The Weight of White

Frank stood in the kitchen's shadowed glow, the old refrigerator hum a dull counterpoint to the quiet outside. Three AM. The world was going white. He hadn’t meant to wake, but the sheer lack of sound had pulled him from a restless sleep. No wind, no cars on the street, just the soft, insistent pressure of falling snow. It piled on the sill, a thick, clean blanket over the gritty urban landscape he usually saw. He watched it for a long minute, a slow swirl, like sugar being poured from a height.

He walked to the living room window, pulling back a corner of the curtain. Streetlights wore fuzzy halos, and the usually bare branches of the oak across the road were suddenly plump and silent. His breath fogged the glass. He felt the chill seeping in, even through the double pane. Turning, he glanced down the short hall to their bedroom door, slightly ajar. Sarah was in there, sound asleep, probably dreaming about those garden gnomes she collected or the endless paperwork from her job.

He could picture her, curled on her side, a faint snore, her hand tucked beneath her cheek. Thirty years. Thirty years of those snores, those curled-up shapes in the bed beside him. Sometimes, he’d reach out in the dark, just to confirm she was there. Lately, he hadn't. It wasn't that they fought. Not anymore. The big shouting matches had stopped years ago, worn down by repetition, by the dull ache of knowing what the other would say before they even opened their mouth.

Now, it was the small things. The way she’d stack the dishes just so, a silent judgment on his own haphazard piling. His habit of leaving his socks in the living room, a tiny rebellion against her order. Little nicks, accumulating, like ice on a forgotten windowpane. He thought about that conversation last week, about Mark’s tuition. "You always said he could go anywhere," she'd said, her voice flat, not angry, just… tired. And he’d snapped, "And you always said we'd save more."

Two sentences, but they hung in the air for days, a heavy, unspoken agreement that someone had failed, but neither would admit who. Mark was in his room, probably headphones on, slumped over a video game or some coding project. Eighteen now. A ghost in the house. He’d come home from school, nod a quick hello, disappear behind the closed door of his room. Frank missed the kid who used to drag his Tonka truck through the mud, then burst through the back door, covered in grime and glee.

The kid who’d sit at the kitchen table, babbling about dinosaurs while Frank tried to read the newspaper. Now, it felt like pulling teeth just to get a full sentence out of him. He knew it was normal, this pulling away. But knowing didn't make the hollow space any smaller. He wanted to knock on Mark’s door, ask him about something, anything. But what? "Hey, son, just checking if you're still alive in there?" It would sound stupid. He just wanted to feel that connection again, that easy flow that had once been there, before the silence of the house started seeping in even when they were all awake.

The snow kept falling. Each flake a quiet affirmation of the world's indifference, and its beauty. It covered the mess, the dead leaves, the cigarette butts someone had flicked onto the lawn next door. It made everything simple, clean, momentarily. Frank felt a pang of something he couldn't name. A yearning for that kind of clean slate, maybe. For their history to be covered over, just for a little while, to see what was underneath.

He moved away from the window, walked to the coffee machine. The ritual was comforting. Scoop the grounds, pour the water. The low gurgle and hiss as it started to brew. He thought about making an extra cup. For Sarah. He hadn’t done that in years. Not since she’d complained about it getting cold before she woke up. But maybe today. Maybe today she’d just want to know he’d thought of her.

The coffee dripped, dark and slow, a tiny hiss in the profound silence. He grabbed two mugs from the cupboard, warmed them under the tap. Set them both on the counter. He watched the steam curl from his own cup, then from the one waiting for her. The snow continued to fall, burying the old world, hour by hour.