The Shuddering

last chance to make things right with the boy that she’d lost so long ago. She couldn’t bear to look at him, her sinuses flaring with her sudden urge to cry. “I heard,” she said, keeping her voice as steady as possible, staring down into her mug, the scent of java doing nothing to soothe her nerves. “What was it about?”
    He sighed. “Jane, can we—” His mouth snapped shut, cutting his sentence short when April marched into the kitchen, fully dressed, looking like she’d been up for hours. Jane turned to face them, her mind reeling with those three cryptic words. Can we what? She watched April wrap a scarf around her neckwhile standing at the mouth of the hall, staring at her beau. And for the first time that weekend, Jane was seized with a genuine pang of animosity toward the stranger standing in her childhood mountain getaway. She wanted to grab the ends of that scarf and pull them so tight around April’s neck that her perfectly pale complexion turned an ugly shade of blue. She wanted to openly roll her eyes and ask her where it was that April planned on going in such weather, and then banish her to the upstairs study like the unwelcome little bitch she was.
    But rather than spitting out the profanities that were dangerously balanced on the tip of her tongue, she squared her shoulders, took a breath, and forced a smile that filled her with self-loathing. “Good morning,” she said, the spirited tone of her own voice ringing in her ears. She was a hypocrite. A liar. A two-faced fake.
    “Morning,” April murmured, failing to offer Jane a smile.
    Jane turned away, silently carrying her mug of coffee down the single step that led into the living room, giving the couple some room while her own hostility simmered just beneath her skin. April didn’t care whether she offended anyone, scowling at virtual strangers, dodging conversations, spending entire days at ski lodges in some pathetic attempt to derail everyone’s good time. She was the one who stormed through halls in the dead of night, slamming doors, waking up the house, and Jane was self-effacing enough to still be nice to her. Jane glared at her own reflection in the window, disgusted with her own tolerance.
    “What are you doing?” she heard April ask. “Admiring the view?”
    “We’re snowed in.”
    “That’s not my problem.”
    Jane frowned at the landscape. An empty deer feeder stood a handful of yards away from the living room window, half-buried.Their dad used to drive more than twenty miles to buy bales of alfalfa during the summer, back when the cabin was used during every break she and Ryan had from school. They’d pile the feeder full, and Jane would spend hours watching deer meander outside the window—sometimes with babies, sometimes with fuzzy antlers atop their heads. During one winter, right before Christmas, one of them was bold enough to wander onto the deck. It had nearly startled their mother to death. Mary Adler had looked up from the dishes and stared straight into a buck’s big black eyes. When she had screamed, the animal took a flying leap off the deck’s icy stairs. Their dad had been hysterical about it all day, swearing it had been the funniest thing he’d ever seen.
    “What do you want me to do, Ape?” Sawyer’s tone was steady, soothing. He was blessed with the ability to keep a cool head in the most strained of situations. His composure had always made Jane feel safe; if the world were to suddenly catch fire, Sawyer could pacify her until it consumed them both.
    “All I know is that we’re leaving,” April said. “Today. This morning.”
    “How?”
    “I don’t know. Figure it out. Why don’t you go wake up your friend, go plow the road? Speaking of…” Her words tapered off.
    Jane looked back to the kitchen just in time to catch Ryan’s entrance. His hair was wild, sticking up in every direction. He shielded his eyes against the glare of the snow, then greeted the fighting couple with a few gravelly words: “Plow it with what, my dick?”
    Jane looked away, biting back a bitter laugh, a flare of vindication igniting at the pit of her stomach. Ryan had a way with words. He was rough when it was called for, and he never hid his true feelings; they were twins, but complete opposites, like yin and yang.
    “We’ve got two days left, remember?” Ryan reminded them. “It’ll take us two days of this awesome vacation to shovel the drive, and maybe then, if we’re lucky, we’ll be able