The Unforeseen by Molly Gloss

Author:Molly Gloss
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery / Saga Press

Little Hills

IN THE NIGHT, AND IN the snow, they gradually lost the road. The humped ground went away in all directions, without landmark, featureless white in the darkness, and by the time they were sure of being lost, surer of being stuck, there was no way to know how far they had come from the pavement. They were both, or had been, Montana people, and this was no blizzard, only a snow that fell straight and thick through the cones of the headlights. They were perhaps a little more annoyed than frightened.

Lyle pulled up the collar of his coat and stepped outside briefly, tramping behind to the trunk, to the old pieced quilt folded up there beside the jack and the jumper cables, and then back to sit beside Claire, close together under the quilt in the front seat of the car. They had brought a suitcase for what would have been the overnight at the house of the eldest child. In a while they opened it, put on cardigans beneath coats, doubled stockings inside shoes.

They spoke, at times, of other snows, other landscapes, and only once of the children, who were no longer children, who would begin to worry soon, waiting, looking out through the living room windows into the darkness. Claire remembered, with sudden and unaccustomed clarity, that they had begun to carry a quilt in the car when the children had been still babies, for the going-home-late times with all three sleep-sweaty, legs tangled, in the back seat of the Ford. She thought of saying that to Lyle. But of the two of them, he was the more sentimental, the more prone to long, nostalgic remembrance, and she had a dim, unreasoned dread of that tonight. She said finally, “It’s good we had this old blanket,” and he made a small sound of agreement, not remembering the reason they’d begun to keep it in the trunk.

Eventually, in the darkness, and without discussion, they climbed over onto the back seat to lie down together under the quilt. “Oh for Pete’s sake,” Claire said, and lifted one elbow to fend his hand from her small old breast. She used a tone of exasperation that had been worn down over years to ritual only. He said, with innocent surprise, a ritual voice also, “Oop. Sorry dear, didn’t know I had my hand there.”

He shifted his weight in the darkness, turning sideways on the narrow bench seat and drawing up his knees. She nested behind him, pressed against the back of the seat with her knees tucked behind his.

“Spoons,” he said, reaching around to pat the rise of her hip. “We haven’t laid like spoons since you bought that damned big bed.” In the little pause afterward, she could feel him trailing out to the end of the thought. “Can’t catch you . . . hell, can’t even find you in that damned bed.”

“That’s not the bed’s fault, you dotty old goat.”

“Too much pepper,” he said, grumbling. “I read that once. I’m cutting back on my pepper.

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