There was no sound from inside, only the low hum of the refrigerator.
My baby was wrapped in three layers of fleece inside the carrier on my chest, his small face tucked against my collarbone. I picked up the blue diaper bag by its canvas strap and started down the three steps to the gravel driveway.
The county road was a quarter of a mile down the mountain, marked only by the white posts of the guardrails. The snow on the private drive reached my shins, dragging at my boots with every step.
The wind carried the smell of burning pine from some distant chimney, but around me there was only the vast silence of the pass. I kept one hand on the baby’s back, feeling the steady, rapid rise and fall of his chest.
If I could reach the highway, there was a county salt bin where the plow drivers sometimes parked.
My boots made a dry, packing sound in the fresh powder.
Behind me, the dark shape of the cabin disappeared behind the thick stands of spruce
A pair of wide headlights cut through the dark, throwing long shadows of the pines across the drifts. The grinding roar of a heavy engine grew louder, accompanied by the rhythmic clinking of metal.
A yellow road-grader slowed to a halt, its massive steel blade scraping the packed ice. The heavy door of the high cab swung open, releasing a draft of warm air that smelled of diesel and hot metal.
“Get in before you freeze,” a voice called down from the high seat.
I climbed the metal steps, dragging the heavy diaper bag behind me, and sank into the vinyl passenger seat. The driver pulled the lever to close the door, then rubbed his calloused palms together.
“I am Keith,” he said, his eyes staying on the dark road ahead as he shifted the heavy machine into gear.
“I am Ellen,” I said. “My partner locked the cabin door.”
Keith did not ask any questions, but his jaw tightened as he steered the grader down the mountain.
“We are going to the clinic in Silverton,” he said.
