CURLED UP in bed against the howling blizzard outside, Bethany tapped the remote control, and the television blinked to life. The screen warmed into focus, casting a pale glow across the dark room. She sat upright and screamed.

There he was on the Late Show with some platinum-haired female half his age, looking at her with his only eye like she was the sun and the moon! On television! But he'd been dead for 10 years!

"Pete! How can it be?" the old woman whispered through cracked, chapped lips. Jumping up, stumbling over her flannel nightgown Bethany rushed over to frantically wipe dust from the screen, to touch his image with her wrinkled fingertips.

She'd recognized his silver head from behind, and when he turned toward the camera, she was sure. No mistaking that scar like a lightening bolt where his left eye should have been.

"Damn, that blonde looks almost like I did thirty years ago! Wish I could hear what they're saying!" The picture was fuzzy on the old television, and the sound had long since been replaced with noise. She tried turning the audio up; electronic static filled the remote mountain cabin.

"Colorado . . . sss . . . blizzard . . . sss . . . ski lift . . . sss . . . never been apart since." She could make out just a few words now and then, as the past came rushing back: that huge, awful storm a long decade ago, ten years that seemed more like a century now.

Snow had come early and stayed late the year he disappeared exactly on the winter solstice. Pete was shivering that night, had the sniffles, so Bethany pulled on her coat and boots and went out the back door, struggling through calf deep snow to the woodpile. She loaded her arms, trying to carry four split logs instead of three, dropped one, lost her balance and fell, took a few minutes to recover. Then, when she unlatched the back door, it blew into her face, a strong wind sweeping all the way through the cabin from the front door standing wide open.

He was gone. Just gone.

"You'd been yelling at me all day", she said to the image on television. "Threw your dinner on the floor. I figured you had cabin fever."

The blonde on television was laughing now, Pete's head bobbed up and down as he chuckled along with her.

"Oh, Peter," the old woman said. "You made me laugh!" Tears welled up in her eyes as she remembered their first year in the mountains.

Brushing a strand of gray hair from her face, she thought about the way he nibbled her ear in the shower, how she loved to feed him grapes one at a time, how she had to pick up the things he threw when he was mad but loved the sweet, sweet kisses when they made up.

The fire burned low. Wiping away tears with her sleeve, she pulled herself upright, tugged her coat on over her nightgown, and slipped bare feet into cold boots. Bethany went out the back door, where firewood was stacked next to the cabin now and lifted three pieces off the tall pile. When she came back inside, the front door blew open again, as it had so many times through the years.

The wind wailed, spoke to her. She could hear that mocking laugh, that old familiar whistle. Dropping the logs on the stone ledge beside the fireplace, she walked to the front door and whispered into the darkness, "Pete? Petey, honey, are you there?"

She walked outside, looking all around, eyes up, searching the trees, and tumbled down the porch steps. Struggling to her feet, she blinked snow-caked lashes, rubbed them, trying to vanquish the cobwebs.

"Now how am I going to find that darn gray parrot in this white out?" The old woman pushed her way through the shifting tides of snow. "Pete!" She yelled into the swirling blizzard. "Petey, you rotten bird, I know you're out here!"

She stepped into a hidden ditch, plunging waist deep in the icy drift. Her feet refused to support her weight, and she found herself slipping under cold gray reality surrounded by white darkness.

"Just wait till I get my hands on you, you fickle, two-timing feathered Romeo! Don't you know African grey parrots aren't supposed to fly out in a blizzard!"

"Petey!" her breath was failing now.

"Pete!" she called out just once more, "I know you're OK, I saw you on the Late Show!"

Bethany laughed a contented little chuckle, then closed her eyes, hugging herself with arms wrapped round her waist, and settled in for a long, long nap.

Comments about this short story? Send a letter to Mailbag.