Short Story: DEEP FREEZE

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“Jesus, you could hang meat in here!”

Alicia shivered as she set her books down on the small table just inside the front door. She rubbed her hands together and glared at John, knowing damned well that he had turned off the heat before they had left that morning. Again.

John walked to the thermostat with short precise steps. “There is absolutely no reason to heat an empty house.” He moved the dial a fraction of an inch to the right and looked at her reprovingly. “I have to work hard all day to pay the bills. The very least you can do is support my conservation efforts.”

Alicia groaned inwardly at the much too familiar line. “Can’t you at least set it at 65 so we don’t freeze when we come in?” she asked, trying for a sweet reasonable tone. She pulled off her boots and set them on the rack to dry. “60? 50? I swear it’s colder in here than it is outside!”

“That’s ridiculous and you know it.” He stamped the snow-encrusted boots on the mat and brushed his shoulders free of the light wet sprinkles slowly melting on his impeccable faun overcoat. Carefully shrugging out of the coat, he hung it up on the single wooden hanger in the hall closet. “I did some calculations today, and we actually save an average of $347 a month to have you back at school. If you were home, we’d have to heat the house twenty-four hours a day.”

“Really.” Alicia poured as much sarcasm as she could into the single word. “Well, I’m glad I’m saving us money for a change. How awful it would be to heat an entire house just because I am home. And how even more tragic if we had to set the thermostat up a few more degrees because we had children.”

At the stricken look on John’s face, Alicia was immediately sorry for her careless words. Children were an old, deep pain, one that would never be completely healed. After eleven years of trying, Alicia had finally reconciled herself to the fact that they would never have any children of their own. She knew much of John’s current bitterness stemmed from that disappointment.

She raised her hand in wordless apology, but John brushed past her into the cold dark kitchen. He flipped on the light and ran water in the kettle for their ritual evening tea.

“John.”

He remained standing with his back to her, but he stopped what he was doing and leaned heavily against the sink, his head bowed.

“I’m sorry.” She went across the room, the cold from the floor burning the soles of her feet through her thick wool socks, and put her arms around him, resting her still cold cheek against his warm back.

“I know.” John sounded old and tired. In that instant, years of bitterness vanished and Alicia glimpsed the man she had married. He had always been intense and worked much too hard, but he had had a compassion and a vision for humanity that went beyond his work at the law office. It had been why she married him. But now, after so many disappointments both at the office and at home, she knew he had lost most of his idealism. He rarely even took pro bono cases anymore.

John signed noisily and turned in her arms, gave her a quick perfunctory hug and pointedly released her.

He went to the pantry and pulled out a box of flavored herb teas. “What would you like tonight: Earl Grey, Apple Cinnamon or Cranberry?”

What she really wanted was to talk, to get past the wall John had erected around himself over the years. She wanted things to be at least a little like they used to be. She wanted to get on with her life. To get on with the business of living.

She wanted to love again.

But, what she said was, “Cranberry.”




(c) Susan Quinland-Stringer
Written for a Creative Writing class in college, around 1992ish