Hello everyone. This is the next chapter and the last part of the set up before we get to Edwin’s story. Thanks for all the reviews that you have left to this point…and I’d love your thoughts on this next chapter. I don’t have an ETA on next installments, but I’ll try to update this as soon as I can. Thank you for reading.

Before and After January

By: December

Chapter 1 - Meteorological Moments

January 20, 2025

She was surprised she was here. When she thought about it, it amazed her that she actually made it through the door.

Okay, she was pushed through the door – even though she could have wheeled herself in – but that wasn’t the point really.

The London Ice Storm of 2010. She lived with the storm everyday while living in denial about the storm everyday. Her husband would probably say simultaneously living in reality and denial was something only she could pull off. Maybe, maybe not. But she had. Every day she moved around without walking, the storm was there. But she never talked about the storm. The family never talked about the storms. Her friends quickly learned not to talk about the storm. And she had never gone to anything storm related at all – until tonight.

What was the difference? What made this teach-in special? She thought maybe it was because it was a teach-in at Western. As some of the people around her loved to point out, she was still a keener. University events were about education. And it was also more likely not to turn into some “oh, look at the poor survivors” side show.

There was the family tie to UWO was well. Not that she told Edwin about the event, but he hadn’t told her either. If it hadn’t taken so much mental energy to come, she might have wondered – okay, maybe worried a little – about that.

“You okay?” her husband asked quietly as he sat next to her and took her hand.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” the woman smiled, but then frowned in slight annoyance. “You do realize that I could have wheeled myself through the door.”

True to form, her husband rolled his eyes before he replied, “Yeah, you could have. So what’s your point?”

“What’s my point? What’s my point?” she asked, her voice rising slightly even though she wasn’t really annoyed. At least, not annoyed, annoyed. It was sweet of him to do it. He always did it, one of the ways he tried to protect her and show he loved her. The rolling her in wasn’t the problem. It was that he never seemed to get why she might want to do it herself every once and awhile when she was with him. “I’ll have you know – wait, isn’t that…? But he would have told us, wouldn’t he?”

The abrupt change in conversation would have thrown other people, but her husband had known and lived with her for years. He followed her eyes and also saw what caused her sudden change in conversation. “Edwin? He’s actually on the panel?”

“And he didn’t tell us about it.”

He husband snorted, “Remind me to have a little chat with Ed after this is over.”

“I’m not going to let you intimidate Edwin for kicks.”

“Why not? It would be the perfect end to my day, and he’ll expect it.”

“No.”

“You are taking the fun out of this. I mean, I’m at a lecture. I skipped as many of these as I could when I was at university-“

“Please, you did not! We went to the same school, remember? I know too many things to buy your bullshit.”

“And here I am on a Friday night at school. This is like school. You are making me do school for you.”

“I love you, too, sweetie,” she replied.

He probably would have said something in response if the program hadn’t started at that moment. She smiled when Dr. Washington introduced herself. Edwin had told some great stories about Dr. Washington at Christmas dinner last month. Her stepbrother really was a great story-teller. Especially when he used his powers for good and not evil.

She was still a little annoyed about the plumber story he told her when he was trying to scare her all those years ago. And she still didn’t see the benefits of being scared silly. She just accepted the presence of horror movies in her life. Kinda like she accepted the presence of hockey. She had no problem with the ban on watching football in the house, however.

As she listened to the controversial professor introduce the panel, she had to admit to re-thinking her decision to be there. Mrs. Laposi’s discussion of the impact of the story might include that picture that always ran – the one she hated. Dr. Ang’s discussion about the storm was bound to upset her husband.

Looking over at the love of her life, who seemed to be paying attention, she had to wonder if she was being selfish. She was accused of it enough in her teen years. And as a teen, she probably was being selfish more often than not. But, in angsting about coming herself, she had forgotten how her husband lived through the storm as well. That he went through her hell with her with an added hell of his own. He never talked about it, but ever since that January he paid attention to the weather. And, although he would never admit it out loud, winter storms made him nervous. Her usually laid back husband would turn almost into a “super keener on a grade grubbing mission” during the winter storm season. One unknowing co-worker had once joked about her husband’s latent dreams to be a meteorologist so he could make his name on predicting a huge destructive storm that no one saw coming.

That hadn’t gone over very well. And not just because her husband was convinced he should have seen 2010 coming. Or that he should have listened to the misgivings that she and her friend shared that night. Once she had tried to joke that he had said that he tuned her out on a regular basis, why would that night have been different? He didn’t laugh. He didn’t agree. He didn’t have a comeback. He was just silent.

To this day, she didn’t know what to do when he or when they got silent. Their default was screaming, her sister was convinced…or so she said often enough. Quiet was usually not a good thing around them.

As Dr. Ang began his discussion on the storm and how the MSC tracked it, she hoped upon hope that he would say the storm was a complete surprise and that it came from no where. She wasn’t so lucky. Ang mentioned all the signs that were present, signs the MSC saw and signs they didn’t. As the now biology professor continued listing things that should have made the storm obvious, she watched her husband’s jar get tighter and tighter.

She sighed and she reached over and squeezed his hand. It was probably telling that his jaw stayed so tight. She almost opened her mouth to whisper something to him, something encouraging she hoped, but then decided against it. She was pretty sure he was already hearing her voice in his head. At least a younger version of her voice saying, “I don’t know. It looks pretty bad out there. Maybe we should go home?”

Some days she wondered if he was ever going to forgive himself for staying. Like she needed to forgive herself for ending up in her situation. If she hadn’t moved…or if she was just a foot to the right of where she was that night….

She blinked as her husband seemed to untense a bit. She wasn’t sure why until Dr. Ang’s “Thank you,” registered in her mind. The former meteorologist was finished. Now they would get to hear what Edwin had to say.

She took a deep breath to steady herself. She never really knew what happened in the house during those days or what happened in the car. No one ever talked about the storm. For all of her…issues with 2010, she had to admit, she was curious. What was Edwin going to say? And why tell no one about the talk? She was sure that her sister would -.

Her sister. Another thing they never talked about it. She had to wonder what Edwin knew and if that could help her understand some things…unearth some things that still seemed covered in ice, even now.

- to be continued -