Clifford's Spiral: Chapter 11 (cont'd)

In a Vermont deep freeze.

Chapters are serialized here for paid subscribers.

About This Novel

In Clifford's Spiral, the stroke survivor’s past is blurry, and his memories are in pieces. He asks himself:

Who was Clifford Olmstead Klovis?

Stroke sufferer Clifford Klovis tries to piece together the colorful fragments of his memories. Some memories are sweeter than others.

Chapter 11 (continued)

His stay with the Bedards was mostly uneventful. The father, Jack, was mostly absent, much in demand because he was the only large-animal vet in the county. Clifford’s contact with him amounted to two suppers, after which the burly, soft-spoken fellow excused himself and went straight to bed. Notably lacking in their dinner-table conversation were any of the expected fatherly questions about Clifford’s college major, his career plans, his family background, or his intentions toward Natalie. Jack and his wife Madeleine did want to know about student life in Paris, on which subject the inexperienced Clifford knew almost as little as they did. Both parents were French-Canadian by birth, and neither had ever traveled back to France. Jack (who may have been born Jacques) spoke with a hint of Quebecois. Madeleine’s accent was plain, flat New England. Clifford would soon learn that her personal manner was just as straightforward.

Over the first night’s dinner of meatloaf, green beans with bacon bits, and mashed potatoes with gravy, Jack asked between mouthfuls, “They take dollars over there?”

“I don’t know,” Clifford said. “I’ll have travelers’ checks.”

“Watch the rate,” he said. “Don’t get gypped. There’s French going back in my family, you know. Smile to your face, stab you in the back. At least, that’s what they’d say about the old-timers. Lumberjacks in Quebec. Why did they come? Ha! Probably criminals.”

He went back to his meal and didn’t say another word before he excused himself with a reassuring wink to Clifford and got up.

Natalie had a younger sister, Suzanne, who from her pictures was blonde and prettier. She was away at a Catholic boarding school in Boston, and other than Natalie’s saying out of her parent’s hearing, “She’s a spoiled brat,” there was no further mention of the cute baby sister.

That night, they put him up in Suzanne’s room. He remembered the horsehair blanket on the bed was a half-inch thick and about as heavy as those lead aprons they use to shield you from X-rays at the dentist’s office.

Clifford hoped Natalie would slip into the room during the night, but it never happened. He didn’t dare make the move into her room himself. Here he had these expectations of bucolic togetherness, and there wasn’t even an opportunity for serious necking. If they went outside to kiss, he feared their lips might freeze together.

He planned to leave early Saturday morning to avoid the Sunday rush on the highways leading back to New York. On Friday night after dinner, Natalie proposed they take a walk.

“It must be pretty cold out there,” Clifford said.

“Damn right,” Natalie said. “It’s forty below!”

“So you’re joking about the walk, right?”

“Not at all. We’ll get bundled up. Complete with mittens and wool scarves wrapped around our noses. We’ll be out for maybe five minutes, but you’ll be able to tell all those French sophisticates what it’s like to step out on a frigid, crystal-blue night in the country, dead still. And you’ll never forget the sound your boots make in the snow.”

When they were both wrapped up like padded furniture, they ventured out on the stoop of the old clapboard farmhouse. As she’d said, the air was perfectly still. The frozen boards of the stairs creaked loudly as they stepped down to a snow-covered walkway.

They wore galoshes with double layers of heavy wool socks. Clifford wore a pair of Jack’s, which were easily two sizes too large. When Clifford took his first step, he understood her remark about the sound. It was like the eerie noise cellophane makes when you crumple it, something like a screech and a crackle. The snow was not wet and not damp, but a kind of exotic, granular material on the surface of some other planet.

“See!” she exclaimed, all muffled.

“Wow!” he replied, and they walked on — screech, screech, screech, screech…

Through those scarves, there was no way for them to have a conversation, much less a wet kiss. The heart-to-heart that Clifford had both anticipated and dreaded didn’t take place.

When they’d gone a short distance marveling at the sound of their footfall, Natalie took his arm to make him stop. She pointed a mitten skyward.