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By Dianne Kochenburg
 

Their first outside chore every morning was to sweep off the deck and stairs. Sidney swept the loose stuff while Matt removed any snow that threatened to mound up around the doorways and their path around the cottage. But for the last few days there had been very little accumulation. On this particular morning after the daybreak fog burned off the lake everything looked crystal clear and shiny. The sun was bright by ten o’clock and Sidney could see frozen droplets that had formed along the eaves above the door.

“Hey, Matt. Look at this,” she said, pointing a mittened finger to the roofline. “I think it’s starting to melt.”

Matt stood up straight and turned to observe the ice crystals that were definitely forming all along the ridge. “Must be true, Sidney. This snow has a crust on it like maybe it began to thaw and then froze over again.” He stabbed the shovel into the snow so Sidney could hear it crunching.

Sidney was grinning and reaching up to pick off the tiny icicles. “Oh, Matt. Maybe it will all be gone soon.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, Sid. It’s probably temporary. It’ll take lots of sunshine to melt off this mess.” He turned back to his work but Sidney stood on the deck and looked around. The trees were bare of snow, standing taller, limbs reaching out to the sunlight. There was a gentle breeze playing through the branches – Sidney decided it actually felt like a touch of spring might be in the air.

Then she chided herself. It was early December, not even full winter yet. She shouldn’t kid herself into thinking it would be over soon. But then she had another thought of past Decembers in California. Sometimes it was sunny and warm. She remembered playing outdoors, even on Christmas Day, when she was a kid. Maybe this would be one of those years. She made a mental note to carefully listen to the forecast.

There was an established routine now. They both knew they needed to get outside every day but there wasn’t much to do other than move a little snow. They stayed close to the cottage and observed carefully, even though they did not see the coyote. They knew he was nearby because occasionally they heard him howling at night, and there were tracks, lots of overlapping tracks through the snow.

So after breakfast and a few inside chores, mostly bed making and kitchen duties, they headed outside for a while. Then it was time for lunch. They were hungry, well, they were always hungry, especially for breakfast.

Sidney had concocted three breakfast items that she rotated. One morning they would have half of a canned peach with a spoonful of granola on it. Both items were from Maggie’s stash. Sidney figured the granola would run out sooner than the peaches, so she was being very careful with it. Next up was toast and jam. She decided to make one loaf of bread per week, and then do biscuits in between. She had enough flour to last a couple months but plenty of jam. There was also a box of pancake mix, but she decided to save that for later. The third in rotation was white rice with a little reconstituted powdered milk, sugar and a little nutmeg or cinnamon on it. She warmed it up a bit in the microwave. All were good meals but Matt often scolded her saying he wanted all three choices at once, with a side of bacon and eggs.  Matt always needed a little more breakfast.

Lunch was usually some kind of simple soup, perhaps she’d start with a can of Campbell’s and then add more pasta and water to stretch it out as far as she could. There were packages of Ramen noodles, which she’d use once in a while too. Or she’d soften some beans over night and make a watery bean soup with a bullion cube and a few dried herbs. If they were extra hungry that day, she might allow another slice of bread.

Dinner was the most difficult meal. She had a cupboard full cans – soup, canned veggies, tuna, one can of spam which she was saving for Christmas, if she could keep it hidden from Matt. There was also chili, some stewed tomatoes, mac and cheese, a box or two of hamburger helper, the usual stuff you’d find on the pantry shelves. She had a few packets of dried spaghetti sauce and gravy mix, which at first she turned her nose up at, but now was feeling thankful for.

She allowed herself to use one can of something every other day. As long as the rice and pasta held out, she could make some sort of meal that they could eat sparingly for a couple of days. She knew she had to conserve on everything, like counting the long thin pasta noodles and carefully measuring the rice, but at times she was tempted to serve up big plates and let the devil be hanged.

Using her calculator, the information in her Betty Crocker cookbook , and what she could read off the back of the cans, she figured they were eating roughly around eight hundred to a thousand calories per day. No wonder they were losing weight. She tried to supplement the food by adding an extra drop or two of olive oil, but even that was something she had to ration. This meal planning and hoarding food on hand was turning into one of the hardest ongoing jobs she had ever done.

After some token grumbling Matt went along with the program. He knew it would be stupid not to. He even let Sidney be the bartender. They had a small drink after dinner, just a sip or two of wine or booze. She was figuring it as added calories and a soothing finish to the day. It would help them sleep. Matt wanted more but he knew that Sidney was saner than he was when it came to booze. This was their dessert each evening, something shared and looked forward to, and definitely under Sidney’s control.

The thing that Sidney worried about was their continued weight loss. If either of them got sick, it would be harder to regain strength with no proper food on hand. She had sorted through all the medicine they brought home. Lots of vitamins, which they each took every day. Sidney was not a big believer in vitamin pills, or any other pill for that matter, but in this case it couldn’t hurt to get their daily requirement of something. Too bad there weren’t any calories in pills.

After lunch Matt would head for the cellar to work on his never ending projects. Sidney had no idea what he did down there but whatever it was kept him busy, and the cat would join him for a little while. He also tidied up after the cat, to keep the litter box smell to a minimum. And she had to admit, the cellar never looked cleaner and more well-ordered.

Toast had also received supplements to her diet. She was now eating a combination of dried Meow Mix and Alpo, still just a spoonful a day. There were a couple of cans of both dog and cat food that Sidney opened and spooned up for her each evening, a teaspoonful per serving. The cat preferred a big bowl dry food on hand and would nibble at it all day long. Now she was first in line for breakfast every morning and meowed incessantly until she heard the kibble tinkling into her bowl. She had her spoonful of wet dog food at night. Sidney thought that would help her sleep better too.

Sidney had decided to make herself a getaway room in the loft. The corner that faced the morning sun seemed to be the warmest part of the large room. She moved a makeshift desk made out of a TV tray and a piece of board to the window that wasn’t shuttered. Between the filtered light and a standing lamp, Sidney could see well enough to work on stitchery projects or write in her journal. Then she would cuddle up with a quilt on the day bed and read and nap for an hour or so in the afternoons. If she wasn’t making bread, cleaning up one thing or another, or washing clothes, she’d be upstairs in her nest, as far from Matt as she could get for a few hours.

She decided that all three of them were cats. Both she and Matt were independent types. They couldn’t spend every waking hour together. Each one needed some time alone, which Sidney decided was definitely cat like. Even Toast had her favorite spots for napping, her very own special places. When it began to get dark and started to turn colder, Sidney and Toast would head back downstairs to watch the news with Matt and start dinner.

It always surprised her how little waste there was connected with fixing their meals. She’d carefully measure out their portions and put the leftovers in the fridge. Any paper or cardboard packaging she removed and saved for starting fires. Sometimes the only trash was an empty can without its label. She had literally no wet garbage to contend with. She didn’t peel, scrape, dice or mince anything. There were no potato peelings, onion skins, carrot tops, eggshells or leftovers to go down the disposal. And clean up was easy, just a pot, a couple of plates and a few pieces of silverware. At these times, she laughed to herself thinking how simple things could be when you were half starved with little no fresh food on hand.

A month ago she made cookies – rather frivolous under the circumstances – of course she didn’t realize how long they would be stuck. What was she thinking? Well, it never occurred to her then that they would actually be here for more than a few days. Now when she gave it a little more thought, she began to realize how false that thinking actually was.

There was even a word for what was happening to them. The word was snowbound. They weren’t the first people to get stuck in a place like this. There was a famous Donner party, those poor pioneers traveling by wagon train, who got stuck in the Sierra and spent the entire winter in perilous snow, actually not too far from this very lake. Sidney shuddered at that particular thought. Everybody knew what happened to those poor souls. She now understood.

Usually people think of being snowbound as a lark. Perhaps they get stuck in a bad motel on the interstate and must stay off the road for a few days. Better scenario, stuck at a ski resort in a cozy lodge with a roaring fire, where hot chocolate and delicious stew is served up to snowbound skiers who can’t drive home. They’d call the boss on Monday morning to report being snowed in and don’t know when the roads will be open. These snowbound scenarios were nothing but brief interludes, a few moments in time out of the ordinary. Just a lark.

This was different. Although Matt and Sidney didn’t seem to be in any real danger and they had food and shelter, but they couldn’t call the boss to tell him they’d be back on the job in a few days, as soon as the roads were open. The road in front of their cottage would not be plowed until May or June. No mail man or paper boy, no UPS guy would be trudging through the snow with their deliveries. Nobody had a clue that they were stuck up at Goose Lake shivering in a summer cottage, unable to contact anybody, and no one even knowing they were lost and, let’s face it, snowbound for the duration of the entire winter.

Up in her get-away in the loft, while the light was good, Sidney worked her needlepoint canvas, reminding herself not to wonder just why she was creating this small piece of craft work – a bevy of spring flowers and butterflies – that would eventually become a pillow top. The bright colors cheered her as, strand by strand, the pattern emerged.

Her fingers cramped after a while, she noticed that her knuckles seemed larger these days, her hands bonier. As long as she kept working, her fingers were warm, but has soon as she stopped, she could feel the cold creeping into her fingertips. When she grew tired of sewing, she’d slide her pitiful little project into its plastic bag, mostly to protect it from her bored cat, and she would pick up her journal and write a few lines. It didn’t work to dwell on their predicament too much, but she wanted to record her mood and some significant small detail of each day. As the weeks progressed and their routine settled in, the details were merging, one day seemingly just like the next.

She tried to remember to record what they should feel grateful for. For instance, they were healthy. At least neither one of them had a cold or the flu. Perhaps that was because they weren’t in contact with anyone else. Matt’s knee and leg problem continued to improve. She noticed that he limped slightly at the end of the day and that he favored his leg after finishing their morning shoveling. Apparently knees take a long time to heal. But she must remember to feel grateful that his injury was getting better.

She was grateful that Toast was with them. She provided the light moments during the day. Occasionally she would bat her toy mouse around the floor for a few minutes, before heading for the warmest places in the cottage to nap. Sometimes she would curl onto a discarded sweater, other times she’d be at the window sill on those rare moments when the sun’s rays filtered into the room. Whenever there was a lap, she was in it, trying to warm her nose and ears.

Toast always followed Matt to the cellar in the morning. After her litter box duties, she prowled the edges of the room, making her daily inspection trip. She did the same thing in the loft, following Sidney up the stairs and sniffing at all familiar objects in the room before settling next to Sidney. She would then make a half-hearted attempt to play with Sidney’s yarn before curling up to wait for Sidney to join her in their ritual afternoon nap. She was a good companion.

Sidney tried not to snap at Matt. He seemed to take it all in stride. Nothing bothered him for very long. He wasn’t really a simple guy, but on the other hand, he wasn’t terribly complicated either. He liked routine, and could endure repetitious tasks, probably because of his work as an accountant. On the rare times that he talked about what he did at the office, it sounded monotonous and boring to Sidney. Not much controversy, only endless deadlines, mindless number crunching, piles of paper, reports, spreadsheets, power point slides, pie charts. Looking at that stuff made Sidney want to scream, but she mentally stuffed a sock in her mouth and kept her silence. That was Matt’s life work. It paid well and kept them moving forward. And Matt loved it. And Sidney loved Matt for loving it. It was that simple.

Sidney’s mother had plans for her daughter. She wanted Sidney to have more chances than she’d had. So she gave her a man’s name, or as she put it, an androgynous name, so if Sidney wrote a book, the reader might assume it was a male author. She had it in her mind that women with men’s names did better for themselves in a man’s world. Sidney listened to her mother’s ranting and nodded, knowing that she better not argue with her.

Her mom saw to it that Sidney went away to college. A good education would help her understand just how things were. Sidney liked school well enough. She majored in English lit much to mom’s horror. Mom didn’t want her daughter to end up in a classroom teaching little kids their ABCs. Sidney didn’t want that either. She didn’t want to be a teacher, a nurse or even a doctor. She didn’t want to be an accountant or a business tycoon. She didn’t want to mend small animals or write plays. In short, she really didn’t know what she wanted to do with herself.

She hadn’t known Matt at school, even though they were both at Cal at the very same time. They were both the studious types, their noses in their books, probably at the library, perhaps sitting next to each other, but neither could remember ever seeing the other even one time during their four years plodding around Berkeley.

After graduating from Cal she went to work at a bank in San Francisco. Every morning she’d ride BART into the city and walk over to the financial district. That’s where she met Matt. At the bank. Those were his auditing years and her secretarial stint. She ran into him, literally one day, with a pile of reports weighing her down. The reports scattered all over the hallway. He helped her pick them up, smiled at her and apologized. Then he offered to buy her a coffee to make amends. She accepted the coffee, laughed when they found out they really should know each other since they graduated the same year at Cal, and eventually Sidney said yes when he proposed marriage.

Sidney seldom thought about their first years together. Their life had been typical, ordinary, uneventful. The children came along. They made their house payments and eventually had a mortgage burning party, backyard barbecues with their neighbors, and all those summers at Goose Lake. She couldn’t remember how long it had been. She also couldn’t think of anything unpredictable that had ever happened to them, until now.

Well, there was Ben. But Ben wasn’t a “them” thing, Ben was Sidney’s friend. She never talked much about Ben. She just took his companionship for granted, a friend to share an evening with while Matt was working. She pushed away all thoughts of Ben when Matt was home. But she was careful not to mention Ben to Matt. It was nothing. What would Matt think if she told him about her friendship with Ben? What would Matt think if he saw that little photo in the silver frame that she’d kicked under the couch?

That photo in the silver frame. What the hell was that all about? What was Ben thinking? Such a sentimental, silly, fool hearty piece of business that was. What if his wife saw it? What would she think? There was nothing going on between them, except dinner and conversation. That’s what Sidney wanted to shout. So Ben, why would you leave that photo sitting there on your end table for all the world to see?

Hmm. Well, maybe that was too strong a statement. Who visited Ben’s cabin, besides Ben and her? His wife, once in a great while, for just the weekend. Sidney didn’t know her at all. Interestingly enough, she thought, Ben never talked about her, or their children. Just what did they talk about on those summer evenings while they shared a few sips of brandy? She simply could not recall now what they talked about – maybe politics, maybe geology -- the state of the world interested Ben more than Sidney, but it didn’t matter. She remembered that she enjoyed merely listening to him.

Suddenly she wished that he was here with them. Wouldn’t that be something. Maybe he could help them figure out how to get out of here. Or maybe he’d be stuck too, sitting in his easy chair sipping brandy and smiling at the photo in the silver frame.

Go to Day 35

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