Chapter 9: The Storm

The blizzard came in off the lake at nine that night and took the power with it.

The lights died in the middle of a sentence.

Jerome lit a lantern and set it on the workbench, and the boathouse went amber and small.

"The loft runs on electric baseboard," he said. "It'll be freezing up there in an hour."

"What about down here?"

"The stove heats this half. I have one couch, and it's four feet long."

I looked at the loft stairs, at the cold black square at the top, and at the couch.

"There's a mattress up there," I said.

"There's one mattress."

"Then bring it down and put it by the stove."

He did not move. "Rule one."

"Rule two," I said. "No lies. You're going to freeze on that couch and you know it."

He looked at me for a while.

Then he climbed the stairs.

He came back with the mattress over one shoulder and a pile of wool blankets in his arms.

He dropped it all on the floor in front of the stove.

We lay on it back to back with a gap between us wide enough for a third person.

The wind threw snow against the boards.

I was cold in a way the blankets did nothing about. My feet were numb, and no matter how I curled up, the cold stayed in them.

I was trying very hard not to shake, and he noticed anyway.

"Your feet," Jerome said, into the dark.

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