Cold by Celeste Hurst

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

Heavy folds of Sherpa blanket sag down her arm, cold air rushing into the pocket of warmth. Watching the ripples of her breath gently crash through ginger and lemon tea, she hopes the draping makes her look like Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle. Maybe Sandra Bullock in Practical Magic. It doesn’t. No kind wind pushing hair back. No full moon to gaze at. Snow hits the window, at least. But no drifting flakes. Just a frenzied swarm of tiny shards. The caretaker commented on the luck yesterday. That burying someone during the warm before the storm was easier than cutting deep into frozen ground. Maybe he didn’t think the young woman running her pale hand against glossy dark casket again--wishing the surface wasn’t so smooth, wanting a splinter or rough patch but feeling nothing but slippery varnish--could hear him. Fair enough. Most would be preoccupied after screaming, yelling sharp words that cut jagged lines in the throat. Words not spoken ten years ago, but left to molder, infecting the mouth. The heart. Finally spewed out over the corpse of a mother. Hoping the venom might pierce the armor of the pressed suit of a father. Hands and fingers aching for something to break against, yearning to feel something other than polished walnut. Settling for mangling a business card offered with soft words, words that would probably work on another woman, other children that weren’t left with rot in their bodies. But the slick card felt too smooth against trembling hands, too much like the coffin. She pulls the torn fragments from her pocket now, the blanket gaping further, her chest more vulnerable to cold. Tea and honey having soothed, the empty cup is set down slowly enough to not sound against a desk. The puzzle of a torn phone number is carefully solved with fingertips skimming the surname she abandoned. She remembers a gift given over a decade ago. Carefully chosen green and blue stripes, the favorite colors of father and daughter matching against each other. The same pattern seen on an old faded tie yesterday. A tie too old and cheap to match well with a fancy suit. But worn anyway. One hand gathers lumpy blanket closed around a shivering chest. The other hand carefully consults a torn number and raises a phone. Two rings, and then an answer.

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Celeste Hurst graduated from the University of Utah with a BA in English and from Lindenwood University with an MFA in Creative Writing where she was also an editorial assistant for The Lindenwood Review. Her work has been published in The Citron Review. She lives in Utah and enjoys participating in community theater.