“No, Dad, I’m not dragging you out in this. You nap by the fire, elder, with your new suede slippers,” Stefan told him. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. The big issue is Luck’s apartments and her new condominium complex. People are always outraged by snow. It’s like they think they live in Miami.” Most of his regular landscaping clients needed him, and I didn’t think a couple of hours would do it, but he assured me that, except for a couple of places, he would leave the hand shoveling to his teenage helpers after all that snow was down. It was only his third or fourth time driving the new truck—a massive red Ford only a few years old that came with a tough heavy-duty blade, a splurge he allowed himself because we were covering his schooling. The Whole Blooming World design burst from the doors. The first few snows of the year were sugary flirtations, but they’d taught him how to operate the plow. I could tell that he was eager to put his truck through its paces against some elements. He filled the biggest thermos in the house with hot sweet tea and set out, first scraping our own driveway to perfection. Jep and I geared up and tackled the walks with more will than success. Since it wasn’t cold, it was exhilarating to be out in it, such a dramatic storm with lightning that seemed to shatter among the stars. You could see how people would be tempted to read in it the message of some epic event. There were strange sights. A woman all in green fleece went power walking through the drifts. Two houses down, a white owl sat mythically on a mailbox. The neighbors across the street were toasting marshmallows near one of those free-standing fireplaces. Burly as buildings, the municipal plows roared down the street.

Two hours passed, then three. Feeling like an ass for doing it, I called Stefan and texted him. No response...because of course, he was busy. There were cars piled up all over, a four-car wreck on Highway 51. He didn’t really understand the physics of driving that big rig. The sharpest pity was reserved for people whose kids died on Christmas, on their own birthdays, on their wedding day...but I was being an idiot. The sharpest pity was reserved for people whose kids died just when they’d survived their worst challenges, when the sky was big and brilliant. I was being an idiot, driving myself nuts. Another hour passed, a slower hour marked by eight-minute increments, the most I could force myself to wait between bouts of checking my phone. Jep got out the ham to make a sandwich.

“How could you eat anything?” I snapped at him.

“It’s been three hours since my last feeding,” he said, one of those expressions his sister used to infantilize men, which drove me nuts.