The Elegant Gathering of White Snows by Kris Radish Read Free Book Online Page A

freeze it in a sacred part of my mind,” J.J. explained. “I can remember the last time I breast-fed each one of my kids, what chair I was sitting in, what time it was, what I had on, what they had on. I remember where Tim and I first made love and how he smelled, and I remember the first time we met at Sandy's house and how the candles burned in the window and how it felt when I walked in and saw you all smile and my heart, my damn heart seemed to stop.”
    “That's remarkable,” Alice told her. “Remarkable.”
    “Well, I think if you don't just stop once in a while that everything important, every moment that seems big just then when you are doing it or having it, gets lost and rendered meaningless.”
    “That's profound,” Chris said, imagining all of them, just as J.J. wanted her to, sitting in the dark.
    “I don't mean it to be, it's just something I've always done and this, just these minutes, seem like something I don't ever want to forget because we'll stop eventually. Then we'll have to make dinner and someone will get the flu and at least one of us is bound to get pregnant again and well, we might forget that this walking and talking and sharing was important. We might forget that we cried on Susan's floor and then got pissed off about every horrible thing that has ever happened to us, and started walking.”
    “I won't forget,” said Sandy.
    “Me either,” said Janice.
    “I'll remember,” Susan declared. “I'll always remember.”
    “Me, too,” added Chris and then Alice.
    “I'm in,” said Gail.
    They formed a permanent memory then of each other, of the way the dark hides some parts of their faces and not others. They looked around at the buds on the trees and smelled the damp grass and watched as the moon dipped lower. The women moved as close to one another as they could, tipped back their heads so they could feel the night air brush against their smiles. They breathed slowly, uncrossed their legs and then one by one, they rose up from the ground and started walking again.

 

    Associated Press, April 27, 2002

—For immediate release.
Wilkins County, Wisconsin
     
    SEVEN WOMEN CONTINUE WALKING
     

    The women walking through this county on what local residents say is a “pilgrimage” have stopped at a rural farmhouse for rest and food.

          Although one of the women has apparently left the walk, the remaining seven are into their second day of walking and have refused to talk to reporters, police officers, or relatives who have followed them to find out what they are doing.

          Sheriff Barnes Holden said the women are all good friends who apparently started walking during a weekly study group. “I don't know how much studying was going on,” he said. “My wife said things like that are usually just an excuse to get together and talk.”

          The women, who walk at a steady pace, often change positions and sometimes hold hands. When approached with questions they smile, raise their hands as if to say “stop,” and keep walking.

          Friday afternoon they walked off of Highway D at the intersection of Wittenberg Road and into the yard of a small farm. The women were greeted by the farm's owner, Lenny Sorensen, and quickly ushered into the house.

          Neighbors said that Sorensen, 46, has been separated from her husband, Jackson, for the past several months.

          Reporters who approached Sorensen were told to leave the property.
    —30—

 
     
    The Women Walker Effect: Lenny
     
    Lenny heard about the women walkers on Friday morning when she turned on the radio. “What the hell?” she said to herself because there was no one else to talk to. Lenny, whose God-given name was Elenora but who had been called Lenny her entire life, talked to herself so much that she often felt as if Jackson had never left and she hadn't been alone for three months. “That son-of-a-bitch,” she said every time his face popped into her head.
    Just after