Out in the Mountains

 

by Tom Bentley

Snow fell in large, floating flakes. The
sun broke through for a moment, then gray
clouds retumed.

Jim, my husband, was restless, getting
up, poking around in the woodstove, going
to the window, back to the sofa. A long,
quiet Sunday afternoon at the end of a long
winter. I was trying to read, but I was
getting bored with that, too. I put my book
down and looked across the sofa at Jim. He
stretched out his legs and looked at me. We
just sat like that a while.

"You know what this weather reminds
me of?" he asked. "When I was a kid in
college. You know what they call this
snow?"

I shrugged, sipping from my wine.

"The Shropshire snow," he said. "This
is what they call the Shropshire snow. The
old farmers. It's the next to last snowfall of
the year."

"How do they know that?" I asked.
"How can they tell it's the second-to-last, or
even the last? How can they tell that?"

"They just can. Those old Vermont
farmers, they know what's up."

I wasn't sure if he was serious or not.
He might be making this up; I could never
be sure. Half the times when he's make

Spring Snow

things up they'd turn outtoberight anyway.
He's a good lawyer.

He stood up, sauntered to the window,
and pulled back the curtains. "Look at the
 he said "How big they are, big and
round and fluffy." The snowflakes floated
down past the window, rank after rank, one
after the other after the other. They were big
enough so you could watch each one fall,
follow it from up in the sky where it would
appear out of the gray, watch it come down
all the way to the ground.

"I've been thinking about when I was a
kid," Jim said. He went over to the wood-
stove, swung open the door, put on the big,
leather glove, and poked around inside.
"This was when I was in college. I was
living on campus, but I'd come home on
weekends to work. This was before my Dad
stopped talking to me. I'd work for him in
the shop on weekends. I was playing it very
low-key then. I couldn't let them know what
was going on. You want more wine?"

I said sure, and he went out into the
kitchen to pour another glass for each of us.
I was, what - trepidation - I was trepidous
about what was coming next. Jim doesn't
talk much about that part of his life. Some
things he doesn't want to say. Some things
I don't want to hear.

I looked out the win-

  
 

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dow. The snow around us
had stopped, and the lace of
detail of trees and fence
posts snapped into focus
against the light white blan-
ket on the ground.

Jim came back in the
room with the wine. He
handed me my glass, then
stood by the window. We
watched the snow clouds
moving across the tops of

ATTORNEY AT LAW

Hoff, Agel, Curtis, Pacht 8: Cassidy, P.C.

100 MAIN STREET
PO. BOX 247
BURUNGTON, VT 05402-0247

David W. Curtis

P.O. BOX 1212

802-864-4531

BRATTLEBORO, VT 05302

the mountains.

"So anyway," he started in again, "it
was about this time of year; I remember it
was a late Easter, so it must have been the
middle of April, and these people came up
from downstate, Long Island probably.
They were building a summer house, and
they were talking to Dad about doing the
building. Well, they had a son, and they
wanted to find something for him to do
while he was up here, so Dad volunteered
my services. I was elected to entertain the
kid. Seems he was a couple of years
younger than me, so the idea was I'd ar-
range a date for him, and we'd go do some-
thing innocuous together.

"So I called up Evan, this guy I'd
known in high school - he was really
straight - and he called his girl, who knew
someone else, and I called this girl named
Kathy I used to know, so now it's a triple
date. We don't want to go to a movie or
anything like that, so we decide we'd really
show the kid a real Vermont image; we're
going to have a sugaring-off party.

"Evening rolls around, and I went to
pick the kid up at the hotel they were
staying at. He comes out, and he sort of
knocks my socks off. A good-looking kid.
Excuse me, but he was my type. You know
what I mean?"

I knew what he meant. "He was a
blonde." It's a wise wife who knows her
own husband.

"Yeah, and to top if off, his name was
David. I'm a real sucker for that name
David. Now I start to feel like I'm likely to
get into some trouble here. I've got to watch
myself real carefully.

"Well, we get Kathy and this other girl
- I forget her name - and we go over to
Evan's place, and then we all get into Evan's
(continued on next page)

THEODORE BOHN
ATTORNEY AT LAW

802-257-4491

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