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By Root 622 0

it is a miserable month for school and transportation, it has been a good one for ice-skating. In his basement, Thomas has unearthed a pair of children’s ice-skates with runners, and periodically he has come by the apartment for Jack. He’s taken the boy to the marshes, where he’s taught him to skate. He holds Jack’s hand while the boy falls on his knees, and he skates with Jack between his legs, holding him up under the arms. The boy grows giddy with accomplishment. Thomas makes Jack a small hockey stick and arranges “games” between Michael and Jack on one side and himself and Rich, his seven-year-old brother, on the other. Linda sometimes puts on Eileen’s skates and hovers near Thomas and the boys, but mostly she stays on the sidelines, wrapping her arms around herself and stomping her boots to keep warm. She watches Thomas with Jack and Rich the way a wife might watch a husband with her cherished sons. Proud and happy and feeling a sort of completion that cannot be gotten elsewhere.

______

The journey to Thomas’s house takes nearly forty-five minutes. In decent weather, it can be done in five. Thomas’s father meets them at the door, worry creasing his long face. Thomas’s mouth has frozen, and he can’t even make the introductions. Thomas’s mother, a tall, angular woman with navy eyes that slice through Linda, brings them towels and helps them out of their coats. When Thomas can speak, he introduces Linda, whose hands are stiff and red. She hopes the red will be taken for a reaction to the cold.

“The storm came on fast,” the father says.

“We worried about you in the car,” Thomas’s mother says.

Linda removes her boots and stands in her stocking feet in Thomas’s living room, her arms crossed, tucking her hands into her armpits. She has never seen such a room, has lacked even the imagination to picture it. It is long and elegant, with banks of leaded-glass windows that face the sea. Two fires are burning in separate hearths, and at least a half-dozen chairs and two sofas in matching stripes and chintzes are arranged in groupings. Linda wonders how one decides, on any given night, where to sit. She thinks then of the den in the triple-decker, the TV flickering, the single sofa threadbare at the arms, Michael and Erin and Patty and Jack using the couch as a backrest while they watch The Wonderful World of Disney. She hopes none of them is out in the storm.

Thomas leads Linda to a sofa, and they sit together with the mother opposite. It feels to Linda like an examination. The father comes in with hot chocolate and seems festive with the occasion, as a small boy might be who’s just been told that school has been canceled. Thomas’s mother, in her periwinkle cardigan and matching skirt, scrutinizes Thomas’s girlfriend, taking in the lipstick and the denim skirt and the sweater under which Linda isn’t wearing a bra.

“You’re new to town,” the mother says, sipping her hot chocolate. Linda holds her mug with both hands, trying to warm them.

“Sort of,” Linda says, glancing down. Not only has she worn a sweater through which her nipples, erect now from the cold that has penetrated her bones, are plainly visible (stupid Eileen), but the sweater has a low V-neck, showcasing the cross.

“And you live in what part of town?” the mother asks, hardly bothering with pleasantries.

“Park Street,” Linda says, putting the mug down and crossing her arms over her breasts. Beside her, Thomas is flexing his fingers, trying to get the circulation back. He hasn’t touched the hot chocolate. The denim skirt is too short and too tight on her thighs. Linda resists the urge to tug at it.

“That would be in . . . ?” the mother asks.

“Rockaway,” Linda says.

“Really,” the mother says, not even bothering to hide her incredulity.

“Great storm,” Thomas’s father says beside them.

______

“I’m going to give Linda a tour,” Thomas says, standing. And Linda thinks how remarkable it is to have a house in which one can give a tour.

They climb the stairs to Thomas’s room, step behind the door and kiss. Thomas lifts her sweater and puts his cold hands on her