Andi's Dream - A Blizzard in Buffalo

Andi smiled and her tense shoulders sagged in relief. Now that she could see his face, she recognized him more fully, but he looked so much younger back then. It's the beard, he didn't have a beard back then. She ignored the internal voice but still remembered his smile and those blue eyes during the brief conversation they had so long ago. She told him she was pregnant with the twins at the time, and he seemed delighted. "Oh yeah, it was what - thirty below?" He's got a nice smile, the voice in her head pointed out.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," smiled Paul, "we seem to influence the weather. Anyhow, this is it. I built this "garden barn" about 15 years ago when I bought this land. Not much has changed except this area over here is now an office away from office, it used to be a camp style kitchen. A few years back I got tired of going outside to use the facilities and tired of cooking over a Coleman stove, so I built the second garden barn and added all the modern conveniences including a modern-ish septic system." He let them through the walkway into the other cabin which contained a modern kitchen, laundry, toilet, shower, and sauna. As Madeline shut herself in the water closet Paul explained "The shower is Navy style: pull the chain to wet down, then let go, lather up, then pull it again to rinse off."

"That's weird," commented Sandy.

"Once upon a time I used to have to haul water up here by truck, then pump it into storage drums," explained Paul, "so I set the shower up like that to save water. Now I have a freshwater spring that fills an underground cistern, but it takes a long time to refill the cistern, so we still take Navy showers."

"What's a cistern?" asked Madeline as she exited the water closet and Sandy took her place. Paul realized he had to start the explanation all over again.

As they stepped back into the kitchen area Paul called out "Who wants to eat?"

The twin's eyes grew large as dinner plates, they had been traveling all day and had only grabbed snacks on the go as Andi expected a large meal when they reached their room. "I do! I do!" they both shouted. Collecting bowls, glasses, and utensils they all trooped back to the first cabin. Paul spread the wings on the small dining table to make room for guests and set out the bowls and spoons, then carried the iron pot from the wood stove to the table, opened the lid and the smell of beef stew filled the room and overwhelmed their senses.

"That smells incredible!" gasped Andi as she leaned over the pot and took a deep whiff of the savory broth. When she looked up, she saw that Paul had gone back to the "modern" cabin and brought back a loaf of fresh baked bread and a carafe of ice-cold spring water to the table. "It's like you were expecting us," she smiled.

"To be honest, I was expecting this storm," he said. "I love watching a snowstorm when I know I'm going to be safe and warm. I had planned to sit by the fire and read and listen to Christmas music. I have elderly neighbors east and west that might need help, I can reach them with a tractor or a sled. So, I cooked this stew up to have leftovers to eat throughout the weekend. Stew is an old tradition with my family; a big pot of stew to last us through the days that we're shut in or when the paychecks are far apart."

"I hate to ruin your planned menu for the week, but this smells delicious!" said Andi as Paul handed out steaming bowls of the stew. The table was butted up with one end against the windows facing out on the front patio, the twins sat side by side facing the windows while Andi and Paul sat at opposite sides facing each other. The sound of spoons clanking on bowl filled the cabin and drown out Wonka's snoring while outside the Christmas lights strung on the patio roof illuminated the falling snow. In the background a seasonal piano adagio was played on an unseen stereo.

At first the twins eyed their bread suspiciously, it looked odd compared to the bread they are used to, each slice was so thick, and the crust was so crunchy. Andi buttered their slices and finally Madeline took a bite. Her eyes rolled in pleasure and she said something to Sandy that Paul didn't understand, but it may have been encouragement, because Sandy took a bite, and her reaction was similar to Madeline's. "It's so good!" she cried.

Madeline nodded, "It has a flavor," she said around a mouthful.

"Bread don't have a flavor," said Sandy in a very matter of fact tone of voice, "it just holds the peanut butter."

"But this is good!" squeaked Madeline, "Mommy, can you get this bread?"

Andi sputtered and looked for the right words to answer when Paul said, "I make this bread myself, I made it this morning."

Sandy was incredulous. "You can make bread?"

"Yes, it's easy. I have a machine to help me. Would you like to help make bread tomorrow?" and Paul added quickly "if it's ok with your mother."

"Can we momma? Can we? Can we?" begged the twins in a well-rehearsed chorus.

Andi sighed, she was still distrustful of a man that for all intents and purposes just met. "Only if you eat all of your dinner, and I'll be there to make sure you don't make Dr. Jarecki crazy." Paul knew that she added that last statement was not to be protective of Paul, but to protect her girls from Paul, if needed. A sentiment that Paul understood and admired.

"Done deal," said Paul. "Last one to the bottom of their bowl helps me do dishes."

With that the twins tore into their stew with gusto. The famished family ate their fill while they watched the snow accumulate. Finally, as the twins mopped their bowls clean with bits of bread Andi asked "So what are the sleeping arrangements?

"The loft upstairs is a 'bunkhouse' of sorts and it's all yours, as long as you're here and as long as you want," Paul told Andi. "There's a full bed and four cots and several empty dressers and lockers for your stuff, and there's dividing curtains if you want a little privacy. My clothes are in a closet up there, but I'll grab what I need and bring it down here."

"Where are you going to sleep?" asked Andi, "I've already kicked you out of your own home, I don't want to kick a man out of his own bed but thank you very much for the offer."

"It's not a bother. I'll sleep on the couch, it opens to a full bed if I want to do that, and it's where I always sleep on wintry nights so I can keep an eye on the fire and make sure it's burning through the night. Believe me, you'll be toasty warm up there."

"Do you live here?" asked Madeline as she gazed at the dried herbs and other objects hanging from the beams.

"Kind of. I have a place in town which isn't much fun when you're alone, I use it to entertain friends and clients, but I spend what feels like most of my off time here. Feel free to use the sauna all you want."

The twins looked perplexed and demanded to know what a sauna was, and Paul just uttered "Uff da!" which caused Andi to laugh. Uff da is a Norwegian expression like "oh shit" and just as useful. She picked it up from her grandparents in North Dakota. Hearing Paul use it in just the correct tone of voice caused her to laugh, her first laughter in an exceptionally long time she realized. "A sauna is a small room which gets very hot, your great Grandpa Olson has one, and I'll teach you girls later."

Paul smiled. "Your grandpa - Olson? For real? Is his first name Ole?"

"No, but he likes to be called Ole," said Andi, "he didn't think his real name sounded Norwegian enough."

"What was it, Dave? Robert?" asked Paul.

"Knute."

Paul snorted through his nose at the thought of 'Knute Olson' not being Norwegian enough and chuckled while the twins kept asking "What's so funny?"

"You know Uff Da?" asked Andi.

"Ja shooore, I mean, I should say so, I was stationed at Minot AFB for several years."

"Why not, Minot," said Andi.

"Freezin's the reason," finished Paul. "I have been to the Norsk Hostefest several times and sampled the lutefisk, and the state fair every year I was there."

"We go to the state fair every year, we take Nana and Oompa Ole ever year, right girls?"

"Pineapple whip!" cried Sandy.

"Kettle corn!" cried Madeline.

"You've surely been there," said Paul. "I'm planning to go up there in the spring, a friend of mine is getting promoted to commander of the Missile Wing at Minot, she kind of demanded that I be there."

"She?" Andi looked a little surprised, then lifted her glass, "here's a toast to my sisters in the military!"

Paul lifted his glass too, "to the best rocketeer in the Air Force!"

They touched glasses and Andi took a sip, "This water is so good! In Denver it would be three, maybe four dollars a liter, what does it go for down here?"

"Not much," said Paul looking a little embarrassed. "It's my tap water. I'm tapped into a natural spring."

"Oh my gosh, no wonder why Lucy moved here! This must make incredible tea!"

"That can be arranged," said Paul with a smile.

As they carried their dishes into the kitchen, the twins began to get antsy. "Can we get our tablets?" asked Sandy, "We want to watch YouTube."

"YoooTooob!" added Madeline.

Before Andi could say anything, Paul interjected, "I need to tell you this, we don't have a lot of rules here, but here's my biggest rule - no screens at the table or after sundown, that means phones and tablets. Is that ok Mama?"

Andi grinned, "That's great! They watch too much YouTube to begin with."

Paul continued. "The TV I like shut off, only exception is if there's a special show or a game on." The twins bristled in anger, they love watching YouTube Kids, but Paul pointed out "There are shelves full of books and board games, records and audio books, I even have a guitar and a keyboard and if you're good, an autoharp if anyone wants to play for us."

"Awwww not fair! Why can you watch a game, but I can't play one on my tablet?" whined Sandy.

It probably wasn't much use to tell a child that Buffalo Bills football, no matter how bad, is just as much a part of life in Western New York as chicken wings, Beef on Weck, or complaining about the Buffalo Sabres. "Tell you what, just to make it fair, if there's a game on, I'll let you watch it with me." Which satisfied the 5-year-old for about 4 seconds, then Sandy turned to Andi: "Maaaaa!"

"Ok," said Paul, "If there's a game on, I'll make chicken wings."

"Deal!" shouted Madeline before her sister could complain more.

Paul gazed at the Roberts family in his cabin and said a prayer of thanks for having had the chance to share his meal with such a beautiful group. Andi is a tiny woman, well under five feet, dark blond hair to her shoulders, sparkling brown eyes that light up when she smiles, a small pixie nose and a generous mouth with rich lips that need no lip gloss. Her girls are tiny too, reflections of their mother with long silvery blond hair and mischief in their eyes, but they obeyed their mom and helped clear the table after dinner.

The table was cleared in record time, leftovers placed in the refrigerator, and dishes washed and put away by Doctors Paul and Andi. "You have a lot of dishes," said Andi as she tried to reach the second shelf of the cabinet.

Paul took the dish from her and placed it in the proper place with ease. "Why do you say that?" he asked.

"Well, it's just you up here, but you have tons of dishes. I would figure you'd have maybe a place setting for four."

Paul smiled. "But it's not just me up here all the time. Josh across the street is in and out constantly with fish and game, my brother and his wife are here constantly, the farmers on either side of me stop by quite often and we make a potluck out of it, and I have friends in Florida who come up in the summer and stay here."

While they walked back into the main room, the girls hauled their small suitcases and carry-on backpacks upstairs and argued over who gets which cot. As the arguing continued, Paul put his cold weather gear back on.

"I'm going to go clear the driveway again," he said and hit a few switches on the wall which turned on some flood lights outside, "you gotta keep up with these storms or you'll end up stuck good." The snow was piling up fast out there.

"Thank you so much for everything," said Andi as she looked into his eyes, trying to read them.

"It's not a problem, I just hope you enjoy my company" he said as he stepped out the door.

"I'm starting to," she said to the air in his wake.

For the next hour Andi, Sandy, and Madeline unpacked some of their clothes into the foot lockers at the end of their beds and made up the beds from the linen and blankets that they found in a standing locker. The pillows were feather pillows, and Madeline discovered you could pluck the feathers out of the pillows and started surreptitiously decorating Sandy's hair with feathers. Then it was off to see what a sauna is.

Andi locked the cabin doors and led the girls to the sauna in the newer cabin, and figuring out the instructions, she turned on the sauna, set to a lower setting than Grandpa Knute ever used, then she and the girls climbed in to relax in the heat. Madeline liked the steam and Sandy liked the dry heat, which was typical of the two, identical to a point, then they diverge on wild tangents. And the girls couldn't decide if they liked the idea of cloying heat, but Andi convinced them that it feels good after playing in the snow. The twins decided to try playing in the snow and then trying out the sauna later.

After their brief sauna, Andi unlocked the cabin door and while the girls who were still grumbling against the ban on tablets fell back on coloring books, she busied herself looking at the collection of medical publications that were shelved in the back corner. She looked over the tomes, many of whom she depended upon on a regular basis. She then looked at his computer workstation. The stacks of folders and documents showed her that Paul works from this corner of the cabin quite often. All through the evening the fire kept them warm and the sound of the tractor clearing and scraping the driveway reminded them of the storm outside.

"Ok girls, it's getting late, jammie time," Andi called, and the girls, still grumbling about the lack of YouTube Kids, put their crayons and coloring books away.

As they headed back upstairs to get their pajamas on, Andi looked out the window and saw that Paul was clearing the snow from in front of the cabin with a small, modern looking, orange tractor. This one was smaller than the tractor he rescued them with, it had a roll bar, numerous floodlights front and back, and it had a pair of arms up front that could be attached to a bucket, which was sitting nearby. The big difference was the sound, the gray tractor sounded more like a tractor to Andi, this one sounds like construction equipment. Right now, Paul had a snowplow attachment connected to the arms and attached behind the tractor he had mounted a drag plow that he dragged when needed. He had cleared a large area in front of the cabins and barn building up huge piles of snow and had finished clearing the long drive that curved off to her left into the dark. Rising voices from the loft drew Andi away from the windows and to her daughters and Wonka.

Paul put the Kubota tractor away in the barn after placing the bucket and plow attachments in their proper locations, closed the big barn doors, and trudged through the swirling snow back to the cabin. He was going to have to plow again first thing in the morning to keep ahead of this storm. After doffing his boots and parka and hanging his hat, scarf, and gloves over the stove Paul headed to the sauna to relieve his aching back in the heat. As usual he followed his sauna with a step outdoors into the cold. The feeling of snow falling on a hot body after a sauna was indescribable other than "utterly refreshing."

After that, his routine was almost identical to before the Roberts family arrived. He put on tea and while the tea seeped he checked his email (nothing but colleagues describing the storm from their different locations), then he stoked the fire in the stove, put on some quiet music, then poured himself a cup of tea and sat on the couch reviewing patient files that were emailed to him while he was rescuing Andi.

At the thought of Andi his concentration on the patient records was broken and he thought of her smile, her voice, the calm manner she handled this whole crazy situation once she got over her initial fear of him. He wondered what her body was like, but she kept it well hidden under loose sweaters and jackets so far. He allowed himself to wallow in this reverie then with a sigh he finished up reviewing the records, made a few notations for the morning, and placed them on the end table and turned out the reading lamp. The cabin was now only illuminated by the fire in the stove, the Christmas lights outside hanging from the patio roof, and a few electric candles he kept on in case one of his visitors had to navigate to the toilet.

Out of the gentle darkness Andi appeared in Paul's oversized grey robe, a worn flannel nightgown, gray sweatpants, and a bright pink pair of fuzzy slippers. "May I?" she asked as she reached for the tea pot that was on the wood stove and poured herself a cup.

"Feel free," said Paul with a smile after she set the tea pot back down.

Andi sat down on the other end of the couch, curled her legs up underneath her, and pulled the end of Paul's blanket over her lap. She took a sip of the tea and closed her eyes and sighed in pleasure. "Now this is Tea!"

"This isn't a girly tea," Paul said, "it's a good strong black tea that you can only get from England. I pick it up at the Niagara Falls Air Force Base commissary."

Andi smiled and sipped again. "Man's tea," she said with a fake growl between sips, "this would make great iced tea."

"Yes ma'am, black as Coca-Cola." Paul gestured to the stairs. "Can't sleep?"

"I was evicted from the full-size bed. The girls couldn't decide who gets to sleep with Wonka, so they took over my bed and Wonka joined them."

Paul just noticed that Wonka's usual spot in front of the stove was empty. "That traitor..." he muttered, "... man's best friend my foot."

Andi continued. "I also want to know what you want."

"What I want? The only thing I really want at the moment is to get the dump scoop on my Ford tractor fixed. I got everything I need and more."

"What do you want from me... like in exchange for this hospitality."

Paul picked his words carefully, he had to be honest, he knew instinctively that she would see through a lie, but if she misunderstood his words she might pack up and lead her girls out into the cold. "I'm sitting here in the firelight sipping tea with the most beautiful, most intelligent woman I've ever had the pleasure to meet. What I want is this perfect moment to go on forever."

"Wouldn't you want more?"

"Well of course, I'm a guy, there's all kinds of things I want, but I don't take what isn't freely given, not sex, not a kiss, not a hug."

Andi clearly relaxed "Can I check your references?"

"There's Wonka..."

"He's a guy too," Andi nervously smiled and sipped her tea. "It's just... I um..."

"No," said Paul, "you don't have to explain. At our age, ok my age, we all have scars and baggage..."

Andi continued anyhow. "My ex, he was... abusive... and every damn thing was a quid pro quo. If I wanted to change the curtains, I had to hit my knees..." she sniffed and studied her tea. "Don't get me wrong, I like sex, I like giving and receiving, but when... when you are forced to... I..." she shuddered, held back the tears and the rage. "I don't like having my arm twisted by a bully. Thank God he's gone. Thank God he never saw the girls."

Andi took another sip of tea, then continued. "Remember when we met in Minneapolis... you and me? While we were posing for that group photo, he was back in the hotel room with a cocktail waitress he picked up at the hotel bar." A tissue appeared from the sleeve of the robe. "When I got back to our room he was gone. He left a note, and, in the end, he screwed me in divorce court... never marry a lawyer."