Storm Warning. Linda Hall

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      Lately, Nori always had the feeling that she was forgetting something. She would walk out of a store and when she got to the door she would make a point of turning and looking back to make sure she hadn’t left anything on the counter. Or when she got out of her car she would mentally count the items she was carrying—bag over shoulder, sunglasses on head, keys in hand, cell phone in pocket. Even when she counted, even when she looked back, she still felt as though she was leaving something important behind.

      It didn’t used to be like this. Marty always told her that she was the most organized person he knew. She had to be. When you were married to the most head-in-the-clouds individual on the planet, one had to compensate. Marty, her sensitive, artist husband, could be so into a painting that he would lose track of everything—time, appointments, meals. She was the one in the family who made sure the girls got to piano lessons and gymnastics on time. She was the one who would make sure they had regular family meal times and that Marty was called in, precisely at six, from whatever piece of art he was working on. She made him see the importance of that.

      When Nori complained that she had to do all the thinking around the place, all the organizing, all the setting down of schedules, Marty would take her in his arms and call her his primary color, the color from which all other colors got their hues; that without her, there was no color at all.

      The color thing wasn’t entirely true. If she had been the primary color, then Marty had been the palette where the colors were mixed and made usable, because when he’d died her whole world had faded into a kind of pale, soupy, grayish monochrome.

      “Ma’am?” Nori turned in the doorway of Malloy’s Mercantile. Back at the cash register, the checkout girl was waving Nori’s plastic bag of purchases. “Don’t forget your bag.”

      Nori retraced her steps and made an effort to smile as she took the proffered bag. As she walked away she made some comment about forgetting her head if it wasn’t attached.

      She had purchased a package of flimsy, cheap towels that might make good rags, plus a six-pack of heavy, wool work socks. In her former life, Nori never wore this kind of footwear. Her city socks were mostly light trouser ones that she wore underneath dress pants. Sometimes at home she would put on funky socks with flowers or diamond patterns. After a few weeks of blisters here at Whisper Lake though, she decided she needed something heavier inside her work boots.

      Before she reached her truck she stopped and counted, just in case. One—Malloy’s Mercantile bag, two—shoulder bag, three—sunglasses, four—cell phone. Keys? In pocket. She threw the plastic shopping bag on the passenger seat and grabbed her backpack, which contained her laptop, closed the truck door, aimed the remote and locked it, and off she went to Marlene’s Café.

      Grief and stress, she told herself. What had everyone told her? Don’t make any major life changes for a year? Well, maybe in her case eighteen months wasn’t long enough. Stress and grief were making her forget things. Like packages.

      Stress and grief were turning her into a loony woman, a crazy sleepwalker. She was nowhere near over mourning Marty. She should have realized that because sometime during the night she had sleepwalked herself into her kitchen and opened up her cupboard doors and left them that way.

      This morning when she woke, she had felt marvelous. She’d had a long night of uninterrupted dreamless sleep. It was rare for her to sleep that soundly and for so long. Maybe it was knowing that she finally had someone who would work for her that allowed her to rest. The sun was shining and the day was promising to be lovely and warm. Today, she would face her fears of the storm and go back out in the kayak. Today, she might even mount the steps into her loft and get out her paints.

      Nori was a muralist. Essentially, she painted what people told her to, which was mostly humongous scenes of old country towns on the sides of buildings. It was her work and she loved it. Yet since Marty died, she hadn’t touched a paintbrush. She just couldn’t bring herself to. It was like that part of her—the artist part—had died with him.

      But today, with the sun streaming into her window and leaving ribbons of gold on her walls, it would be different. She would paint. Today would be the day when she would get back to being an artist. It had been too long.

      After she had woken up this morning, she had gone into her kitchen. The cupboards next to the sink were wide-open and the cups she and Steve had drunk coffee in yesterday were up on the shelf. She had stared, perplexed. She hadn’t remembered putting them there. She had left them in the sink. Hadn’t she? And how had she left the cupboard door open?

      She was always fastidious about keeping her cupboards closed. Marty was the one who was forever leaving them open and when she would complain, he would take her in his arms, dance around the kitchen and say, “Ah, my little Elnora.” And he would push her hair off her face and plant a kiss on her mouth.

      She would playfully push him away and say, “You know, that’s СКАЧАТЬ