There had been thunder in the night.   A single clap and a cascading rumble that shook Peter’s window in its rickety frame. He had not thought much of it at the time, only that the angels shouldn’t be out bowling when they should be singing Gloria in excelsis. But now, waiting to regain the life in his limbs, his throat parched and eyes crusted closed, he recalled the explosive roar. Thunder in winter? It didn’t make sense.

After his spell passed, Peter stretched his heavy limbs and found they badly wanted movement. He reached for his running shoes, his thermals and sweats. Traffic on the main streets would be light, and the streets themselves should be mostly free of slop. He could get in a couple of miles before breakfast. Work out the knots that had tightened during the last couple of days.

Coming downstairs he saw Tara curled up on the living room couch, smoking away, staring at the tree and its multicolored pins of light. Her eyes were red. She wiped her cheeks and looked away from him. Peter took his jacket off a hook by the door. He removed his hat, gloves and scarf from one of the sleeves. Now Tara was staring at him.

“What?”

Tara sighed and disappeared behind a gray film. “They used to… I don’t know.”

“What?” Peter whispered.

“They used to at least try,” her voice creaked. “I remember years when there wasn’t room under the tree. When we had to use the chairs to pile things.”

“It was just stuff,” Peter grunted. He wound his scarf around his face.

“No,” Tara said. “It was how they communicated. How they said the things they didn’t say all year.”

“Well, they ran out of things to say.” Peter thrust his hand into a damp glove.

Tara shook. Her shoulders rounded and she brought her knees up to her chin. “I’m only fifteen. Already they got nothing to say to me? They let me smoke and curse in the house and they never even say anything!” She wiped a red eye.

Peter stood by the door wondering what to do. Should he pierce the gray cloud enfolding his sister and take her in his arms? Was there something he could say?

Tara rose from the couch. “Caroline was looking for you.”

“She’s up?”

“Since six she said.”

Peter couldn’t believe it. Caroline was notorious for hibernating until noon. Well, it was Christmas, and that was always the exception, although Peter couldn’t understand the urgency about getting up for this Christmas.

“I’ll be back soon.”

“You can’t go out.” Tara took a step towards him. “One of the oil tanks blew up. There’s a health advisory. They’re saying stay indoors.” Tara reached for her cigarettes and lighter. Peter grabbed the doorknob.

“Can’t be any worse than in here.” He swung the door open and braced himself against the cold.

The cold knifed through him. Fortunately the wind was behind him, and gave him the push start he needed. He could hear the blood rushing through the vessels in his ears. His eyes teared, blurring and vertically stretching the white and cobalt landscape like watercolors hung up before they dried. After two blocks he had a stitch in his side. This will pass, he said. Run through it. At the entrance to the park, the arch in his left foot cramped, a spike of pain that forced him higher up onto his toes. He turned off the road onto a gravel and dirt path, hoping the softer surface would help. After a quarter mile, his breathing became labored, he slowed, then reeled. He reached for his head, pressing his fingertip onto a throbbing ring of pain, starting at his eyebrows and circling behind each ear. What was happening to him? Why couldn’t he go on? He crouched, elbows on knees. He felt a stabbing pain in his left wrist that was working its way up his arm. He massaged it with his right hand. He was nauseous and thought he might be sick. Then he saw the plume.

It rose from behind the crown of the hill which sloped down towards the refinery district. Blue-black, frayed at its edges by the wind, it curled, seeming to slither across the surface of the sky, then bowed downward toward the houses to the east. Angel of Death, Peter mused. You’re out of season. But then so were the stitch in his side, the stabbing cramps in his arch and wrist. He mopped cold sweat from his brow. Doesn’t Christmas usually come with a more quaint epiphany? What then was this?

A sharp horn blared startling Peter. Again. He spun around.

“Peter!” Caroline yelled. “C’mon, come over here!”

Caroline was alone in the car, waving anxiously for him to come over. He lurched toward her, still feeling dizzy.

“You can’t run out here, with all this fucking poison!” she yelled.

“Choice of poison,” Peter groaned, and tumbled into the passenger seat.

“I hear ya.” Caroline edged the car back onto the road, over the crown of the hill and down towards the sea wall. “Didn’t you hear the ka-boom last night?”

“Didn’t know what it was.”

“Well, one of those tanks. At least one.” She used the turnout and brought the car to a stop. Through the greasy windshield they could see the range of tanks, no longer snow-capped, several scarred black, with a gaping, charred hole, the center of which glowed orange. From there the black tail of the Angel of Death spiraled upward.

“What caused it?” Peter asked.

“Who knows. Bound to happen. Just glad Daddy wasn’t working.”

Peter looked at the remaining tanks. Were they all just accidents waiting to happen? “All that snow couldn’t keep them cool.”

Caroline turned her head, as though unable to stand the sight anymore. “Some things just can’t be kept cool forever.”

This epiphany kept growing bleaker. As it is written, in the fullness of time, all things will turn to shit.

Caroline slapped the steering wheel a few times, then dropped a fist on her thigh. “Remember…remember we used to go down the shore?”

“Down Belmar?”

“Or Seaside.”

Peter nodded.

“But then we stopped going? Remember?”

“I remember we stopped going. But I don’t remember why.”

Caroline twisted the steering wheel hard to the left, and pulled off the turnout. “Yeah, I don’t either.”

They didn’t talk for a while, until Peter noticed they were not heading back to the house. They were heading towards Four-Forty.

“How you feeling,” Caroline asked.

“Okay.”

“Okay bad or okay good?”

“Okay okay.”

“Can you drive?”

Peter shrugged. “You want me to drive?”

Caroline’s eyes fluttered and for a second she seemed to bite her lip. “I need you to take the car home.”

“Where you going?”

Caroline rolled her eyes. “I’m getting away from that fucking cloud.”

Peter laughed. “Take me with you!”

Caroline shook her head. Peter caught the sign as Caroline made the turn-off. She was heading towards the airport. “Car—what’s this?”

“What’s what?”

“Where are you going?”

She took a deep breath and gripped the wheel firmly at ten and two. “San Diego.”

“San Diego?” Peter laughed nervously. “San…San Diego?”

“What?” Caroline forced a laugh. “Fat girls can’t go to the beach?”

“But… today?”

“Christmas present to myself.”

Peter shook his head. “For good, huh? Like, to live? Who knows?”

Caroline shrugged.

“You didn’t tell anyone?”

“What’s the point? I don’t need grief. I need to do this.”

“What’s in San Diego?”

“Find out when I get there.”

They rolled on in silence. The skies to the south were clear of the black poison. A white jet rose above the black skeleton of the Pulaski Skyway. Its white vapor trail was chalk on the gray slate of sky. Caroline took the airport exit and climbed the ramp towards the departure terminal.

“I left a note,” she said.

“To whom it may concern, I’m heading to San Diego?”

“Something like that.”

“That’ll go over big.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t all get the hero’s send-off.”

Caroline pulled in to the curb. She jammed the shift into park and hauled herself out of the driver’s seat. Peter unclasped his seat belt and popped open his door. He met his sister at the rear of the car and pulled her bags out of the trunk, placing them on the sidewalk.

“Thanks.”

“Keys?”

Caroline placed the car keys in Peter’s hand. “Tara might just freak.”

“She didn’t help you sneak out?”

Caroline grabbed up her bags. “Can’t…you know they pull you back in.” She tossed her head back to keep tears from brimming over. “Get you to care for them, and they’re not even caring for themselves. That’s supposed to be my life?”

“No,” Peter muttered. He looked at her face, twisted in sorrow, and felt something inside of him melt away. So many times in the past, he had been angry at her for expressing her pain. It was weakness, it was giving in to them, it was suckering him in. What good was it to feel anything about something he couldn’t change? Better to lie still and quiet and wait for the madness to pass. But now, he saw in his sister’s eyes something sweet, something redemptive.   Peter was struck by the irony: last night he had used a mirror to see her face, now he was using her face as a mirror. She was seeking his freedom as much as her own, and he could have the full share. All he had to do was ask.

“I wish I had gotten you something.”

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“When I fixed the car. It was… I thought you’d use it.”

She sniffed and smiled. “It got me here.”

“Yeah,” Peter shrugged.

Caroline dropped her bags and hugged him tight. Her tears wet his cheek. “Drive safe, okay?”

“Sure.”

“I mean really.”

“Okay.”

Peter watched his sister turn and trundle off with two suitcases and an oversized purse. She looked like she could be anyone else, not just his sister. The automatic doors slid out of her way, then closed behind her. Peter returned to the car. Drive safe. He reached into the glove compartment and rifled around, pulling out the registration. He flipped through the papers, checking the insurance certificate. It was three months expired. Peter pitched the papers and jammed the key into the ignition. After a deep breath, he turned the key.

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