The Big Shuffle by Laura Pedersen

student and never had to work all that hard to get A's and B's. But I'm too preoccupied with my own family tragedy to pursue the matter. It's just so good to hear the sound of his comforting and familiar voice. We talk for a long time—Craig recounts how he and another guy got lost in the woods while collecting mold samples for botany and had to be rescued by a platoon of ROTC students who made it into a reconnaissance exercise.
    Then I tell him about Mom being transferred to Dalewood and how Aunt Lala made sticky buns with Francie to cheer her up, but forgot to add the yeast and so they never rose any higher than the pan. And the way the church ladies force the kids to play Bible Scattergories for hours on end. They're quite the linguists, too, never seeming to tire of pointing out how the words SILENT and LISTEN contain the exact same letters and that DANGER is ANGER with a D.

TWELVE
    A SNOWPLOW ROARS DOWN THE STREET AT FIVE IN THE MORNING and I wake up still trapped inside the same horrible after-school special that doesn't seem to want to end. In fact, it gets worse when I hear the heavy metal blade scrape up against my front porch. Obviously the driver has passed out at the wheel and lost complete control of his vehicle.
    I open the front door to find Al Santora lurching up the driveway in a big town plow and clearing the two feet of snow in minutes. He waves his hat from the cab, and I pull on a pair of Mom's boots that are by the door.
    A pale winter sun is rising in the distance and the trees had taken on a thick coating of ice during the night. The rooftops are blanketed with fluffy layers of snow that make the houses appear as if they belong in a gingerbread village. The entire neighborhood has a gauzy, dreamlike quality.
    Al shifts the rumbling machine down to idle, leans out the window, and shouts over the still-growling engine. “It's terrible about your dad. I'm really sorry.”
    “Yeah, it's a nightmare.” Thick flakes of snow stick to my eyelashes and dissolve on my lips as we talk. “Mom is at Dalewood.”
    Al nods as if he's heard all the details.
    “Nice set of wheels.” I nod at the orange plow with the gold Cosgrove County seal painted on the side. Last I'd heard, Al had been laid off from the water authority and was collecting unemployment.
    “It's my new job until April.” He gives me a half smile that I take to mean,
When you have a stay-at-home wife and four kids, you take what you can get.
“One of the guys is out on disability and this way I keep up my benefits.”
    Al had a nice gig before—he wore a suit and scheduled inspections. Now I see there are bags under his eyes and his lips are chapped and cracked from the cold.
    “We had six more inches since midnight.” Al points to the section of the road where he's plowed.
    When I look down the block, it's impossible to tell where the street ends and the sky begins.
    “A big storm is coming in from Erie,” he warns. “I've got to keep moving.” He cranks the engine back up and throws his plow into reverse. “Turn on the radio,” he shouts over the noise of gears crunching. “The superintendent just called my boss and they might close the schools.”
    What Al doesn't say is that he shouldn't be seen plowing individual driveways with taxpayer dollars or, worse, make someone think that he's earning a little extra on the side. But it's a huge relief for me right now. Teddy can clear up the front walk easily enough after breakfast, though Dad always liked to say that the hardest math problem ever invented was how to get five feet of boy to shovel one foot of snow.
    While mouthing “thanks” I wave at Al and then dash back into the house.
    The twins are still sleeping soundly and so I head toward the kitchen to make some coffee and switch on the radio. Though itdoesn't really matter if school is closed because our gang wasn't going anyway. Today Eric and I somehow have to break the news.
    When I open the fridge, I notice that the