Winter Wonderland

Winter Wonderland

On Christmas morning, Alice was startled awake by the sound of her own wheezing. The cold had moved into her chest, it seemed. She strongly suspected that it was no longer simply a cold, but hadn't the money to find out. There was a $200.00 deductible on the insurance provided by the law office for which she worked. She had just been dreaming that she was skin diving, but every time she tried to breathe through the snorkel, she choked down water instead of air. She awoke at the point of panic, the initial stages of drowning.

Raya was standing beside her mother’s bed, staring silently at her, wide-eyed, intent, evidently watching her sleep. "May I crawl in beside you and snuggle, Mumma?"

"Don't you want to see what Santa’s brought you?"

"I'm cold. I want to get warm first."

Alice then realized that their breath was visible in foggy puffs as they spoke. Raya's warm, trusting little body was a welcome contrast to the spare, cold bedroom that mother and daughter shared. Alice was drifting back into unconsciousness when it occurred to her that Raya's body temperature exceeded the comfort zone. She put her lips to the toddler's downy forehead. She had a fever.

Wonderful.

"I can't stop shivering, Mumma. And my ears hurt."

"Stay under the covers, sweetie, and I‘ll be right back. I‘ll get you some aspirin. I mean Tylenol. No, there's no need to cry. It will make you feel better.

“God, it’s cold in here," Alice mumbled, pulling on her heavy robe and fleece lined slippers. Surely, this was a record, even for “the cold house,” as Raya referred to it. Her suspicions were confirmed in the bathroom, that entirely unheated no-man’s land. She tried to crack the ice in the toilet bowl with the plunger’s handle. It was frozen quite solid. Opening the medicine chest, the pink bottle of children's generic acetaminophen tumbled into the sink below. Reaching for it, she was arrested by a sculpture captured in miniature, which awaited her eyes and hand. It was so delicate, potentially exquisite, in fact, under other circumstances. If she had chanced upon such a scene in nature, she would have thought it serene. However, she felt ironically, that the bathroom sink was too prosaic a setting for nature's miracles. A small pinnacle of ice descended straight and unbroken from the faucet to the drain, upon which stood a perfect, round, icy pedestal supporting the fragile sculpture. Alice picked up the plastic pill bottle and smashed the pinnacle with it.

From the kitchen, she could hear her upstairs neighbor, Jeanette, impotently railing at the world at large and banging on her pipes, which were, of course, frozen. Jeanette slept in a woolen hat, which had become a standing joke between them. Alice reconsidered her wisdom in mocking her neighbor's pioneer garb, spurning nightcaps and sleep mittens herself.

Damn. Contrary to custom, Alice had not diluted the frozen juice concentrate the previous night. She had let it go out of fatigue and illness. Defiantly, she had thought, "Screw it. It's Christmas Eve and I don't feel like it. I can let it all slide for one

night, can't I?" Apparently not. The dishes had slid, as well, right into the empty sink. It was just as well that she hadn't soaked them; they too now would be an ice sculpture, though hardly a delicate or esthetically pleasing one. Fever or not, milk would have to do. The pipes were frozen.

Sweeping through what she wryly referred to as the drawing room, Alice snatched a couple presents she knew to be a picture book and a stuffed animal, and plugged in the Christmas tree lights for the illusion of warmth and gaiety. The apartment was aching with Victorian charm. No denying that. Through the eleven five foot tall windows, she could see the first flakes of a half-hearted snowfall. Hopefully, it would cover the existing grimy ice. Snow. She would go back to sleep and wake up to a still, untracked, pristine white Christmas. That would lift her frostbitten spirits, enabling her to masquerade good humor, and cook the promised apple pancake.

 The real implications of her reverie hit her squarely on the solar plexus, provoking a sudden, painful coughing and choking fit. Just what did she think she was romanticizing? Oh Jesus, not snow. Please, please, not snow. If it snowed today, Alice would be constrained to dress herself and Raya, move the rusted-out, antique VW beetle, whose heater couldn’t be turned off, to the free emergency snow parking zone in the park, and walk, carrying Raya most or all of the mile or so home—uphill. She couldn’t leave her home alone. Or the car would be towed and impounded.

She doubled back to the kitchen and washed down three adult Extra Strength Tylenol with milk before returning through the living room to the now whimpering Raya. Both this room and the bedroom boasted marble fireplaces, though neither could be used because the chimneys were cracked and unlined, or so the landlord claimed. Alice had taken the apartment in the fullness of summer's opulence, when all those drafty windows had seemed a blessing. Even then, she had suspected uneasily that the sole gas stove in the kitchen, the engine of a railroad apartment, would not project heat into the other rooms, despite the landlord's reassurances. Still, although the apartment was smaller, it had seemed so much brighter and more pleasant than the other dumps just beyond her budget. Besides, it had hardwood floors and French doors.

Raya was miserable, quietly crying in her cocoon. She resisted the medicine, as always when she really needed it, whining inconsolably for juice. At first, she was determined not to be bribed, but eventually Santa’s promised magic won, and she took the pills in exchange for the presents.

Alice perched bundled on the edge of the bed, weighing her need for hot tea against the effort required to obtain it. It would involve finding and chipping enough ice of dubious sanitation, and then waiting in an upright position for it to melt and boil. Her energy already exhausted, and feeling not a little feverish herself, she decided to tackle it later.

Raya was finally settled, a heavy layer of covers up to her chin. Relieved, for once, that the snow had turned sloppy, Alice had snuggled down under the comforter herself when the phone rang rudely, insistently. For a moment, she considered letting it ring. No. It was disturbing Raya and, who knows, might be important? Shivering uncontrollably, she wrapped her thick robe around herself, enroute, once again, to the kitchen.

"Susan! Richard! How are you? Merry Christmas. How is San Francisco? Oh, it was snowing earlier but it's turned to freezing rain. Cozy? Of course! Nothing like Christmas in Maine."