Salt of the Earth, Heat of the Hearth

Ralph was out back cutting firewood when the sky turned that certain winter gray, the kind that tasted like metal and felt like waiting. He had found his rhythm with the axe, wood splitting under his swing in clean, sharp sounds that echoed off the Appalachian hills. Sweat beaded along his brow despite the freezing cold. One drop gathered at the tip of his nose, hung there a second, then fell onto the blade. A tiny offering. He noticed it, snorted once, and kept chopping. The work felt good. Solid. He was a man who, above all, provided heat and shelter for his household when the world turned hard and cold.

Inside, Dot was canning the last of the peaches. Glass jars lined the mahogany shelves Ralph had built for her cannin’, glowing like captured sunsets: golds, reds, greens. Summer's harvest, salted or sugared and sealed in glass. Earlier that week she’d put up peppers, tomatoes, and okra. Rows of jars stood like quiet soldiers, preserving sustenance against the lean months.

Winter was coming, and the blizzard was rolling in quick--she could feel it. Her knees ached. The winter air seemed to press against the windows. She could feel the icy aura when she held her open palm close to the windowpane. She became lost in thought again. She began to drift, as the snow.

Dot remembered winters when their three boys were small, when the snow had drifted all the way up over the doorknob and the wind screamed like a banshee. But they had always stayed warm. There had always been soup on the stove, bread on the table, and woodsmoke rising from the chimney. Steadfast. Sure. Secure. That was how she felt in the winter time with Ralph at the helm.

She and Ralph were older now. The boys were grown and gone, scattered across counties and years, with lives of their own. Dot felt grateful that her children were raised and that she and Ralph had these quiet moments again. It was just the two of them and the steady rituals that had kept them alive all this time. They would manage. They always did.

As Dot was lost in thought, Ralph shouldered the front door open. He nudged it with one long arm while clutching a bundled load of firewood in the other. A little gust of cold rode in with him, followed by the smell of fresh-cut pine and the lingering scent of woodsmoke from an earlier fire. His arms were so long she always admired the way he could carry half a tree in one trip.

Dot smiled. “Oh! Thank you. The fire was just startin’ to die. You’re right on time.”

“That’s me, Mr. Right On Time,” Ralph half-bragged, chuckling as he crossed the room. He knelt at the hearth, poked the glowing embers, and laid a couple pieces of pine onto the coals. Sparks flew up, tiny fireflies in the dim room, before they curled into smoke and vanished up the chimney. He closed the fire screen, stood, and let the warmth kiss his face.

The living room settled into its familiar evening shape: fire whispering in the grate, the scent of resin and ash, and the low murmur of a football game from the television in the corner. Ralph eased himself into his favorite recliner, his body knowing just how to sink into the cushions. Dot finished her supper dishes, wiped down the counters, then joined him as the sky outside dimmed to violet and the first flakes began to fall.

They ate, they talked, they watched the sun go down behind the pasture. The colors faded, and as soon as the last strip of light slipped away, the snow began to blow in earnest. The two lovers embraced by the fireplace. The snow-blew-all night.

Dot did too, for a little while.

When she woke the next morning, Dot stood at the window for a long moment, her hand resting on the cold glass. Winter always had a way of quieting the land and sharpening her memory. She thought of her childhood, of how serious her daddy had been about hustling up enough wood to keep their family, of eight warm, and how her mama had rationed and planned every jar and sack to stretch through the harsh winter months.

Her daddy used to say, “Snow don’t just cover things, it tells on folks.”

He’d joke with their neighbor, razzin’ him for his weak summer harvest. “You best go on and plantcha self a turnip patch, Earl,” he’d call over the fence.

Daddy was always givin’ that neighbor the business, Dot thought, smiling to herself. But behind the teasing, there was truth. Winter revealed who had put in the work of preparation, long before the first flake fell.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Ralph’s voice, as coarse as sea salt called to Dot from the kitchen. “What can we scare up for breakfast?”

He never meant to sound like a drill sergeant. It was just Ralph being Ralph. She had grown fond of it and had adjusted to its cadence long ago. She followed the sound of his voice into the kitchen.

Dot reached for her big silver bowl, the dough knife, and the old tin biscuit cutters her mama had given to her on her wedding day. “How’s bacon and biscuits for breakfast?” She panned up the bacon and turned on the oven.

“That’ll be fiiine,” Ralph drawled, smiling slow as he slid across the kitchen floor...sneaking his hands around her waist from behind. He pulled her close, the heat of him soaking through her thick, silk nightgown. She smiled.

He buried his nose in the nape of her neck, inhaling her essence deeply like she was the one thing in the house he couldn’t live without.

“You’re givin’ me chills, Ralph. Did you want breakfast or did you want me?” she asked, turning, her bright green eyes meeting his as she took his arms in her hands with a familiar, playful sensuality.

“Both,” he replied without a second thought.

“Which one do you want first?” Her eyes focused on his romantic gaze.

“You,” he said, leaning in to kiss her.

She was aroused. His lips were plump and smooth. His mouth was warm. Her nose was cold. Kissing her slowly, his tongue tunneled through her lips and tickled hers. She looked at him with a longing that she could never stop once it got started.

And it had started...

Dot tied on her bathrobe later and padded back into the kitchen. Time for breakfast. She’d worked up quite an appetite, she dawned a secret little smile.

The oven was still on. The bacon, still panned up, waited on top of the stove.

She and Ralph had gotten lost in the moment earlier. She pulled the buttermilk and biscuit mix from the cabinet and began to work the dough. Back to the refrigerator for the butter. She always added some, even though the recipe didn’t call for it.

As she rolled out and cut the biscuits, she thought back to her mama and daddy in their old kitchen. She remembered the sound of them giggling when they thought the children were busy. Her mama swatting at her daddy’s hands. Daddy trying to run his hands up the backside of her dress. Mama would try to calm him by whispering something about "little eyes everywhere."

Daddy would always murmur something in her ear, kiss her on the neck and excuse himself. A little while later, Mama would disappear too. When Mama reappeared, she looked as fresh and put together. Like nothing happened.

Back then, the roads weren’t well carved out, nor did the state maintain them. Dot’s homeplace sat on a red dirt road that turned to deep ruts and slick mud every winter. When it snowed, melted, and refroze, the family, the house, and whatever supplies they had laid in were all they could count on for a week or more. Once, when she was a girl, she and her family were snowed in for seven or eight days straight.

She and her sisters had gone near stir-crazy. Her two brothers kept to themselves in their room, trading comic books and secrets. But there were four girls, a whole flock, as Daddy liked to say. "He called us his gaggle of gigglers." She spoke to herself silently.

After being snowed in for five solid days, that winter, they were not giggling. They were bickering over games and sweaters and who got the good seat by the fire. Dot remembered how her daddy’s patience finally snapped.

"You girls wanna fuss?" he questioned, as he opened the front door a blast of cold air stung their cheeks. "Fuss with this snow in the walkway," he thundered, shoving a shovel into each girl's hands."

It was the only time, that Dot could remember, her Daddy making any girl shovel snow.

Dot learned her lesson after that. She didn’t bicker with her sisters when the snow fell. Winter, she realized, applied pressure. When winter squeezed you, it revealed your character. These lessons of her childhood played, like old movie reels in the theatre of her mind.

Just then, Ralph emerged from the bedroom. He carried warmth with him, trailing like a flame. He came into the kitchen just as Dot was sliding the biscuit tray into the oven. The bacon was popping in the cast-iron skillet, sending a smell that wrapped itself around the whole room like a nostalgic embrace.

Dot turned down the skillet and scooped Ralph in a hug. "Hiya, Mr. Right On Time!" She replied, naturally, while she held him.

"Hiya, Mrs. Time," he answered, hugging her back. He kissed her forehead and she released him so he could fix his coffee.

He poured himself a cup of coffee, leaned a hip against the counter, and watched her move about the kitchen. The smell of woodsmoke and coffee curling together, creating a unique ambiance. After a moment, his eyes grew distant, then he began to speak.

"You know," he said slowly, "mornings like this always bring me back to that winter when the boys were knee-high and we nearly salted ourselves to death."

"We?" Dot laughed, already knowing where Ralph's story was headed. "Lord help us. Not the soup again."

"Oh, the soup," Ralph confirmed, nodding his head. “January's cold, midwinter. Snow stacked high as the windows. You were sick in bed. You couldn’t keep nothin’ down! Those boys had been carryin’ on like they hadn’t eaten in three days. I sent the boys outside to sled and I told myself, Ralphie, boy, this is your time to shine!"

Grinning. He set the mug down and held an invisible spoon in one hand, acting it out. "I put in potatoes, carrots, the ham bone… and then the salt. And then I forgot that I put in the salt. And put the salt again. I salted that pot like I was tryin’ to keep our whole family from spoilin’ until Kingdom come."

Dot laughed, "You salted that soup to survive the apocalypse!"

Ralph laughed again making a kind of duck sound as he tried to calm himself to continue his story. "Well, the boys came in from sleddin’, hats frozen, noses runny. I told them to try Dad's soup and tell me what they thought. Little Ralph took one sip and kept a straight face. Then Jasper and Ellis grabbed a spoon. They took one sip. One! Their faces puckered like they’d licked a salt block straight off the barn wall. Even the dog backed away!"

Dot erupted in laughter.

"But here’s the thing," Ralph went on, "the boys didn't complain, those three little rascals got to work like a rescue squad! Ralphie peeled every potato in the house. Jasper fetched more water, from the pump--and Ellis. He just brought buckets of snow, inside, swearing it would fix everything." He chuckled. "Didn’t understand chemistry, but their hearts were in the right place."

Dot wiped her eyes, smiling, crying. "Ellis gets it from you, dear." Ralph rolled his eyes. "But, we saved that dinner!" Dot declared.

“Yes, we did,” Ralph replied. “You shuffled out of that bed, pale as a sheet. You took one sip of my soup and praised me, anyway. You said, "We’ll fix it, babe. We always do."

"That’s the day I learned about salt, baby. It can ruin a good thing. But, salt-used right, keeps what matters from going bad-and melts away what isn't meant to stay. Winter’s the same way. It hardens the ground and sogs the galoshes. But, winter has a way of showing a man who he can lean on."

Dot reached across the counter and took Ralph's hand, their fingers lacing easily, like they had a thousand times before. The smell of bacon and biscuits and coffee wrapped around them, threading with the faint, smoldering scent of rising woodsmoke from the fireplace.

Dot spoke up. “Daddy used to say some folks were just born ‘salt of the earth. Didn’t know, back then, that Jesus said it first."

Ralph squeezed her hand. “Maybe we didn’t do everything right with those boys,” he said quietly, “but we kept ‘em warm. We kept ‘em fed. We kept showin’ up. And I believe that counts for somethin', don't you Dot?"

Dot smiled, feeling the truth of it settle warm and steady in her chest. "It counts, she paused, a lot." She winked at her husband.

The oven timer dinged, sharp and bright. Dot pulled the biscuits from the oven, their tops golden and their bottoms kissed just right. She laid them on the table beside the bacon. The chipped pepper and salt shaker, off to the right.

They had never set out to be anything grand. But season after season and year after year had solidified and revealed what they were made of--and who they had become, as one.

Outside, the pasture lay sealed in white, the world held still under winter’s heavy hand. Inside, fire crackled in the grate, woodsmoke captured and carried their silent prayers, to heaven, in the sky.

The two of them moved through their rituals of winter the way they always had: quiet hands, shared work, salt measured carefully--and a passionate warmth--passing between them like love's true promise. The kind of love that keeps.

The heat that still sparked between them, Dot and Ralph, had become exactly what this old world needed the most on a snow-bound morning. Some where between stacks of firewood, homemade preserves and over-salted soup--they had fashioned love. Their laughter rising into the hallway of their home was the sweetest smelling aroma--to God.

He reached for her hand. "Back then, the boys saved the soup. But you saved me."

Dot squeezed his fingers a put her head on his shoulder, thanking God.