Winter Has Come To Kill

The pot of tea has just come to a boil, singing to me that it is ready. I answer its song with a cup in one hand and a spoonful of sugar in the other. The spoon clinks with the cup as I stir, sending a sharp pain through my right ear. I place the palm of my hand on the ear in hopes pressure will reduce the pain. After so many years later the ear still hurts, and I am not sure if there will ever be a day when it doesn't.

My slippers drag, the only sound in the house as I make my way over to the window with the tea in one hand. Frost conceals most of the window’s view, but there is enough visibility to see the evergreen tree is the only thing alive. The winter has come to kill and it is the only thing that has survived. The tree was not always desolate. It wasn’t always alone where everything it has ever known lays dead on the ground as unburied corpses that will soon decay. At least it survived, alone but alive. At least upstate the winter had the decency to spare a life, it hadn’t been so kind in the city. In the city, it took everything and everyone. It was something that could only be understood if it was seen. 

I saw it when I was coming home from the supermarket with two strollers, three children, and too many grocery bags for one person to carry. The narrow sidewalks already made it difficult to walk but the mounds of gray snow plowed against the streets only made it harder. What should have been a walk, became a hike as I tried to navigate through blocked crosswalks and impatient drivers. 

“Hurry up Lady, you’re holdin’ up traffic” one driver yelled over the sound of his car horn.

In the city, people were always upset, and winter only seemed to heighten this already inflated sense of anger. Arguing back would do nothing but put me and the children in danger. Knowing this, I chose to ignore him and continue the hike to the apartment. 

The strollers’ wheels kept getting caught on sidewalk cracks and bar grates. It was difficult to avoid the obstacles with plastic bags around my arms cutting off circulation. On the next grate I steered over, a subway train passed below at the same time causing a rush of hot smelly air to blow straight at us. I held my breath, not to avoid the smell of city air and pollution, but because of the fear that the train woke one of the children. My thought became a reality when a few seconds later I heard a voice in front of me. 

“Mommy, I’m cold,” Janet whined. 

“We are almost there and we will be nice and warm in the apartment. Why don’t we play a game of  iSpy?” I suggested, with the hope a game would distract her from the below freezing temperatures we were walking in. “I’ll start,” I said, turning my head left and right to find a color that would be difficult for her to find. But the only colors around us were the deep red of apartment bricks and the brown branches of leafless trees. I remember reading in a magazine once that children should be surrounded by bright colors because it helps to stimulate the developing part of the brain. There were no bright colors for them here, just the personification of despair. I needed to get out of this city. The children would love a place with colors everywhere you look. A place where the trees stay green all year round and…

“Mommy, you have to pick a color,” Janet said, dragging me from my thoughts.

Just when I was about to say a color, we turned the corner to be greeted by a man laying on the floor with a cardboard sign. 

“Let’s play another game. How about the quiet game,” I suggested to keep her from making an inappropriate comment about the man’s unpleasant smell. Many of the homeless men were harmless if unprovoked, but a child’s honesty has the ability to elicit uncertain reactions out of some people. 

I took in a sigh of relief once we passed the man, without any trouble. 

“I win! You made a sound,” Janet cheered. She always loved winning, and was a bit of a sore loser. That’s why her brothers never wanted to play with her. Someone always ended up in tears.

“You are so good at this game. You beat me everytime,” I said enthusiastically, putting on my best attempt to seem upset by the defeat. 

We continued silently for the rest of the way back; Janet played with one of the grocery items we bought, the boys are still sleeping, and I cultivated a plan to get the mail without dropping all the bags. Things would be much easier if God made mothers with three hands.

After one more block, we arrived at the apartment. I turned the strollers around and pushed the door open with my back. The smell of cigarettes filled the entryway. My jaw clenched as I breathed in the tobacco scent. It isn't safe for the children to be exposed to such a toxic chemical. City buildings don’t allow smoking inside common spaces, but no one wants to stand outside in the cold so they do it in the next closest space. I needed to get out of this city. 

Once both strollers were fully inside, I turned them back around. In front of me stood the person responsible for the smell; a woman no older than thirty in an outfit that looks like it was made for a girl no older than twelve. She leans on the ledge in front of the mailboxes, blocking the one I need to get to. I would say excuse me, but that won’t put her cigarette out. And I didn’t want the children to get any closer to the smoke, so I headed straight toward the elevator and decided to get the mail another time. 

It felt like hours before the elevator came. When it finally did, the lady had finished smoking and joined us for the ride up, carrying the smell with her. I’d failed at my attempt to keep the children away from her. Perhaps taking the stairs would have been a better option. Luckily she got off on the second floor, and left us to ride the other three floors alone. She left without ever saying a hello or goodbye. I wasn’t offended; That’s just how it was in the city. There was no community here, just individual people living their individual lives. 

We got off on the fifth floor and walked down the hallway to our apartment. It was the farthest one from the elevator. Even though the location wasn’t very convenient, at least we got to avoid the traffic that came in and out during all hours of the night. 

The keys were hidden in my purse, under bottles and pacifiers. Once I found them, I unlocked the door, and headed inside, surprised nothing dropped. 

All the children were awake when I came around the stroller to unstrap them. The straps loosened at the push of a button. And one by one, the children ran out the stroller and into the living room. Within seconds, the quiet apartment was filled with the sound of television and play. But all of that muted when the ticking of the clock became the only sound my ears could concentrate on. It was louder than the Dora theme song playing on the living room television. Louder than the twin boys wrestling in the other room. Louder than the honking of cars five stories below our apartment building. “Tick tock, Tick tock” was the only sound in the kitchen as I unpacked the groceries and began to prepare dinner. 

The size of the kitchen made cooking insufferable. “The box” we had called it when we first moved into the apartment. Its lack of any ventilation, trapped in all the heat from the boiling pots and turned my cheeks a shade of red deeper than the diced tomatoes on the cutting board.

Spaghetti and meatballs was his favorite meal. But only when the sauce was made from scratch and the noodles weren’t too sticky. It took some extra time to get the right texture and consistency. In the other batches I made, neither tasted right, so they had to get trashed. It wasn’t until the third try, that it finally came out perfect. But my trials and errors of the evening didn’t matter as long as he was happy. 

The children helped set the table, each tasked with the placement of a different tableware. I completed the table’s adornment, with the bowl of spaghetti and meatballs in the center. He would be so happy to see that we’d set the table correctly. I did it wrong before, and was corrected several times after. 

“Spaghetti and meatballs again?” Janet moaned, “We have been eating this all week.”

“Be grateful you have anything to eat at all because some people don’t,” I reminded her with a stern look, that she knew meant the conversation was over. “Now that we are all done complaining, let’s sit down.”

The hardwood floors creaked as the four of us pulled out our chairs to sit. Only one chair remained empty; His chair. It had been empty everyday for the past two weeks. He left in the middle of the afternoon one day, without so much as a goodbye, and hadn’t returned since. This wasn’t the first time he’d done something like this; He would be gone for days and then show up one day half asleep with blood red eyes and the same clothes he left in. This is the longest he has ever disappeared, but he always comes back. He will come back. There was a chance that today would be that day. With that thought, the world around me faded, once again, and the clock became my only company. 

Something close to thirty-minutes had passed when one of the children asked, “Can we eat now?” I’d made them wait, in case he came, and we were able to eat as a family. But as the clock’s shorthand moved farther along the clock the sinking feeling began to form deep in my stomach at the realization that he probably won’t be back today.  

“Yes, let’s eat” I said, choking back tears. I wouldn’t let them run down my cheeks. I wouldn’t let the children see me cry. 

The metal forks scraped against the glass plates. Around and around until the noodles suffocated the fork. Until only the part that controlled the fork could be seen. But who could feel bad for it, that was what the fork was made to do. It was just a tool someone used to get to what they truly wanted. The scrapping stopped and when I looked up from my plate, I was alone at the table. 

The children went off to play, and I headed back into the box to clean up. The garbage bag was already full from the previous batches, but it began to overflow as I cleared our plates. The perfect spaghetti created a layer on top of the failed spaghetti, and no one would ever know when one stopped and the other began. To anyone else, it was all the same: an uneaten bag of yellow noodles as thin as hair, blood red tomato sauce, and chunks of ground meat. If I had gotten it right on the first try, there wouldn’t be so much wasted food and I wouldn’t have used up all the ingredients we’d bought today. 

“Mistakes have consequences,” he'd tell me when I didn't do something correctly. I would rather not find out what consequence he would execute if his favorite meal was not made when he returned. Which meant the children and I would have to go to the supermarket again tomorrow. 

I rinsed the mountain of foam off of the last plate in the sink before heading to the living room to tell the children tomorrow’s plans. The living room was a mess; toys covered the couch, while its cushions were spread across the floor. The mess was not a shock, the room always looked like a wild zoo after dinner. What caught my attention was the woman on the television. Sentences flew out her mouth as quick as lighting and every word was spoken with an exaggerated amount of enunciation. They weren’t allowed to watch the news. It was a channel dedicated to death and tragedy. Children didn’t need to hear about such gruesome things. I reached over a pillow fort for the remote. Seconds before I pressed the off button, the woman on the screen was now standing next to the weather forecast. It was the only useful service the news provided so I turned up the volume to hear.  

“Blizzard conditions are expected tomorrow with up to ten inches of snow and high wind gusts,” the weathercaster reported, “Stay indoors and off the roads.” 

This was going to be terrible. In the city, snowstorms were vicious. People didn’t let the weather stop them from going where they needed to, so traffic would be worse. With buildings everywhere the snow didn’t have many places to go, so the sidewalks would be narrower. The pipes in apartment buildings were likely to freeze, so people would be grumpier. 

I would have to go out in that storm. I didn’t want to, but he didn’t leave me much of a choice. The only other option was to not go, which wasn’t really much of an option at all. The storm he could rage was more powerful than nature’s. Not going would be a mistake and those had consequences, not exceptions. 

After making what I hoped was the right choice, I got the children ready for bed. The two bedroom apartment was a bit cramped for five people but we made it work. The twins usually slept in one bed while Janet slept in the bed across from them, but when he wasn’t here, I’d let them sleep with me. 

We laid down in a row, huddled close underneath the blanket. With the end of a long day came exhaustion. Sleep began to take over, when the sound of yelling stopped it. The people who lived above us always reserved their arguments for the night. We could only hear them because the city apartment walls were as thin as paper. Words that weren’t appropriate for any child’s ears were being thrown around. So instead of falling asleep to the screams of strangers, they fell asleep to the sound of my voice as I sang them a song: 

“Five little ducks swimming to the shore, one swam away and then there were four.

Four little ducks swimming in the sea, one swam away and then there were three.

Three little ducks swimming at the zoo, one swam away and then there were two.

Two little ducks swimming just for fun, one swam and then there was one. 

One little duck swimming on his own, he swam away and now he's all alone.” 

The next morning, we got ready for the walk. I bundled the children up in layers of clothing before strapping them into the strollers. The only thing visible were their eyes, every other part of them was hidden behind hats, gloves, and scarves. 

We repeated the same steps as yesterday but in reverse; we walked down the long hallway, rode the elevator five floors down, and entered the lobby to the smell of cigarettes. The same lady stood in front of the mailboxes, puffing smoke into the air. She watched as I struggled to open the doors. That’s all she did, watch, with no motive to offer any help. 

The moment we stepped outside the sharp wind almost pushed us back in. Large flakes of snow fell from the sky like confetti. The exhale of every breath resembled the woman in the hallway’s puffs of smoke. Every step forward left a footprint of slush behind. It wasn’t beautiful, the snow didn’t glisten as it blanketed the ground, it was chaos, the creation of disorder. 

There wasn’t much visibility as we walked. The snow that wasn’t falling down was being pushed up by the wind’s forceful gusts. The world became white, as the wind blew the snow in every direction, making it difficult to see two feet ahead. With the hope I wouldn’t hit anything, I turned the corner and the strollers rounded it with an ease that only came from the conditions of the road. Its slippery state helped to push the otherwise heavy strollers, but at the same time made it difficult to steer. 

“Mommy, I’m cold,” Janet whined. 

“I know, me too, but we are almost there,” I assured her as my teeth chattered. I didn’t attempt to distract her with a game this time. The cold stopped me from thinking of one, and I didn’t have too much faith that it would be able to distract her this time.  

We waited at the corner to cross the street. The curb ramp’s rubber padding and tactile surface stopped the stroller wheels from sliding down with the slip of the snow. The traffic lights were difficult to see in the snow haze. Green and Red lights couldn’t shine bright enough to pierce through it. So I stood and waited. 

The headlights of a car came into view a short time later. Their high beams helped to make way of the road, just enough that I could see he was approaching a red light. I pushed the strollers down the ramp and headed for the other side. 

The headlights I saw from afar were now close enough to blind me. The car it belonged to appeared a few feet away, rolling at a speed that wasn’t slow enough to make an instant stop. Headlights got closer and the car rolled faster. I tried to speed up, to make it to the other side, but wind pushed me back. I pushed the strollers harder, willing it to move, but the wind kept us stuck, frozen like icicles on a precipice waiting for their death. 

I jumped to the side of the strollers and swung out my arms as a shield ready to take most of the impact. The world went black as I closed my eyes and waited. 

I heard tires swerving on the pavement followed by a loud bang. But nothing happened. I felt the same way I felt a few seconds ago. Except for a sudden pain in my right ear, that I assumed was from the deafening boom of the crash. Still, I wasn’t crushed under the weight of a thousand pound machinery. There had been a crash; metal thud and glass shattered but it didn’t hit us. Relief flooded through me. The world came into view again as I opened my eyes. My head turned searching for sight of the accident. A wheel laid on the ground, too small to be from a car. Next to it was a strap with a red button in the middle, the kind that was made for a child’s seat. 

I turned around and reached for the handle of the strollers to make our way out of what would soon become a street full of ambulances. But the only thing my hand grabbed was a few snowflakes. The strollers weren’t in front of me. All I could do at that moment was pray. Pray that it wasn't true. Pray that this was all a dream. I turned and saw it then, all three of the children on the pearl white snow. It was true. It wasn’t a dream. 

My knees hit the pavement. Every bone in my body was paralyzed by intense pain. Everything froze as agony flooded through me. People spoke around me but I didn’t hear anything. The world became a snowglobe, motionless except for the snow that fell like ash. 

I couldn’t move my eyes from the sight. I stared as the ambulance came. I stared as people stared. I stared as they took their lifeless bodies from the scene. And after everything and everyone was gone all I could think about was the spaghetti in the garbage can. Strands of hair no longer attached to a head looked like noodles. Blood that dripped from mounds of snow looked like tomato sauce. Severed limbs were the meatballs, all ground up and squashed from the pressure. 

I don’t know how long I stood there, staring. It could have been minutes, hours, or days. The next thing I remember was making spaghetti in the kitchen when I received a call that he had died. He had died. Froze to death after overdosing, they said. I held the phone to my ear and just stared inside the pot. Noodles drowned at the bottom of the pot, their path inevitable. Bubbles of water formed rising and bursting at the surface, gasping for escape. 

 Years have passed, and my eyes still remain unmoved, fixed upon the only tree in the yard. After all, is it truly a forest, if only one tree lives? And I realized I'd been a fool to believe being alone and alive is better than being dead with company. I take one last sip of my tea before making my decision; I will no longer be a fool.