nail over it. We gotta do that from outside or the wind will blow it off. Sarah, do you have a hammer and some nails? Another table larger than the window?”

Sarah smashed out another burning spot and yelled, “Hammer and stuff is in the basement. There’s an old dining room table down there with magazines and papers piled on it. Take that.”

Danny looked around the living room while Ian grabbed the flashlight from the kitchen. “It looks like we got all the embers,” he shouted into Maggie’s ear. “Keep looking for new ones and make sure the old ones are out. Ian and I will—”

“Come on, Danny!” Ian called from the kitchen.

Ian was ahead on the basement stairs with the flashlight. He swept the beam around the frigid cellar. Snow was banked against the far wall, carried in through the gaping hole left when the wind had ripped the door off hours earlier. Basic hand tools were arranged neatly on a pegboard above a small workbench. Danny tugged a hammer loose
and snatched a handful of nails from an open box on the bench. The nails were sizable; the groundskeeper had been using them to repair a storage shed.

Ian’s light found the table, which was covered with magazines, newspapers, advertising circulars, and various junk mail. He swept the surface bare with a swing of his arm. Danny wrenched the table over onto the pile of paper. “We gotta get the legs off—this thing will weigh a ton, and it’ll be hard enough to carry in the wind, even without the legs.”

The table was old and of the thick, stable, post-WWII design. Danny stood back a step and kicked out at the table with the bottom of his foot. The leg creaked and tilted. The next kick sent it skidding across the floor. Ian attacked the leg closest to him.