The Cold for Company

If she lies still enough she can hear the cat’s gentle breathing. He’s curled up in the nook made by her bent knee with the duvet piled around him for further insulation. Light is beginning to come through the window, meaning they’ve slept in. Although the chores around the farm don’t require an exact schedule, the young woman prefers to complete her tasks as soon as possible.

“Up we get, Ivan.” She carefully extricates herself from around the cat. He responds with a teeth-baring yawn, an extravagant reach of his paw, and the more resolute position of a tight ball.

“Fair enough,” she says muffled by a yawn.

She dresses. Her day’s clothes are closer to pajamas, but fit comfortably under the snow pants and bulky coat she’ll be putting on shortly. As she leaves her bedroom, she turns to her left checking the thermostat. It reads 53 degrees. She reaches toward the dial to increase the electric heat, but pauses.

Instead she walks downstairs and takes a log from the wood alcove. The coals from the night before are still hot, a relief. She piles a few logs into the stove and opens the vent. She hears a thump from above.

“I’ll be right there,” she calls.

She begins up the stairs. Her feet feel stiff and unwilling to distribute her weight as if their soles were warped. She makes her way to the kitchen. She reaches for the kettle, fills it with tap water, returns it to the burner, and turns the dial. Inside the refrigerator is a small tin of cat food. The door is filled with condiments, spreads, and other items with undetermined expiration dates. The shelves are close to barren. The unopened freezer is less minimal, frozen foods are easier to portion for one person. There is milk and maple syrup for her coffee. Certain staples ought to remain.

She takes the cat food tin out and places it on the counter. Walking around the corner, she opens a door to another bedroom and leans down for a small metal dish. Her legs are stiff and she lets out a groan. Ivan answers with a demanding meow. He’s sitting on the nearby dresser for table linens and reaches towards her with a paw.

She pets him, gives him a kiss on the top of his head making the edges of his ears brush her cheeks, and another pet for good measure. She scoops the pate from the metal tin and deposits it into the dish. She chops at the food with the edge of the spoon distributing it and homogenizing the consistency making it more like a breakfast porridge and less like a gelatinous lump.

“Here you go. I’ll top off the dry in a bit.”

The kettle is ready and so the coffee preparation begins. She hovers toward the radio, but instead she walks to the bathroom between the two bedroom doors. She sighs at her reflection and picks up her toothbrush.

With her coffee in hand she walks downstairs and stands close to the wood stove. With a socked foot she pushes the vent lever. She turns around. She turns again. She realizes her breathing is tense, her shoulders pitched. She exhales and rolls her shoulders.

All the horse grain is in the garage for the winter. It made more sense to build a small stall against the house instead of keeping the main barn open. Churchill, an ancient Shetland pony, is the lone equine for the winter. By having him stay by the house, many of the demands of his care were simplified. A small feed pail sits next to a metal garbage bin. Churchill gets a shocking amount of food for a small pony. His teeth are all but gone and so he gets a warm mush of different grains. She scoops out the appropriate ratio of grains. A quick glance shows the cat litter is tidy.

She runs the downstair bathroom’s utility sink until the water is too hot to touch and fills the pail. The grains need to soak to reach the consistency that Churchill can manage. She collects her coffee mug from the mantle and heads up the stairs. Her feet accept her weight less grudgingly this time.

She sits down at the table. The coffee is beginning to cool. She rubs her face and looks out the window. It’s white, and brown, with splotches of tired green. A flash of a bird catches her eye for a moment, but her posture is otherwise inert. The table’s wood seems dry. The stove heat and the winter air sucks the moisture free from most surfaces. Ivan’s coat though softer than any cashmere, lacks the luster it has during the summer. The young woman’s hands are raw and cracked. Her lips are a little rough. Not so much that she would feel self-conscious if someone were there to see her, but enough that she notices a slight tension across them.

The chair makes a gentle sound against the rug as she pushes it away from the table. She places the coffee mug next to the sink.

Her snow pants and heavy winter coat are hanging in the garage. This winter has been exceptionally cold and the snow accumulation has been record worthy. Bundled up, she picks up the pail in the bathroom and sets it next to the door as she adds a hat, gloves, and boots to her ensemble.

“Good morning, Mr. Churchill,” she chimes. “I have warm breakfast for you.” She ducks under the tape of the electric fence.

A whinny comes from behind the closed stall door. She tries to open it, but it gets caught on the snow that has collected against the door from the night’s wind. She kicks and shuffles and tries to maneuver the snow without additional tools. With force, and strong language, the door is able to be shoved wide open.

“Sorry about all that, Mr. Churchill. Wait, wait, Mister! I have to get your feed pan.”

Churchill has little patience. The young woman carries the pail over the pony and makes her way to the corner of the cozy stall. The warm slop is steaming as it lands into the rubber feed pan. She turns to the water buckets and unhooks them from the narrower side of the stall. They froze over night. Churchill after a moment of feigned skepticism, begins breakfast with gusto. She trudges through the snow back towards the house and grabs the hammer sitting on the wood pile. Fortunately, the water buckets are rubber not plastic, so she can repetitively hit the bucket to break the solid ice. It takes many tries to fully dislodge all of the ice and dump it out into the snow. She heads back into the house to fill them from the utility sink. She walks the two filled water buckets back to the stall where Churchill is still eating. She give him a pat.

“I hope you have a good day, Churchill. I’ll be back with your half an apple later.”

Before going back inside, she piles as many logs as possible into her arms from the woodpile along the house and deftly opens the front door while balancing an ambitious load. The wood alcove inside is practically empty. Although the task of filling it is not demanding, often it is left to the last log. Four more trips to and from the wood pile and the alcove is sufficiently full.

She looks at the stairs. Her day started late enough that she could go to the post office now instead of after her practice. She grabs her keys.

She sets the mail on the dining room table and heads to the kitchen to make her cup of tea and toast. She sorted it a little bit in the car before leaving the post office. There were the usual bills, a few bits of mail that didn’t get properly forwarded, but most exciting is the small package. Few things out of her routine happen these days.

She takes a substantial bite of toast, the sort of bite one takes after eating alone for some time. Her Swiss Army knife is next to her and from its options of tools she selects and opens the knife. There is no return address. It’s wrapped as if done by someone older, or nostalgic. It’s all brown paper and with obvious folds, which makes it easy to cut and open.

An envelope sits on top of a black book. “From an Old Friend” is printed as if by typewriter on the envelope. Since her knife is still in hand, she carefully uses it to open the envelope.

Dear Friend,

I remember your smile. I remember your quick, self-deprecating wit even better. Sometimes we meet a person who we are certain should succeed, but as we feel this certainty we see also the fickle hand of chance and circumstance leading this person into hardship. Perseverance may guide a person through hardship, but opportunity often immaculately appears as more an act of fate than science.

There are those who have resources that let them tower over fate and science. I am one of those people. This vantage point can be used solely for my gain, or for the benefit of others too. I choose to play the benevolent role.

The included black notebook is for your use. Your own lens most likely leans toward distortion, so tell me your story as if you were your lover. A telling to be shared I hope. A check for $20,000 is tucked in the front cover. The starving artist is a tired cliche.

I’ll be in touch,

X

As promised, she finds a check for $20,000 within the notebook. She makes a strange sound, a mixture of a cough, laugh, and choke.

This could be life-altering. Writing isn’t my medium, could they be mistaken? It was sent to my address, with my name. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t mistaken for some other self-deprecating artist with a decent smile. Where was this sort of opportunity when I lived in the city? Did I really just have such an ungrateful thought? Maybe he, she, they heard about this past year. I’m not important enough for my sad tale to be gossip-worthy. My lover, is that a wink toward erotica or just asking for compassion? If compassion, why not as a friend?

She sobs. Even though no other person is there to see, she still tries to contain any sound or gesture of emotion. Too quickly her tears stop. She gets up from her chair and walks to the bathroom. Tearing some toilet paper, she blows her nose and then splashes cold water on her face.

It has been a long time since she has allowed herself to honestly think about art. She hadn’t given up so much as vanished. If she was no longer in that reality, then no one could be blamed for nothing happening. Her mental process has become a well-worn path of disgust, confusion, and criticism rather than inquiry, sense for details, and rehearsal. A skepticism washed over her.

Is money and a mysterious note really going to change me? For the better? Am I able to cast aside my doubts and this unmoving distrust in my own abilities because someone wrote me a note and a check? A career couldn’t lift me, why should this?

As the negative spiral begins to gain momentum, Ivan jumps onto the dining room table. She walks over and absentmindedly reaches out and begins to pet him. She stares at the black book and ponders the exercise.

As if I were my lover…

What a complementing light to view myself… What a relief. Does anyone think so kindly of themselves? If I write it, could it persuade my inner voice as well?