Nothing but Your Skin - Cathy Ytak [3]
I tapped my feet against the wall of the house to get the snow off my shoes and I went into the kitchen. I heard the dogs moving around in the garage. I was the first one home, just like every night. I turned on all the lights, I put two logs in the fireplace, because I like the smell and the color of the flames, and I sat in front of it. Then my mother came home, then my father, and they started talking, both of them at the same time, just like every night. The same words, the same routine—work, the animals, the people at the hospital—my mother is a nurse, my father is a farmer. There were two little sick calves and an old cow that died when it tried to get up to go home, you know, the old ones always want to die at home. My dad shook his head, and I stared at my bowl, watching the butter melt in my vegetable soup, until my dad said to me, “Good Christ, can’t you just eat your soup instead of daydreaming? Do you like it better cold?” My mother probably said, like she did every night, “Leave her alone, you know Louella’s slow.” And I probably winced, because I hate that name, even though it’s been mine for almost seventeen years now. After, there was the sound of dishes in the kitchen sink when I washed them, banging them together a little too much, which always annoys my dad when he’s watching TV, so he grouches, and then I probably make a bit more noise because of it.
That night, under my covers, I dreamed about the path that goes to the farm. There was a shadow on the other side of the path. Whenever I turned my head to look at it, the shadow would disappear under the snow. I kept dreaming the same thing until the grandfather clock sounding three o’clock in the morning…bong, bong, bong…woke me up. And then I fell asleep again. So that was it—the first time we met. The next evening, when I left the school for retards, I went straight to the back of the bus. But the driver called back, “Did you lose something?” so I told him no, then I went to my usual spot and looked straight ahead, at the driver’s back, because I always sit just behind him. When we got to the village, I got up, I said good night to the driver, and I waited a few seconds. I didn’t hear you say good night so I thought I must be alone, as usual, and I walked home, shuffling my feet. The next day, it was the same thing. After that, I lost count—well, I didn’t count the days, you know I’m not good at math, but I think there was a weekend, and then a Monday, and a Tuesday…and then one night, when I was getting off the bus, after I said good night, I heard someone saying good night behind me, and I knew you had come back.
From that moment, my life started to change, slowly. So slowly that at first, I didn’t even notice it was changing.
One night, you got off the bus, you said good night to the driver, and you came up and walked beside me without asking. It was cold; it was only September and everyone was already saying that winter this year would be longer and colder than usual. That’s always what people say when it snows like that in September. But, twenty-four hours later, the snow melts and it starts raining, and they always forget what they said before.
We live in the mountains. Sometimes it’s really cold in the fall, sometimes really mild, sometimes really warm, and sometimes even really hot. I like the fall because of the color of the trees and because it’s so close to winter. I don’t like it because of the dogs that get all excited by the hunting and the gunshots in the forest. I don’t know anymore how many days we walked along the path together without saying anything but good night. Or sometimes