Falling for Rain by Gina Buonaguro, Janice Kirk Page B

volume to compete with the sound of the rain on the roof.
    "Mozart," Rain said only moments into the piece. Humming along to the opening strains, he turned the car in the driveway and pulled out onto the road.
    Emily was surprised he knew Mozart so well but didn't say anything. She didn't want to risk another accusation of snobbery. He continued to surprise her by talking about classical music for several minutes, switching the topic once they reached the paved highway that would take them into town. The visibility on the highway wasn’t good, but Rain drove with both confidence and caution.
    “Do you want to hear the end of Michael Alexander’s wife’s story?” he asked.
    “Her name was Emily Alexander,” Emily said. He looked over at her with surprise. “I went to the cemetery behind the Blue Church yesterday,” she said, realizing suddenly how much she’d been looking forward to the continuation of this story. “Both Michael and Emily are buried there, and both lived fairly long lives. Which means that Michael must have returned from trapping for the Hudson Bay Company and rescued his wife from the root cellar. ”  She was as pleased with her reasoning as if she were Sherlock Holmes himself.
     “Not exactly,” Rain said, keeping his eyes on the road.  “Christmas came and went and still no sign of her husband. Emily and her baby lived on what little food was stored there, and she even tried to heat it a bit by lighting a fire. But, even with the trap door removed, the smoke was unbearable, and she soon gave up. Sometimes, when it wasn’t too cold, she would light a fire in the ruins of the cabin. Over this she could heat water and roast some potatoes. Not exactly ideal, but it must have been a big improvement over cold snow and raw potatoes.
    “This ability to make fire,” Rain continued, “could have been what ultimately saved them. And remember, they didn’t have little books of paper matches back then. Perhaps she carefully saved and nurtured coals from the cabin fire, or perhaps she had a tinder box which she had rescued from the fire.”
    Rain took a break from his story as he carefully drove around an emergency crew who were clearing some downed power lines from the road. Although the men were dressed for the weather, they still looked wet and miserable.  “Poor guys,” Rain said. “I hope they get paid well for being out on a night like tonight.”  Emily, too, feeling grateful for the warmth of the car, regarded the workers with sympathy.
    Once clear of the road crew, Rain resumed the story. “New Years came and went. It was now 1817 and still no husband. Luckily for history, Emily’s diary was one of the things she had managed to save from the fire. She did not make many entries at this time as you can well imagine, but she did note her birthday. She wrote:  If anyone had told me that one day I would be living in a hole in the ground in the middle of the Canadian wilderness in winter, I would have told them they were insane. But here I am, and I am the one going insane. I have little milk for the baby. He coughs all the time. Today, I am eighteen..... ”
    “Eighteen?” Emily gasped. “She was only eighteen?”
    “That’s right,” he said with a glance in her direction.  “I can’t imagine an eighteen-year old today being able to cope with the same hardships, but, to be fair, Emily was one of the tough ones as well as one of the lucky ones. Many settlers’ wives did die under the harsh conditions, and others actually went insane with loneliness, fatigue, and the absolute strangeness of their new surroundings. Ever heard of cabin fever?” Emily nodded, fascinated. “We just use the expression to say we’re tired of being cooped up in the house and want to go out.  But in those days, it was a serious problem. Confined to a very small cabin with no one around for miles, people literally went crazy, throwing open their cabin doors and running out into the snow in an attempt