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Jeremy woke up on Friday morning dreading getting out of bed. He sat up in his top bunk and looked out from his half of the window. Snow.
Snow meant icy roads. It meant power outages–it meant no school.
Jeremy smiled wide and leaned over the side of his bunk, looking down at his brother’s empty bed. Parker must’ve already gotten up.
The noises coming from downstairs were enough proof. Jeremy climbed down his ladder and peeked out into the hall. He heard Cathy singing along to some miscellaneous Mariah Carey song playing on the radio before it was abruptly switched to WRKO and the sound of Gene Burns’ voice filled the dim space.
“Well folks, this news just coming in from the Weymouth Public School District just south of us, due to the incoming blizzard, schools are–”
Closed.
Cathy’s excited squealing followed the announcement, burying their father’s frustrated groan. Jeremy could already see him pinching the bridge of his nose over his reading glasses.
“I told you, I told you!” Cathy said distantly, then ran up the stairs and past Jeremy to her room, presumably off to call her friends. Parker came out of the bathroom moments later, pushing past Jeremy to get into their room.
“Move, faggot,” Parker said, still rubbing his eyes as he got dressed. Jeremy scoffed, then went to get freshened up.
When Jeremy got downstairs, he caught a fleeting glance of his mother and father saying goodbye to one another in the foyer before his mother retreated to the living room. She smiled when her eyes landed on Jeremy and pulled him into a hug.
“Mornin’, slugger. Guess you heard the news, huh?” Jeremy looked up at her and grinned.
“I’m gonna make a fort for me and Simon, Ma!” Susan smiled down at her youngest and brushed his hair back.
“Make sure you bundle up whenever you get out there, okay? How about breakfast, hm?” Jeremy nodded, sitting down and loading his plate up with strips of bacon and chunks of egg to make himself a breakfast burrito. Cathy came down with Dad’s Nokia wedged between her ear and shoulder, shoveling some food onto a plate before plopping down on the couch, talking loudly to whoever was on the phone. Parker followed soon after, eyebrows furrowed at the racket.
“Morning, hun, grab some breakfast. I’m gonna go down the street to check on Nana and Pop before the storm gets worse. Don’t go out back unless Cathy’s watching you–wouldn’t want you getting buried under a pile of snow like the boy in Norwell,” Susan said as she shrugged on her thick coat. She pressed a kiss to Jeremy’s cheek, ruffled Parker’s hair, and waved at Cathy before she disappeared out the door.
Jeremy ate his breakfast quickly, eager to start plans on his snow fort. Last year, he’d convinced Steven from the next block to come over and help and they had managed to get two walls up before the sun came out and ruined their work. This year, he was in New Jersey for Christmas, and that meant he’d come back from winter break with stories and souvenirs for everyone in class. Jeremy wanted to bring back something even better–the story of his perfect snow fort.
Jeremy dumped his dishes in the sink and then ran back upstairs. He sat down at Parker’s desk, flipping open a notebook to an empty page before starting his blueprint. The fort would be for Jeremy and Simon–it had to be big enough to fit his dog bed and a chair, at least. Maybe he could convince Dad to hook up the outside TV…
Jeremy scribbled away, detailing and labeling each section of his fort. Ideally, he would have pillars in the front, flanking the hidden entrance. Maybe he could work in a moat somewhere, or a lookout tower, or tunnels that led to the inside of the fort…
Jeremy slapped down his pencil once he was satisfied. He wrapped himself up in layer after layer of clothing, finishing off with his boots, the laces hanging untied by the sides. Jeremy grabbed his plans and ran down the stairs, catching himself from falling forward a couple of times.
Parker came around the corner wordlessly, yelling when Jeremy almost ran into him.
“What the fuck!” Parker exclaimed, shoving Jeremy back. Jeremy fell back onto the stairs, nearly hitting his head on a step but being saved by his thick hood. Hearing the scuffle, Cathy came to the stairs. Parker left the scene with a huff. Cathy helped Jeremy up.
“You really need to learn how to tie your shoes, Jem,” she said, ducking down to tie his laces for him. When she finished, she stood and ruffled his hair before heading to the kitchen.
“Watch me from the window, Cathy!” Jeremy said, running out of the back door. Simon waddled after him, wrapped up in his thick coat, but refused to go down the stairs, instead watching Jeremy from his spot on the porch.
Jeremy quickly got to work. He outlined the layout of the fort, shoveled the softer snow aside, then started packing snow tightly into a plastic tub to make his rectangular walls. He got three good looking walls and a roof up, piling snow up against the cracks to cement them in place before he decided to take a break. He trudged through the snow and sat down on the steps next to Simon, petting him absentmindedly as he tried to catch his breath, the smoke puffing out around his face.
Behind him, the glass door slid open with a squeak. Jeremy thought nothing of it, hoping it was Cathy so he could peacock about his work until Simon jumped up from under his hand and ran after the figure who cleared the steps in a leap. Parker, bundled up in his own coat, started gathering handfuls of snow, quickly forming snowballs and lobbing them at Jeremy’s fort.
“This fort isn’t gonna survive The Blizzard of ‘78!” Parker yelled, kicking at the walls of the fort. Jeremy ran down the steps towards Parker, tackling him into the snow before he could do any more damage to the fort. Simon barked excitedly.
“Stop!” Jeremy said, the two now wrestling in the snow. The two came to standing, continuing to grab and push at one another, coming to a head when Jeremy shoved Parker into the remains of the fort, covering him in snow. Parker kicked blindly at Jeremy, arms grabbing at his coat before he fell limp. Jeremy relented, his chest heaving as he sat down in the snow. He looked over at Parker who wasn’t moving and felt a spike of fear run through him.
“...Parker?” Jeremy spoke softly, nudging his shoulder. Parker didn’t move. Jeremy felt his blood run cold. He moved quickly to clear the snow from Parker’s face–he’d be hearing about the boy from Norwell for the rest of his life.
“Parker, c’mon, please, this isn’t funny!” Jeremy shook Parker by the shoulders, trying to wake him up to no avail. Jeremy ducked his head down to Parker’s chest, listening for a heartbeat intently. Parker’s coat rustled from the light winds which only added to the noises, but faintly, Jeremy could hear the thud of his heart. Relief flooded his body, only for a short moment, though, because the next sensation he felt was the cold pierce of snow being shoved down his back.
Jeremy leaped up and yelled in surprise, twisting and turning to guide the snow down his back. Parker watched him from the ground and grinned.
“You’re a jerk!” Jeremy yelled, the snow falling onto the ground with a wet splat. Parker started up again, throwing snowballs at Jeremy this time. The two continued their war, the fort forgotten in the background as the sky grew cloudier.
Snowballs continued to fly across the yard until both boys were red in the face and panting, their gloves soaked through. Parker took a seat on the steps, and Jeremy took the opportunity to grab another handful of snow, packing it together when the back door slammed open.
“Boys!” Susan’s voice echoed around the yard, furious. “What was the one thing I told you two not to do?” Jeremy dropped his snowball and ran up to his mother.
“I’m sorry, Ma, Cathy was watching me from inside, swear!” he mumbled into her sweater. Susan sighed, wrapping her arms around Jeremy and looking over him at Parker.
“Well?” She arched an eyebrow.
“He started it,” Parker pointed at Jeremy. Jeremy squirmed in protest.
“You were wrecking my fort!” Jeremy shot back.
“It doesn’t matter who started it, boys. You should know better–both of you,” Susan said, disappointed. She took in the boys’ flushed faces and the aftermath of their roughhousing. “But… it is nice to see you two getting along for once. That’s a Christmas miracle if I’ve ever seen one,” she said, fond of her two youngest. “Now, get inside. You’ll catch colds soaked like this.”
Later in the evening, Susan lit their fireplace and put on a movie. The storm was howling outside, growing stronger by the hour. The news was playing on a low volume in the living room, the anchor telling listeners to be prepared to hunker down for the next day or two.
Susan and Cathy were in the kitchen, trying out new recipes for cookies. Jeremy and Parker were left in the living room, tasked with finishing their homework for the week. They had set up on the couch surrounded by blankets and pillows, their textbooks and snacks on the coffee table. Susan trusted the boys to get along for at least the rest of the night and hadn’t checked on them for almost an hour.
After the last batch of cookies was slid into the oven, Cathy volunteered to clean up, so Susan took the opportunity to peek into the living room, wiping her hands on her apron. Parker and Jeremy had migrated to the floor, Jeremy’s fourth-grade textbook in the middle of the chaos of pencils and notebooks. Parker had migrated over to Jeremy’s space and was using a pencil to point at something on his page.
“You forgot to bring down the eight here, see? You gotta fix it before you can divide again,” Parker whispered. Jeremy furrowed his brows, erasing and fixing the mistake.
“Oh… okay. That makes sense,” he whispered back, scribbling in the rest of the sequence.
Parker moved back and rolled his eyes. “I’m not gonna explain it twice, so don’t mess it up again,” he said, words lacking their usual bite. Jeremy nodded, grinning when he got the right answer.
Susan smiled, holding her breath so she wouldn’t disrupt the moment.
“Thanks, Park,” Jeremy said quietly, focusing on the next problem in his book. The words hung in the air heavily for a moment.
“You’re welcome, Jeremy,” Parker whispered back. The two worked in silence for another minute.
“I’m gonna build the best fort ever tomorrow,” Jeremy spoke into the room. “Better than the one you wrecked today.”
Parker smirked. “Not if I beat you to it.”
Susan smiled softly. It wasn’t very often that her boys got along, and she’d learned to cherish rare moments like these. Deep down, she knew that tomorrow they would likely be back to bickering, but tonight, under the glow of the fireplace and surrounded by the howling storm outside, they were brothers.