He did not say yes. He did not say no. He poured more coffee, and the morning continued its slow white unfolding, Christmas Day arriving without fanfare, without church bells that could reach this high, without anything except oatmeal and cinnamon and the fact of two people still alive in a room the storm had chosen for them.
They spent the middle of the morning in the small labors of waiting. Ray dug out the door with a shovel that lived behind the cabin, clearing an arc so the door could open more than a crack. Ellen, under orders to stay off the ankle and under her own orders to be useful anyway, reorganized the shelf of cans by type and date, finding among them a tin of sardines so old it had become a joke and a jar of honey crystallized into gold stone. She set the honey near the stove to soften. She wiped the table. She found, in the pine chest, a deck of cards missing the three of hearts and the jack of clubs, and when Ray came back in with snow in his beard and the red parka smoking with melt, they played a patched version of gin rummy on the table beside the compass, inventing rules for the missing cards that grew more elaborate as the games progressed.
"In this cabin," Ellen declared, laying down a spread, "the absent three of hearts counts as a wild card if you say please."