One Thing At A Time

“One thing at a time.” Even as she’s saying it, we both know there’s so much more going on. There are cheeks stinging and noses burning; there are arms trembling and lips turning blue; there are trees dancing in ever-longer shadows across the forest floor and – worst of all - the snow is beginning to fall again.

We weren’t expecting it. And why would we? The locals certainly weren’t. There’d been talk of freak weather patterns down at the corner shop, which was usually doing a brisk trade in postcards and memorial spoons at this time of year, but I don’t think anyone expected this.

Mind you, even the Robinsons had been scared off by the cold. At the time, we’d thought it was a good thing. We’d even done a dance, Sandra and me, right in the middle of the living room.

“No trash!” she’d said as I spun her around.

“No loud music!”

“No kids sneaking into our backyard!”

“No vomit in the lane!”

And then we had laughed until Sandra wheezed, then wheezed until she coughed, then coughed until all the laughter had left us and our own mortality was staring us in the face again. Lately, it had been doing that a lot and it went further than the swollen joints and the bad backs and the million other little things that tell you you’re creeping closer to the grave.

Sandra had been diagnosed the week after her birthday. Malignant, the doctor had said, as if we were supposed to know what that meant. He’d thrown other words around, too. Words like ‘sarcoma’ and ‘metastasis’ and ‘antineoplastic’, but we both know what he was saying. To tell the truth, I think we both knew before we’d even walked into the surgery. I guess there are some things in life that just don’t go away, no matter how much you try to ignore them.

This was meant to be our special weekend and probably Sandra’s last at the cottage. Neither of us said anything, of course, but that sense of finality began to weigh heavy on the drive up and never got better. Not when we were dancing in the living room like a couple of hyped-up mad-hat kids, not when we lay in that awful lumpy bed and just listened to the wind lash the house, and not even when we toasted marshmallows and I managed to burn every single one, just like I had on our honeymoon all those years ago. Sandra hadn’t laughed then but she did this time, great gusto-filled belly laughs that sent tremors through what was left of her body.

It wasn’t until Sunday morning that things took a turn for the worse. It had been snowing pretty lightly all weekend; the perfect amount for scaring off unwanted neighbours but nothing to be concerned about, at least not for old shoveling vets like me and Sandra.

We’d planned to take our time. Mitten-up and have one last stroll through the woods. Toast some more marshmallows. Curl up on the couch and watch a video and then leave that afternoon, but as soon as I woke up and saw what had piled up during the night, I knew we had to get out of there pretty quickly.

I’d kissed Sandra twice on the nose and taken a shovel to the snow around the car but my old bones weren’t any kind of match for nature, not anymore.

“We’re iced in, honey,” I’d said to Sandra, shaking half from exertion and half from the rising cold. “We won’t be able to get the car out.”

She’d just shrugged. “We’ll walk into town. Get someone out to help us.”

“I’ll go,” I’d said, and I was already half way out the door when she’d grabbed my coat. “I’m coming.”

“Are you off your rocker?”

“A few cards short of a deck,” she’d said, because it’s what we’ve always said. I’m not sure that tired old exchange even has any meaning now. It certainly didn’t for her, because she’d suited up before I could stop her.

“I’ve just got this feeling, alright? I’m coming.” She’d said and, because Sandra’s feelings aren’t often wrong, that was that.

The road to town looked like it was from another world. The trees had lost their last leaves over the weekend and their bare branches wove an ethereal canopy over the snow. There was no sign of the gravel road or its grassy verges. The snow had even covered up what Sandra liked to call ‘The Robinsons trail of destruction’; the line of pizza boxes and beer cans and empty wrappers that led from their property into the township every long weekend.

It was as breathtakingly beautiful as it was cold.

We were about three quarters of the way into town when the dull ache in my chest suddenly got a lot worse; it had started when I’d tried to shovel the car out and never really gone away. I must have stopped walking, because Sandra was looking up at me. I thought she looked worried but honestly, it’s hard to tell these days.

“My chest,” I say. “Need to stop – go to town. . .”

“One thing at a time,” but even as she’s saying it, we both know there’s so much more going on. There are cheeks stinging and noses burning; there are arms trembling and lips turning blue; there are trees dancing in ever-longer shadows across the forest floor and – worst of all - the snow is beginning to fall again.