"Kate Wilhelm - April Fools' Day Forever" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

Wilhelm, Kate - April Fools' Day Forever.htm




APRIL FOOLS' DAY
FOREVER
Kate Wilhelm


On the last day of March a blizzard swept across the lower Great
Lakes, through western New York and Pennsylvania, and raced
toward the city with winds of seventy miles an hour, and snow
falling at the rate of one and a half inches an hour. Julia watched it
from her wide windows overlooking the Hudson River forty miles
from the edge of the city and she knew that Martie wouldn't be
home that night. The blizzard turned the world white within minutes
and the wind was so strong and so cold that the old house groaned
under the impact. Julia patted the window sill, thinking, "There,
there," at it. "It'll be over soon, and tomorrow's April, and in three or
four weeks I'll bring you daffodils." The house groaned louder and
the spot at the window became too cold for her to remain there
without a sweater.
Julia checked the furnace by opening the basement door to listen. If
she heard nothing, she was reassured. If she heard a wheezing and
an occasional grunt, she would worry and call Mr. Lampert, and
plead with him to come over before she was snowed in. She heard
nothing. Next she looked over the supply of logs in the living room.

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Wilhelm, Kate - April Fools' Day Forever.htm


Not enough by far. There were three good-sized oak logs, and two
pine sticks. She struggled into her parka and boots and went to the
woodpile by the old barn that had become a storage house, den,
garage, studio. A sled was propped up against the grey stone-and-
shingle building and she put it down and began to arrange logs on it.
When she had as many as she could pull, she returned to the house,
feeling her way with one hand along the barn wall, then along the
basket-weave fence that she and Martie had built three summers
ago, edging a small wild brook that divided the yard. The fence took
her in a roundabout way, but it was safer than trying to go straight
to the house in the blinding blizzard. By the time she had got back
inside, she felt frozen. A sheltered thermometer would show no
lower than thirty at that time, but with the wind blowing as it was,
the chill degrees must be closer to ten or twenty below zero. She
stood in the mud room and considered what else she should do. Her
car was in the garage. Martie's was at the train station. Mail. Should
she try to retrieve any mail that might be in the box? She decided