to fall as she drove back to her condo, but Hannah barely noticed. And once she got home, she scooped up Moishe, no easy task with her twenty-three-pound feline, and carried him to the bedroom. She placed Moishe on a pillow, waited until he had made a nest for himself, and then she changed into sweatpants and a warm turtleneck sweater.
“It’s naptime, Moishe,” she said, stretching out on the bed to pet him.
Her eyes filled with tears and she blinked them away. It was nice to know that everyone in Lake Eden wanted the best for her and wished her well, but that didn’t help one iota when it came to fixing her shattered dreams or mending her broken heart.
Moishe seemed to know that something was wrong and he reached out with his paw, claws retracted, and patted her cheek. Then he snuggled closer and Hannah, comforted at last, fell asleep.
* * *
Snow came down in big, icy flakes that fell faster and faster to cover the drifts that already existed in an irregular, lumpy blanket of white. Children who were out playing in Lake Eden backyards, released for good behavior in Sunday school and church, began to form snowballs to throw at their friends.
The weathermen on local radio and television had not predicted this sudden winter storm. It had blown in seemingly out of nowhere. In the space of a few short minutes, the wind had reached gale force and mothers, glancing out kitchen windows as they made preparations to start the family supper, realized that some of their young offspring were holding on to the arms of their older siblings and trying to trudge through the snow to the back door.
Parents rushed outside to herd their children into warm houses and to dry wet, snow-covered clothing. Soup was heated, and soon the children, dressed in warm bathrobes and slippers, were sipping hot soup from mugs at kitchen tables.
Even though it was only mid-afternoon, the sky began to darken as the snowfall intensified. The readings on outdoor thermometers dropped lower, and levers on thermostats all over town were raised to higher temperatures. Windows rattled like a cadence played on snare drums, and television sets and radios were tuned to weather reports.
The hillocks in backyards turned into snowbanks that shot up faster than a preteen with a growth spurt while local weathermen compared this winter storm to the blizzard of ought-nine. Hearing that news, farm wives donned parkas and went out to make sure the ropes from the house to the barn were intact while their husbands and hired hands rounded up livestock and led them into the barn. And while all this was happening, Hannah was sleeping, exhausted and depressed from her morning ordeal.
* * *
Once Hannah woke up, after a two-hour nap, she barely recognized the landscape outside her bedroom window. Everything, as far as she could see, was covered with an unending sheet of snow. The familiar scene she saw every day was completely transformed into a pillow of white. She could no longer see where the planter between the buildings began and ended. And to her surprise, she could barely see the building only a bit over several dozen feet away from hers. Her view was obscured by blowing snow, and the icy flakes were still falling, swirling in dizzying patterns outside the double-paned glass.
“It’s snowing, Moishe,” Hannah said to the cat who was sleeping next to her. “It’s a winter storm and it looks like a bad one.”
Moishe yawned widely and gave a little quiver as he roused himself. Then he got to his feet, reluctantly she thought, and yawned again.
Hannah glanced at the clock on her bed table, blinked several times, and then read the time again. She had to wake up and get ready to meet her whole family for dinner at the Lake Eden Inn. When Delores and Doc had married, they’d decided to make Sunday family night. Thankfully, as far as everyone was concerned, Delores was no longer cooking their family dinners. Hannah’s mother only knew how to make three entrées and, for years, Hannah and her sisters had suffered through Hawaiian Pot Roast, EZ Lasagna, or reheated baked chicken purchased from the Lake Eden Red Owl Grocery store.
“Come on, Moishe.” Hannah sat up on the edge of the bed and grabbed her warm, fleece-lined slippers. “We’d better check the weather report.”
Hannah got to her feet and walked down the carpeted hallway to the living room with Moishe following behind her.