The Weight of Winter by Cathie Pelletier

Author:Cathie Pelletier
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2014-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

ANOTHER KIND OF SNOW JOB: THE FIRST SUPPER

And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, One of you which eateth with me shall betray me.

—Mark 14:18

Amy Joy had spent a few toss-and-turn nights over the situation with her mother. Sicily had her rights, after all. Maybe the best thing would be to find someone willing to move in and care for Sicily, so that Amy Joy could move out and into a little apartment in Bangor or near her horrible relatives down in Portland. Then she could find one of those “experience helpful but not necessary” jobs she’d been dreaming of for years. Checking out books at a library would be a nice occupation, Amy Joy supposed, an opportunity to run a finger across the covers and titles of nature guides she never realized existed.

But what had occurred to her, during those sleepless nights, was what she’d be giving up in order to dally in city life. Where would she find another McKinnon Hill? Where would she walk in summer fields of sweet clover and cow vetch and forests of thickly sprouted pines if she ended up on the third floor of some apartment building in Portland? Amy Joy wondered if there were any woods left in Maine where it might be safe to walk. The whole state was abuzz with what had happened to Karen Wood, who had had the misfortune to walk one hundred and eighty-nine innocent feet from her own back door. Some hunter had focused on her white gloves in his scope and had put a bullet in her chest. Amy Joy used to think that things like that might happen if you trespassed on someone else’s land. But nowadays there were so many trigger-happy hunters crawling through the woods of Maine that no one was safe any longer on their own land. But there were issues closer to home that Amy Joy had to contend with first. Sicily.

Just when Amy Joy had decided to let the move to Pine Valley rest—and assumed that Sicily had come to the same conclusion—she returned from a windblown outing on her snowshoes to find her mother all packed up. Two small suitcases and a cardboard box were waiting by the kitchen door. Sicily was sitting on the edge of the living room sofa, wearing her coat and scarf and gloves. During the past few days, she had spoken only brief replies to Amy Joy’s questions. And she’d spent even more time on the phone to her pal Winnie, talking in soft whispers, quickly hanging up whenever Amy Joy entered the room. Now here she was, ready to go.

“What’s this all about?” Amy Joy asked. She pulled off her snowy boots and left them by the door.

“No need to take your boots off,” Sicily said. “I need a ride.”

“Where, might I ask?” said Amy Joy.

“Yesterday I called that Grandmaison woman,” Sicily said. “They’re expecting me.”

“You what?” Amy Joy was appalled. This didn’t appear to be one of Sicily’s schemes, not if she had enlisted Patrice Grandmaison into the drama.

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