On the morning of the twenty-sixth, once the roads were cleared, Jack drove me to Afi’s. Luckily, my mom and Stanley had been there when the storm hit. With my grandfather’s wood-burning fireplace and a big pile of wool blankets, they’d toughed it out much the same way we had.

It was a quiet drive. Since the storm, something had come between us. We continued to hold hands and share kisses, but our guilt was there: the crowd-making third.

We pulled up in front of the house and let ourselves in through the front door.

My mom met us in the foyer and pulled me into a hug. “What a relief. So many reports are coming in about the storm — stranded motorists, accidents, and that poor little boy.”

Jack exhaled a ragged breath. I noticed he turned away from me. Who could blame him?

We moved into the kitchen, where Stanley joined us, taking my mom’s hand in his. “Glad to see you kids are OK. What a night. One we’ll never forget.” He turned to my mom. “Have you told them yet?”

“Told us what?” My voice was tight. It had been a long two days.

Stanley held up my mom’s left hand. Like me, she got rocks for Christmas. Only I’m sure hers didn’t come in a bag.

“We’re engaged,” my mom said, wiggling the fingers of her left hand. The ring was a pear-shaped diamond.

I hugged and congratulated them both, as did Jack.

“We’re thinking of a Valentine’s wedding,” my mom said. “Just family and a few friends.”

I nodded and listened to their plans, but couldn’t help feeling a hard smack of shame that we were talking weddings while another family was making funeral arrangements.

Afi rattled into the kitchen with a blanket around his shoulders and a mug in his hand. He didn’t look so great.

“Are you OK, Afi?” I asked.

“Been better,” he said. His eyes were glassy, and his skin was bone-white and hung like a rumpled sheet around his eyes and over his cheekbones.

My mom took the mug from him. “More tea, Dad?”

He nodded a yes.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Old,” he said.

“Older than the last time I saw you?”

Afi gave me a complete loop of his watery eyes. OK, so it wasn’t the smartest question ever. We all were — technically — but my point was it had only been a couple days, yet he had aged years.

“We were cold at night, weren’t we, Dad?” My mom clicked a fire to life under the kettle. “But at least the gas and electricity are on now. You’ll sleep well tonight. Not everyone’s so lucky. Plenty of areas are still without power. Our place and Stanley’s, for instance.”

Just as Stanley was about to comment, his cell phone rang. He stepped into the living room to take the call.

“What about the store?” I asked. “It should be open, shouldn’t it?”

“It would have been closed yesterday, anyway,” my mom said. “I suppose people might be disappointed this morning. They’ll understand, though. The governor did declare a state of emergency.”

“I’ll open it up,” I said. “People will need supplies.”

“Aw, hon,” my mom said. “They could drive into Walden. The plows have been out.”

“I want to,” I said.

Stanley appeared under the arched doorway. “I just had the most extraordinary call. From Greenland, of all places.”

“Greenland?” my mom said.

“The Klarksberg Research Station. It’s famous for its studies in global warming.” Stanley paced back and forth, shaking his head like a wet dog, and holding his phone out like he next expected a call from the president or the pope. “The storm drew attention to the area. They found that research paper I wrote about our September microclimate of cold temperatures. That, and now this record snowfall, has them interested.”

Uh-oh.

“They’re sending someone here immediately to do fieldwork. They want me to collaborate.”

“That’s good news, right?” my mom asked.

Jack and I exchanged looks.

“Fantastic news,” Stanley countered. “It’s international recognition of my work and Walden’s Climate Studies program.”

“What exactly is it you study?” Jack asked Stanley.

“There are billions of tons of methane, the byproduct of decaying ancient arctic plant life, trapped below the permafrost. Based on the rate of climate change, I’ve created a model to predict the compound effect this methane will have on global warming.”

As much as I knew Stanley was into his work, I still got the yawns every time he went all pocket-protector on us.

“It sounds fascinating,” Jack said.

Huh?

“It is,” Stanley said. “You know, there’ll be plenty to do with the researcher coming so soon. And with everyone gone on break, I could use some help. If you wanted to come by the lab, you’d be more than welcome.”

“I think I will,” Jack said, nodding his head.

I gave him an are-you-kidding look, but he was too lost in thought to notice.

“I better get home,” Jack said, snapping to. “There’s still more snow to clear.”

A few minutes later, watching from the front porch as his truck pulled away, I thought that I should have been at least a little cheered up. My mom and Stanley were over-the-rainbow happy. And Jack seemed genuinely gung ho about visiting Stanley’s lab. So why did I feel like another cold front was moving in?