Evergreen by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 5

Tom had been in Evergreen all his life. His wife, Janet, was his high school sweetheart. It was love at first sight and as soon as they graduated they were married in St. Mark’s. The parents were strongly against it from the beginning. But for the sake of keeping the peace, they maintained an uncomfortable silence. Before tying the knot, however, both got jobs with the local mill. Janet worked in the mill’s administrative department, while Tom worked in the field felling trees. A year later, they had what would be their only child. They continued to live in Evergreen is a small picture-perfect family. Even with the parents relinquished their opposition to their youthful marriage once Katie was born. Now, Tom, Janet, and Katie were seen as a happy, healthy and financially stable family. College had never been a consideration and as long as the mill continued to provide jobs and Tom and Janet were happy to remain in Evergreen - sheltering their daughter from the horrors of the world that lay somewhere beyond the town’s borders.

But their joyous life was shattered shortly after Katie entered the second grade. That winter, an ice storm screamed into New England and following the path of most Nor’easters, it rolled through northern Maine. The entire state was affected. Every city and town had been shut down by the storm’s unstoppable power. Every school and business across the state was closed for days and without power, the snowscape of New England looked more like the surface of some far-off alien planet - dark, cold and lifeless. Although the people of Evergreen knew how to handle old man winter, they were unprepared for what lay at their doorstep. When the storm struck, it seemed to do so with an intelligence that led it straight to Evergreen. The great white monster roared through the mountains and leaped on the town like a wild animal. For hundreds of miles, life had been dropped into a storm-induced suspended animation as people sat in their homes, waiting for the end of the world to pass.

As everyone sat in front of their battery-powered lights and fireplaces, Janet was returning from the mill. Her boss, like everyone else in town, had seen many winter storms pass through Evergreen and like everyone else; he had underestimated the storm’s ferocity. By the time he closed the mill and sent everyone home, the storm was at its peak. Everyone got home safely but Janet was not so lucky. The road into town had been coated with several inches of ice. Her car was found the next morning at the bottom of a steep wall, overlooked by a sharp bend in the road. In the report, it was concluded that Janet was driving too fast for the conditions of the road. It was also reported that Janet had died of exposure after sustaining an impact to the side of her head.

As an emotional shock wave shook the town, everyone came together to grieve. But the town’s grief couldn’t hold a candle to the pain Tom felt. Janet had left him alone to raise Katie and as a single parent, he was wholly unequipped for the task. Katie had always been ‘mommy’s girl’ and she was old enough to understand the word ‘dead’ and immediately realized that her mother would not be coming home. But for most people, time heals all wounds, though perhaps not completely and while Katie would experience the healing effects of childhood, Tom’s soul was deeply scarred. For him, Evergreen became a town with a population of one, and Katie would have to grow up sooner than expected.