It all started the night of the blizzard - a bitch if ever there was one, with winds howling so hard the very roof trembled, and w’all thought the last days’d come. Ice had covered our crummy cottage [barely big enough for the five of us] and we all felt frozen to the bones... Pa had called to say he’d stay in town, 'cause the roads were so bad that he didn’t trust himself to drive safe [even though Ma thought he was just too drunk anyway, and he should’ve left earlier, befo