Morning was bright and clear but there was no school. There would be no more in-person classes until COVID-19 cases went down again.
Carrie gazed out the window while she wiped the breakfast dishes, and drearily Laura sloshed the cooling water in the dishpan.
“I want to go somewhere!” Carrie said fretfully. “I’m tired of staying in this old kitchen!”
“We were thankful enough for this warm kitchen yesterday,” Mary gently reminded her. “At least we aren’t superspreaders like Mr. and Mrs. Boast, who had the whole family over for Thanksgiving and gave each guest a ball of butter from their last churning. At least five people were infected.”
Laura felt cross. The kitchen seemed stale and dull. “This winter is going to be so fucking long,” she said.
“Laura,” Ma said reproachfully. “You all may put on your wraps and go out into the yard for a breath of fresh air.”
She paused, then added, “But don’t forget your fucking masks.”
Pa came into the cozy kitchen. “By George, that dinner looks good!” he said. “I could eat a raw bear without salt!”
He sat down at the table. “A long fucking winter is coming,” he said, shaking his head.
“Charles!” Ma said with a frown.
“I’m sorry, Caroline, but it’s enough to make a saint swear,” Pa said. “Dr. Fauci says December and January are going to be scary because so many people won’t wear their fucking masks and stop gathering indoors. What the fuck?”
“Well, we’ll have to get a delivery from Whole Foods,” said Ma. “I’ll be grateful to have some meat again. And I don’t know how I’ve lived without their Veganic Sprouted Ancient Maize Flakes.”
“We should Zoom with the folks in Wisconsin,” said Ma that evening, as they read the bundle of Youth’s Companions around the fire.
“I want to tell them I still have my doll, Charlotte,” said Laura.
“I wish they could come spend Christmas with us this year like they did in the Big Woods,” said Mary.
Grace bounced on Mary’s lap and cried, “When is Christmas coming? When is Santa Claus?”
Mary did not know what to say to her. COVID-19 meant no one outside of their bubble could come for Christmas. And if FedEx was overloaded, it might mean Santa Claus couldn’t come, either.
Carrie spoke up. “Maybe Santa Claus can’t get here this winter, Grace. The border is closed with the North Pole because of the virus, so Santa Claus might only be able to Zoom with us.”
Ma shook her head. “Santa Claus always comes to good little girls,” she said firmly to Grace. “I’m sure he gets his temperature checked before coming down the chimney.”
The cold and the dark had come again. It was hard to be cheerful. In the evening, Pa took his fiddle and played merry tunes.
“I’d rather watch something on Netflix,” Laura grumbled.
“Oh, Laura,” said Mary, who was blind. “It’s always wonderful when you describe what you see on the new season of The Crown or The Queen’s Gambit, but I like listening to Pa’s fiddle,” said Mary.
When it was bedtime, Pa played Mary, Laura, Carrie, and Grace up to bed.
“Ready now, all together!” he said. “Right, left, right, left — march!”
It helped some. Laura hoped that she seemed cheerful enough to encourage the others. But all the time, she knew that cases were rising in Dakota Territory because their fucking governor wouldn’t order a state mask mandate. She knew they would be stuck in the fucking house until spring.
Frost was freezing up the windowpanes and the room was cold near the walls. When the dishes were washed and put away, Ma set the lamp on the red-checked tablecloth and lighted it.
“Remember the last long winter?” she said. “Remember how blizzard after blizzard swept through town, and the trains couldn’t get through with supplies?”
Pa’s eyes twinkled and he laughed out loud. “Yes, there was that time I beat the blizzard to the stable by the width of a gnat’s eyebrow!”
Laura laughed too. “Pa, remember how you taught me to twist hay into sticks because we ran out of wood to burn to keep warm?”
“Yes, Half-Pint,” Pa said. “And Ma and Mary had to grind wheat with the coffee mill and bake brown bread so we wouldn’t starve.”
Laura sighed. “And now people complain about simply wearing masks and social distancing, even though COVID cases are rising and more people are dying.”
Pa shook his head. “Those fucking QAnon-loving, Trump-rallying, assholes,” he said. “What a long fucking winter this is going to be.”
“Charles!” Ma admonished.
“Don’t worry, Caroline,” Pa said, his eyes twinkling once more. “COVID-19 has got to quit sometime. It can’t lick us. We won’t give up like the Boasts did. Now their Grandma is on a fucking ventilator.”
FedEx finally arrived with all the presents on Christmas Eve. Ma left the packages to quarantine for a while and she wiped down the table with Clorox spray.
“We’ll open them tomorrow morning,” she said. “We’ll be glad we saved the fun for Christmas Day.”
“Hurrah for Santa Claus!” Pa sang out.
Laura smiled. Joe Biden would be inaugurated on January 20th. There would be COVID-19 vaccines coming by spring. Maybe Trump would even be kicked off Twitter. She could see a light at the end of this dark tunnel.
“It’s going to be a long fucking winter,” she shouted, “but we can still have a Merry Christmas!”