"You sure about this?" Michelle asks, our first born child swaddled against her chest as she watches me put on my thickest coat and some leather driving gloves. I look at her over the top of my glasses and give my wife a tired shrug.
"Storm isn't getting any easier, is it? If anything it's going to get worse. So best I go now and try to beat the worst of it."
Her lips purse and I can see how reluctant she is for me to go out in what some forecasters have said is the storm of the century. Ideally I'd have my slippers on and be lounging in front of the TV to watch the worst of it from the comfort of my home. And that had been the plan until Angela had called, alone and worried she didn't have enough food in for the coming storm.
"Just drive safe, okay? And let me know when you get there" Michelle tells me as I hoist the bags of food we've packed up for her oldest friend. I kiss her cheek and tell her I will and huddle into my coat as I cross the drive to my 4x4. The wind is already biting at my cheeks and causing my glasses to mist, and when I finally get into the driving seat I spend some time preparing myself for the journey for a moment before putting it into gear. I wave at Michelle, who's stood in a very warm looking front room, and pull off into the storm.
This isn't something I'd normally do. Usually I'd have bitched and said that Angie should have prepared better because we'd all been warned about the winter storm coming in. I also know it isn't as simple as that because I know that Angela is still adrift after the loss of her husband to cancer just six months ago. I know she is alone and scared and in desperate need of some help. That help probably would have come from Michelle under different circumstances, but storms aren't a good place to be while she's breastfeeding our son.
So that leaves me to navigate the dangerous roads, leaving the town behind and heading towards the countryside where Angela lives. It's a journey that should take 20 minutes at most, but with the new responsibility of fatherhood making me a much more sensible driver, mixed with the treacherous conditions, it's almost 45 minutes until I pull onto the large drive of Angela's converted barn. There are no lights on in the house, and when I check my phone I have the weakest of signals. I quickly message Michelle to let her know I'm here and then, reluctantly, get out of the warm car and into the lashing storm.
I'd been right to set off when I did as the storm is even worse on the exposed hills of the moors. I dash for the boot, feet crunching into the fresh snow, and pick up the bags. It's a relief to see Angela in the doorway of her home as I head towards it. She beckons for me to hurry with her hand before quickly standing aside as I barrel into the house, carrying the cold and snow with me.
"I was worried you'd got into an accident," she tells me in her soft voice as the door shuts behind us. I place the bags down and feel the slight pressure of a small hand on my back. "Thank you so much for this, Tim."
My glasses have misted again so I quickly remove them, but I don't need to be able to see Angie properly to know what she looks like. Short and petite in stature, with chocolate brown eyes and light freckles on her cheeks. Her red hair used to almost reach the small of her back, but after the loss of her husband she had cut it back to something close to a pixie cut. It had been done as an act of mourning, but I had thought at the time that it made her look very cute.
I slide my glasses back on and smile at her, exhaling slowly and feeling myself relax after the stress of the drive. "It's okay - the least we can do really. Let me help you put the stuff away before I set back off. You erm... want to put some lights on?"
"Power cut." she says as she picks up one of the bags and heads towards her kitchen.
"Typical," I mutter, following her and letting my eyes glance around the dark house and thinking how in the middle of a power cut the house feels even more like a tomb to her late husband. The house feels as cold as the storm outside, and I notice spiderwebs littering the corners of rooms, unopened envelopes on sideboards and a general feel of a place that doesn't host the living anymore. It makes my heart go out to Angie that she's alone like this.
The only sound for a time is tins sliding into cupboards and the fridge door being opened. It's difficult to know what to say, because there aren't any words that I can say that will help - it's actions. And even then, what can any of us do to help her? I pause placing a tin of soup in a cupboard and look across at Angie as she puts some food into the dark fridge.
"Do you want to come back with me?" I suggest. "Rather than you being here alone. Means you'd have some company - though you will have to put up with Toby waking up in the middle of the night for a feed."
She looks up and I can see the hesitation on her face. She doesn't want to be a burden, I think. I smile at the woman who walked behind my wife down the aisle all those years ago. "Come on Angie," I say as the silence drags on. "Don't stay here in the dark on your own."
I watch as she exhales and then silently nods before smiling back at me. "Thanks Tim. I'll just make up an overnight bag and then we can set off."
Angie goes off to do that while I finish packing the food, and within ten minutes she's beside me at her front door wearing her own thick coat, a cute little bobble hat and a rucksack over one shoulder. It couldn't be more than 15 minutes since I'd arrived, and yet we stand together at the open door of her home and look out at my car that is almost covered in snow already.
"It gets really bad up here," she tells me sagely, and all I can do is nod blankly before we close the door.
"Well, guess you won't be alone at least," I say as we go back to the living room. I try to call Michelle and give her an update but the signal I'd had before is gone. Instead I send a quick message and tell her that the snow is bad and I might have to stay with Angie for the night. I click send and hope it gets through soon before she starts to worry, then remove my coat and hang it on a peg.
"I can make up a bed for you," Angie says, coming into the room from the kitchen with two glasses of water. "Probably best to wait until the morning and see if it's better then?"
She's polite, I think, but there's no soul in her words. They're just a flat line with none of the cadence and life to them that had been there before. It had, understandably, been like this with Angie for a while now. Going through the motions and saying things without any real conviction. Like she'd lost some of herself when her husband passed. It's a shame, I think, that Michelle isn't here instead, rather than her best friend's husband. I almost feel like I've been sent round as a sick reminder of what her friend still has, and what Angie has lost.
It does no one any good to think like that though. So I hoist a kind smile onto my lips and take the glass from the hand that still bears the rings her husband had placed on her finger.
"Thanks, I'd appreciate it. How about I try and get the log burner going? Won't do us any good to just be huddled in the cold huh?"
I see a flicker of life behind her eyes at that moment. A response to my kindness. "Sounds good," she says, and I feel a touch of her old self rear its head. "You do that, and I'll see what I can do in the kitchen without any power."
We both have our jobs to do. In the kitchen I hear the scrape of cutlery and of cupboards being opened while I start to build the elements needed to start a fire. By the time Angie returns there's a faint glow of firelight emanating through the room. I notice she's taken the opportunity to change, as she's now wearing some loose tartan pajama bottoms and a t-shirt I suspect was her husband's seeing as it's much too big for her small frame.
"You've done well," she says kindly, holding a tray with various snacks, as well as two empty wine glasses and a bottle of red. Her eyes go from the bottle to me, that smile still there. "I guess you're alright for a drink now you're staying?"
"Would be rude not to, wouldn't it?"
"I think it's the least you deserve considering what you had to drive through just to get here."
We both laugh and I try to recall the last time I heard that sound coming from her petite mouth. I'm certainly surprised that I've managed to win a chuckle from her lips.
She pours the wine while I drag a small sofa closer to the fireplace where we both take a seat. I take a glass and sit beside her, the two of us facing towards the now roaring fire and enjoying the crackle of the logs burning.
"How's fatherhood?"
"Good," I answer hollowly, because while I'm enjoying being a dad it feels like it's come at the cost of my marriage. Not that things were good before - Michelle had never had much of a sex drive. And there's only so many rejections a man can take before he just stops trying. The only time she had ever instigated and wanted me was when we were trying for Toby, and that lasted all of a month and dried up just as quickly as it had come. And now we'd not been intimate for well over a year, leaving me starved for intimacy.
It's not something that I can share with Angie but I can tell she notices something. I hear a click of acknowledgement from her tongue at my short reply. I don't feel like there's anything more to add though so I join her with a long draught of wine.
This is the first time I've been alone with Angie since her loss I realise - all the other times I'd seen her had been with Michelle. And I just don't know what to say to her. How to act. I lick my lips and hear what I feel sounds like an impatient shuffle next to me, before I just decide to go with honesty.
"I don't even know how to talk about your loss Angie. Kinda wish Shell was here for you."
I hear her turn and I do the same, and I'm surprised to see a small flicker of a smile at the corner of her lips. "You know what? I'm glad it's you," she says kindly. "I love your wife, but she would just coddle me. And I'm so sick of being coddled Tim. I just... want to feel normal. To not have people walk on eggshells around me. Is that so bad?"
My head shakes at her question. "I don't think so. I don't know what the statute of limitations is on grief, or whether there is one. I think it's fair to want to feel some kind of normal at some point."
"I'd like that soon," Angie sighs. "Even if I don't think it will ever be possible, I'd like it. Sorry that this new normal means that you have to sit in the dark and cold with me though."
