It felt urgent to dig out his car. He rebundled, walked over to the Colemans’ garage to take back the same shovel he’d returned on Saturday. It felt a little warmer than it had earlier, not quite as bitter, or else he was getting used to it. He started his car to let it warm up as he worked, set his phone on the charger. He hacked and hacked and pried plates of ice from the surface, tossed them to the street piece by piece.
When he finally cleared enough to get his car out, he sat in the driver’s seat and saw that his phone had come to life. Four times, Jess’s name appeared on his screen. More texts: his mother, Emma, Patrick, his mother again, André, a local number he didn’t recognize. He read all of them and purposely skipped Jess’s, saving hers for last. Emma and André wanted to know if power was back on in Gillam, when they should report to work. His mother wanted to tell him she had plenty of food in her fridge if he wanted some of it and that Mr. Sheridan had cleared her driveway. Patrick wanted him to come for dinner, said he had a bottle of scotch they could open. The unfamiliar number was Rob Waggoner, to tell him some police officers might be coming around. Finally, he tapped Jess’s name.
You home?
I’m stopping by
Are you in there? Your car is here.
Ok I’m going
He looked up. She’d been there while he was gone. He got out of the car and stood there, imagining where exactly she’d walked, what path she’d taken. He imagined her opening the door of their house, stepping inside. She’d been in there and he hadn’t even sensed it.
“Jess,” he said aloud.
“Malcolm,” a voice responded, and Malcolm wheeled around to find Hugh’s guy Billy standing behind him in a jacket too light for the weather, a flat cap pulled low over a gaunt face.
“Jesus,” Malcolm said, and out of habit almost went to shake his hand.
“What’s the story?” Billy asked Malcolm, as if he’d just come by to shoot the breeze.
Malcolm steeled himself. He was tempted to make fun of the guy. His whole look seemed copied from a bad movie.
“What do you want, Billy?”
Billy laughed. “What do you think?”
“Yeah, tell Hugh it’ll be all good in a few weeks.”
“By this weekend.”
“This weekend?” Malcolm said. “That’s a joke. Look around. Nothing’s moving. And there’s another storm coming.”
Billy reached for his pocket and Malcolm swallowed, felt his whole body tense up. But Billy only drew out a pack of cigarettes, followed by a long search in the other pocket for a lighter.
“Where is he anyway? I tried calling him. I’d like to talk to him.”
“You left messages?”
“Yes, but if you’d let him know, I’d appreciate it.”
Billy smirked. “Sure.”
“Because what I want to know is why’d he go to so much trouble talking me into buying the place if he knew how it would go. He knew about the new place opening on Oak. There’s no way he didn’t. He knew the vendors wouldn’t grandfather me into those old contracts. He said we’d work it out, not to worry about it, but then he comes up with an interest rate that’s impossible to get ahead of? What’s the point?”
Billy shrugged. “The only reason he’s been as patient as he’s been is because of how far back you go. But his patience has a limit.”
“You know, we didn’t sign anything,” Malcolm said. “I have a letter that says the money was a gift. Free and clear. I could stop paying him right now and there’s not a thing he could do about it.”
Malcolm followed Billy’s gaze to the little house, top to bottom, how cozy it looked capped in snow. Of course there were things Hugh could do about it.
“We started around the same time,” Billy said.
“Started what?”
“Working for Hugh. I started and then a few weeks later there you were.”
Malcolm hadn’t realized that. Billy seemed like a guy who was born the age he was now, in the clothes he was wearing. When Malcolm started at the Half Moon, he remembered seeing Billy along with Hugh’s other guys and thinking they’d all worked for him forever.
“He put me on his other jobs but he put you in the bar.”
His point was there somewhere, but Malcolm couldn’t pin it down.
“Did you hear what happened to Pete Spear?” Billy asked.
Pete Spear, town manager, had come by the bar maybe four times in a short period, looking for Hugh. He wanted to catch him for a sec, he said to Malcolm the last time he was in. He just wanted to talk. Malcolm wondered if the guy was losing it a little, how many times had he explained that Hugh didn’t own the place anymore.
“Got mugged I heard,” Billy said. “Beat up pretty bad. In Midtown. Lost sight in one eye.”
They both squinted into the glare that rose off the surface of the snow.
* * *
Back in his car after Billy drove away, Malcolm took deep breaths. He cupped his hands over the heating vents. He tried counting to a hundred but he kept losing his place. He used to ask himself what he was going to do, but the question was too large, and had no answer, so at some point he decided to just get through each day. The days would add up to weeks, weeks to months, and maybe everything would be fine. But it looked as if that plan would not work after all. He scrolled through his contacts and tried calling Hugh again. No answer.
The main road was crunchy with sand and salt, but the side streets were slippery, and Malcolm could feel the wheels of his car losing traction. He drove to his mother’s first, felt relief at the sight of the perfect boxed cuts Mr. Sheridan’s snowblower had made along her driveway. She tried to get him to stay, and when she saw he wouldn’t settle, she suggested she tag along with him, help at the bar and keep him company.
“Ma, no,” Malcolm said. “Just keep the house warm.”
“Well, you should sleep here tonight at least. I have the fireplace.”
“I can’t. But I’ll come back.”
“Is everything okay? Besides the weather, I mean. Besides Jess.”
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” he said as he imagined Jess showing up at the house again. Four texts in a row was something. Four texts in a row was more than he’d gotten in months. So she knew she had some explaining to do. If she did show up at the house again, he wanted to be there.
“Fine,” she said. “Go. Darren will be—” She stopped speaking so abruptly that he looked up.
“What were you going to say?” Malcolm asked. He left Billy and Hugh and the Half Moon and Tripp Waggoner and even Jess outside in the cold for a moment. “Something about Dad?”
She looked at him as if he were the one who’d confused things. “I’m calling Mary. They didn’t get one flake of snow in Boston. Can you believe it?”