Word Count: 358
When the storm hit, they were each in different rooms of the house. Claude in his easy chair with his laptop and the TV speaking to the living room where no one was paying attention. Jeanine in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher with dinner plates and forks and knives and the one pan she trusted the machine to clean as well if not better than she would by hand.
The snow piled up higher, the fat flakes like acrobats forming airy but heavy wet layers of cold. One branch broke off the large maple with barely a sound. Then another and another as the weight tumbled them down into skeletal arms reaching up from the white graveyard in front of their house.
Just then, the power went out. Claude didn’t notice. Battery power took over his laptop and he continued working, his face lit up by the soft glow of the screen and the night light beneath the keyboard. Jeanine stopped midway of placing a plate in the rack which she found more by memory. Awareness of her surroundings led her straight to the cabinet in which she kept candles and flashlights for moments like this. Proficient as a blind woman knowing her kitchen, her world in darkness the same as in light.
They went to bed early, his battery power gradually dwindling, the room turning cold. Too early to start up the generator. She found the old quilt in the top of the closet. They huddled together in bed, spooning one way then the other; Claude was easily asleep but she was a restless sleeper and drew warmth from his body, barely waking him each time she moved.
In the morning he went into the kitchen, muttered that the coffee was weak. She’d forgotten the exact mix of perked coffee to water, put it back on the stove with a half scoop of additional coffee. She made toast in the frypan on their propane stove. Reminded him he couldn’t shower or shave until he got to the office.
In the quiet world after Claude left, Jeanine sat with a fresh cup of coffee, making a grocery list.
