The Shuddering

distant microphone, waiting for her reply.
    “Would you go get them already?”
    He took another swig and wandered away while Jane pulled out drawer after kitchen drawer, searching for a wine opener among a menagerie of kitchen utensils. She smiled as her friends started to filter into the kitchen. Sawyer touched her elbow as he followed April in, and Jane closed her eyes after they had passed.
    Opening her eyes, Jane shot Ryan a pleading look, but he was already on top of it, jiggling the bottle opener at her from across the room.
    Jane held up her wineglass with a smile. Ryan sat in his requested seat at the head of the table, his wineglass full of lager instead of Bordeaux.
    “To the next three days,” she said.
    “To the mountain,” Ryan interjected. “Good powder.”
    “To new friends,” Jane added, a faint smile directed at April. “And old.” Her gaze wavered, pausing on Sawyer a moment later.
    “And an incredible host,” Lauren said, nudging Jane in the ribs.
    “But most important, to my brother, who will be sending us obligatory boxes of Swiss chocolate from the foot of the Matterhorn for the next who knows how many years.” Jane’s smile wavered as she met Ryan’s gaze. “I miss you already,” she said softly, then lifted her glass higher to keep herself from tearing up.
    Dinner was relatively quiet save for the music that filtered in from the living room, a hush that Jane was satisfied with as she watched everyone eat. There was an occasional quip between the boys, a random joke and easy laughter to accompany the quiet jingle of forks against porcelain plates. Afterward, Lauren helped clear the table while Jane replaced the dinner plates with smaller ones, the three-layer chocolate cake making its appearance on a footed glass stand. Sawyer rubbed his hands together childishly when Jane placed the cake between both boys. She caught April rolling her eyes at her boyfriend’s antics, but only smiled when she caught April’s gaze.
    They drank coffee and stuffed themselves with sugar, talking about old times—about how the boys used to sled down the driveway when they were kids, nearly knocking their teeth out because the slope was too steep and Jane and Ryan’s dad would leave the Land Rover parked at the base of the hill.
    “I’m just glad the road was clear,” Sawyer mused, a bite of cake balanced on the tines of his fork. “Walking up that slope, especially when it’s covered in snow…”
    “It’s a killer,” Ryan agreed.
    “You should install a lift,” Lauren suggested. Ryan leaned back in his chair and raised his hands, his eyes on his sister.
    “Have I not been saying that for years?”
    “He has,” Jane confessed with a laugh. “But it’s too late now, I guess.”
    “Now you’ll be installing a lift in front of your Swiss chateau?” Lauren asked.
    “If there isn’t already one there.”
    “There won’t be one in Zurich,” Jane told him.
    “But there will be in Zermatt. Nothing but snow and cheese fondue.”
    “You’re going to gain a thousand pounds.”
    “I think he’ll be okay,” Sawyer cut in, lifting another bite of cake. “If he hasn’t gained a thousand pounds living with you for the past thirty years, a little cheese isn’t going to hurt.”
    “What’s it like?” Lauren asked, leaning in on her elbows. “Switzerland, I mean.”
    “You’ve seen The Sound of Music ?” Ryan asked, and Lauren nodded. “It’s like that, but multiplied by ten.”
    “Raindrops on roses?” Sawyer asked.
    “And whiskers on kittens…” Jane jumped in.
    “Bright copper kettles?” Lauren singsonged.
    “And warm woolen mittens,” they all finished together, laughing as April watched in silence, a smile pulled tight across her mouth.
    “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it,” Ryan said, his comment directed at the quiet one of the group. “‘Sixteen going on seventeen’?” he asked. “‘How do you solve a problem like Maria’?”
    “Who’s Maria?” April asked, countering Ryan’s faux shock with a confession. “I don’t like musicals. They give me the creeps.”
    “She won’t even watch Rocky Horror ,” Sawyer told them.
    “You know, we used to call Sawyer Frank N. Furter back in high school,” Ryan told her. “He had a fishnet and lipstick phase.”
    Jane couldn’t help the laugh that burst from her throat, covering her mouth a second later. Sawyer slouched in his seat, looking a little embarrassed but far from annoyed.
    “You