Up in Quinebaug the state lines sit close enough that a storm can be over Massachusetts and still on your roof. Hubert Painting takes on the snow work around Thompson: plowing driveways and lots, clearing walks and steps, and putting down sand or salt where shade keeps ice alive past noon. The best storms are the ones nobody remembers afterward, because the car started and the drive was open. Cold work has its own quiet to it — the plow light, the empty road, the scrape, the pile growing at the end of the driveway. Come morning the town moves and the night's work goes unnoticed, which is exactly how it should be.