Somewhere far back in his memory, behind the van and the hostels and the cathedral in Ghent, something stirred in its sleep and turned over, and he could not quite see its face.
---
At nine o'clock his mother turned on the big walnut radio in the living room for the weather, and the announcer from WICC in Bridgeport informed them, in the tone of a man who had been saying it all evening and no longer had any hope of being listened to, that the Merritt Parkway was closed from Greenwich to Milford, that I-95 was a parking lot, that the state police were asking all motorists to stay off the roads, and that a further eight to ten inches were expected before morning.
Wes went to the front window. The Valiant was a white hump at the curb. Juniper Lane had disappeared entirely. The snow came down out of the dark, thick and slow, endless, and the porch light made a small gold room in the middle of it.
"Well," said his mother behind him, with a satisfaction she did not trouble to hide, "you'll have to stay. Both of you. I won't hear of anything else."
"Ma, we can't—"
"You can't drive in that. You'd be in a ditch in Darien. I'll make up your room."
Wes turned slowly around. "My room."
"Your room. The guest room has your father's tools in it and the sewing machine and nine boxes of National Geographic, and I'm not moving them at this hour." Barbara was already heading for the linen closet. "Delia, honey, I'll find you a nightgown. You're taller than me, but we'll manage."