which she immediately slipped on once again. Collette however calmly and serenely sat up, slipped into her snow boots, which stood by the door, and then slipped into her knee-length heavy coat, still totally naked beneath it. Sophia soon joined her as they headed outside behind my father to carry in the groceries. I reappeared, roll of paper towels in hand, kneeling down on the hardwood floor, mom still standing nearby watching me.
“What the hell?”
I turned looking up at her over my shoulder. She was staring at the bed.
“What?” I actually asked her.
“What did you guys do? Dump a gallon of water on the bed?” she asked. “It’s soaked! How can you possibly sleep on that?” She walked over, looking down, once again turning towards me as though seeking some sort of explanation.
“Ah…that’s Collette’s fault. She ah…she ah…squirted,” was all I could think of to say.
“Squirted?” Mom said in surprise, her eyes widening. “Oh really! I wish I’d been there to see that!”
I almost fell over.
“Hurry up now Max, I’m sure your dad’s waiting. I’ll finish up there, and get some clean dry sheets,” she added, suddenly in a busy little flurry herself as I scrambled back into my own clothing, sans shirt, just throwing on my winter parka and went outside into the now full blown blizzard to help dad with the new generator.
**
It took the better part of an hour to get it hooked up as the girls helped mom put things away. Shortly thereafter however, we had power again, though we limited the use of the lights even then, only using what we needed to, and then only sparingly. I soon after re-stoked the fire, nervously stacking even more wood than we needed as mom made coffee in preparation for what we all knew was going to be a very interesting family chat, and more than likely a very long evening, especially as it was early yet.
By now Collette had at least put on my old football jersey, which was another reminder of the first time we’d all fooled around together. I still hadn’t put a shirt on, but with the fire going, along with the heater for the house, I was toasty warm, if not almost too much. But I also think my nerves were adding to the rise in temperature too. And though mom and dad’s reaction wasn’t at all what I might have expected,
I was still waiting for the proverbial, “other shoe to fall,” as I sat there fidgeting in my seat. Mom calmly and patiently poured us all a little coffee, even adding a splash of Irish cream to it while we waited on Sophia to join us. For some reason, she’d opted to actually dress, reappearing in a pair of jeans along with a very modest looking blouse, which included a bra beneath it.
“Well now, obviously…I think we have a few things to discuss,” mom began looking over towards dad receiving a nod of the head from him as she did so. Obviously, he’d given over the role to mom to start things off, though I kept expecting him to jump in and take over any moment now.
“I think it’s important that we clear the air here, lay all the cards out on the table,” mom went on using metaphors as she was prone to do whenever she had something she felt was important to say. “But most importantly, I think we all need to be upfront and honest with one another about things, especially after what’s happened. And particularly, because we’re all apt to be holed up inside the house now for the next several days.”
Before we’d really gotten down to business and while still waiting for Sophia to reappear, dad had told us about what they’d found out and heard about the storm, along with their decision to head back when they did. Dad told us that the weather service had in fact declared this as the worst storm on record for this region in over forty years. They’d seen some satellite images of it while in town,
looking a little like a hurricane, the eye of it just then starting to edge over where we lived. It had been for that reason that dad had decided it was now or never…so he and mom had decided to head for home while they still could.
The airport was shut down, though it was over two hours away, and not that any of us needed to worry about that yet for the better part of another week, it would have been far too risky to even consider under the circumstances. Already several people were stranded, with hotels and motels suddenly filled up, another reason mom and dad had decided to head home. It was most likely they wouldn’t have even been able to get a room.
“Anyway, that’s why we came back….early,” dad said once again trying to hide a smile. “And it looks like we’re going to be pretty much snowed in by the looks of it, for the next several days at least. So we might as well get used to the idea, and make the best of things,” he’d added, after which he’d pretty much given the floor over to mom once Sophia had rejoined us, now dressed and with dad still trying to look somewhat serious, though still hiding a smile.
Good old Sophia was the one that cut right to the chase. “So…are we in trouble?” she asked, sounding more like the young girl she once used to be so long ago, that same girl that so mischievously got her way and somehow managed to stay out of trouble though she always seemed to be getting into it. Whereas I, on the other hand, actually tried to behave myself and be a good kid, but was somehow found out for every minor incident I was ever involved in.
“I guess that depends on the way you look at things,” mom began. “Let’s be honest here,” she told her, looking at her directly, and then at the two of us. “You’ve opened a door…walked through it to the other side, it’s not one that’s going to be so easy walking back through again after that, or in closing it,” she informed us. And I knew as she said that, she was right. It wouldn’t be. “So the only trouble, as I see it, is how you’re going to deal with that going forward. If you’re worried about being in trouble with us as far as we see it? No…you’re not.”
Sophia and I both were a bit surprised by that, though Collette as usual seemed to be taking all this in on a much higher level than we were. Maybe perhaps because she was older, a bit wiser, and wasn’t seeing herself as a kid again the same way that I think Sophia and I were.