butt freezes. If I turn around, I’m rump roast.”
Everyone knew she was giving up, and Mom tried a number of tactics to keep her interested. Her main trick was to send in Tommy and little Jimmy, knowing full well Jimmy would not miss a chance to entertain anyone who would pay attention. We spent a good portion of January listening to his nonsensical made up songs, and song from cartoons that would never be seen again.
We lost our certainty of the date. The endless wind and heavy skies made it hard enough to notice when daytime rolled around, much less count the days. There were always other concerns. Dad was developing a hard sense of firewood paranoia, as he watched the stacks in the barn disappear. Mom did the same with the food, and after our best guess at Christmas, she reduced our meals to the minimum. Kirk and I lost a great deal of the muscle we had built in the fall, but the adults looked even worse.
Despite the realities of our diminishing food supply, Mom tried to keep Martha well fed. Martha refused the extra share at first, with sharp arguments when pressed, and then slowly started giving more of her food to George. He was a big man before the Breakdown, but he was looking more like a great uncle we had visited right before he died of cancer. George, even through the layers of clothing, was clearly wasting away.
At the end of January, he stumbled out of their tent. In the dim red glow from the woodstove, we could see the tears on his old hound-dog face. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, and said, “She’s gone.”
Mom covered her own tears at the news, but no one else did. I saw my father crying. It shook me to my own free flow of tears. Thinking back, I wondered how much of the crying was for Martha, how much for George, who clearly adored his wife, and how much it was for the symbol of loss in our own desperate situation. It was nighttime when it happened, and we simply could not go outside until the next day. George wrapped his wife in a blue plastic tarp and we helped him carry her up into the barn.
George was our version of a pastor. He was in charge of all prayer and blessing. We stood around Martha’s body, all of us rapidly chilling to the danger point, and waited for whatever words he would say. He did not speak. After a minute or so, we understood that he could not or would not speak. Mom jumped in with a rough version of her own.
“God, please take care of our Martha. Take her to a warm place and keep her safe. Amen.”
Even Jimmy understood the seriousness of the situation. He walked stolidly across the barn floor, without any of his usual skipping and hopping, and climbed down the ladder.
George had no interest in surviving his wife. He had a quiet conversation with Dad that night, and three days later, he died without a mark on him. His body rested with Martha’s, outside, under a plywood crypt that Dad and Arturo built when the temperature rose high enough. I’m still not sure what we lost when they died. Some sense of security, or continuity, or just the pleasure of their cheerful company, but I do know that winter felt even colder after their passing.
***
The thermometer twitched in May. By that time, a mere twenty below was practically sunbathing weather. Not that any of us had the energy for lying in the sun, which had begun to show on occasion. The endless dark cloud cover had retreated to a state I can only call, ‘nearly endless.’ I was dragging myself to the outhouse in a fog of fatigue, when I looked at the big thermometer hanging under the Carroll’s eaves and saw that it read seventeen below. I looked again. It actually had moved, for the first time in six eternal months. I forgot all thought of urination, and ran back into the barn, yelling, “The thermometer moved! The thermometer moved!”
Dad stuck his head out of the pit in stall three, with wide eyes, and asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Come see!”
Dad strapped on his cold weather gear and
Everyone knew she was giving up, and Mom tried a number of tactics to keep her interested. Her main trick was to send in Tommy and little Jimmy, knowing full well Jimmy would not miss a chance to entertain anyone who would pay attention. We spent a good portion of January listening to his nonsensical made up songs, and song from cartoons that would never be seen again.
We lost our certainty of the date. The endless wind and heavy skies made it hard enough to notice when daytime rolled around, much less count the days. There were always other concerns. Dad was developing a hard sense of firewood paranoia, as he watched the stacks in the barn disappear. Mom did the same with the food, and after our best guess at Christmas, she reduced our meals to the minimum. Kirk and I lost a great deal of the muscle we had built in the fall, but the adults looked even worse.
Despite the realities of our diminishing food supply, Mom tried to keep Martha well fed. Martha refused the extra share at first, with sharp arguments when pressed, and then slowly started giving more of her food to George. He was a big man before the Breakdown, but he was looking more like a great uncle we had visited right before he died of cancer. George, even through the layers of clothing, was clearly wasting away.
At the end of January, he stumbled out of their tent. In the dim red glow from the woodstove, we could see the tears on his old hound-dog face. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, and said, “She’s gone.”
Mom covered her own tears at the news, but no one else did. I saw my father crying. It shook me to my own free flow of tears. Thinking back, I wondered how much of the crying was for Martha, how much for George, who clearly adored his wife, and how much it was for the symbol of loss in our own desperate situation. It was nighttime when it happened, and we simply could not go outside until the next day. George wrapped his wife in a blue plastic tarp and we helped him carry her up into the barn.
George was our version of a pastor. He was in charge of all prayer and blessing. We stood around Martha’s body, all of us rapidly chilling to the danger point, and waited for whatever words he would say. He did not speak. After a minute or so, we understood that he could not or would not speak. Mom jumped in with a rough version of her own.
“God, please take care of our Martha. Take her to a warm place and keep her safe. Amen.”
Even Jimmy understood the seriousness of the situation. He walked stolidly across the barn floor, without any of his usual skipping and hopping, and climbed down the ladder.
George had no interest in surviving his wife. He had a quiet conversation with Dad that night, and three days later, he died without a mark on him. His body rested with Martha’s, outside, under a plywood crypt that Dad and Arturo built when the temperature rose high enough. I’m still not sure what we lost when they died. Some sense of security, or continuity, or just the pleasure of their cheerful company, but I do know that winter felt even colder after their passing.
***
The thermometer twitched in May. By that time, a mere twenty below was practically sunbathing weather. Not that any of us had the energy for lying in the sun, which had begun to show on occasion. The endless dark cloud cover had retreated to a state I can only call, ‘nearly endless.’ I was dragging myself to the outhouse in a fog of fatigue, when I looked at the big thermometer hanging under the Carroll’s eaves and saw that it read seventeen below. I looked again. It actually had moved, for the first time in six eternal months. I forgot all thought of urination, and ran back into the barn, yelling, “The thermometer moved! The thermometer moved!”
Dad stuck his head out of the pit in stall three, with wide eyes, and asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Come see!”
Dad strapped on his cold weather gear and
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