The window with star icicles fogs up as the gas burns to heat. Outside a dog barks in cadence with some unseen animal sheltering from the wind. Maggie feels a cold chill as her blanket slides. She leans back into Cecil, whose warmth compensates for the dying temperature. She thinks about her son away at his fathers this weekend and wonders if he has trouble sleeping without her as well. Maggie knows he prefers to stay with his dad, but she hasn’t quite admitted that to herself. Her partner stirs, reaches his arm around her belly.
“Hey. You up?”
“Yeah I am. Getting ready to go.”
“Oh. Well, why don’t you stay?”
It’s sweet, and she wants to but once he falls back asleep she slides from his embrace and heads out into the winter night.
Her car is cold, the heat slowly defrosting the frozen windshield. She sees the eyes of something in the woods reflect in her headlights. It watches her for a moment than wanders off. Maggie turns on the radio to the sound of Tom Petty’s Running Down a Dream. She hums it for a bit, then turns the sound off. Better to drive in silence.
There is no music left in Maggie anymore anyway.