A WINTER MEMORY

A WINTER MEMORY

I lay in the double bed - it was the one I'd had as a small  child. If you looked carefully, two of my fingerprints could be found in the paint on the the old headboard. My mother had gone through a jag where she needed to "antique" all the big junky old furniture that had been retired to the farm. No one could stand still too long for fear of being her next target.

"Now don't touch it," she said sternly of the headboard as she kissed me good night, "It's still tacky!"

I had promised, genuinely, with a sweet smile and big innocent eyes, "Oh no, mummy. I won't!" But of course, there they were - more sticky finger prints in the top coat than a messing-up of the actual artistic process.

She had said some stern words to me and sent me out to pick black-eyed Susans for a breakfast bouquet. But she never repainted it, only finished the headboard with an early American eagle decal in the center. It matched nicely with the early American eagle wallpaper in the parlor.

That was not the first time I had disturbed her hard work. When I was younger and my mom had been on a picture painting jag, working long hours on a picture of an old house in the snow. I think this was while she'd stayed home with me before kindergarten. Since I was so young, I really only knew the story from family tales. When my mother had finally finally finished her work of art, she assembled my father, high school-aged brother and me into the living room of our bungalow, saying with great flourish and pride, "Ta Da!"

I can visualize my brother trying to hold back his laughter, saying, "oh, that's real nice Mother" barely hiding his sarcastic teen-ager attitude. And  my father wearing his dark pants, white shirt and black tie with horned rimmed glasses (think engineers in Apollo 13) being whole heartedly supportive of my mother and her blossoming creativity.

"Oh mummy!" I had exclaimed with all the enthusiasm of a preschooler. And as I'd approached the work of art to get a better view, I'd tripped. In slow motion I'd flown threw the air and slid face first through the wet oil paint of my mother's picture.

I can only imagine the chaos that must have ensued. Did she laugh or cry or both? I don't' remember. But through my own tears I do remember her yelling at my brother (who must have been about to bust his gut from laughing) and  took me upstairs to wash the oil paint off my face.

Considering my mother usually had more enthusiasm than patience, I had always marveled that she'd some how (and I never knew how) fixed the painting. It had hung in our living room for years, giving me no end of grief!

As I lay there in the dark, my body shook form a belly laugh remembering these things. The room was cold and in the light of the firelight flickering on the ceiling from the kitchen, I could see my breath. It was deep in the cold night, 20 degrees below  or colder. My father wouldn't sleep much tonight as he rose periodically to stoke the fire and add more wood. It would crackle and buzz and pop until finally settling down, shifting it's embers to sleep.

I heard the far off rumble of the train - the Grand Trunk - heading from Montreal to Portland and back. The sound started as a very low rumble, barely audible, then get louder, the sound fading in and out with the wind. The tracks were far away, on the other side of the Androscogin river, hugging the mountains of Evan's Notch.

Even before the train was anywhere near Gilead, the windows and the 200 year old structure of the house would begin to rattle. Finally, the whole house shook from the mighty vibration traveling through the granite bedrock below the river, shaking our foundation. Through the dead cold night with crystalline stars, the sound of the train's whistle comforted me,  signaling an intimate and cozy hello as it rattled through the tiny hamlet of Gilead.

As the sound trailed off, I pulled the quilt over my cold nose and snuggled in for sleep again. The water buckets line up in front of the kitchen hearth would surely have ice in them in the morning. I could already smell my father's bacon, coffee, and pancakes...