Rain and Ice

July always seemed to be too far away. Either from or to. This is winter and looking back or forward to that month was just a chore. Samantha Craven was waiting for her favourite month. She loved July for more than one reason. It was her birth month, her mothers birth month and, with added glee, the month her grandmother was born.

The rain fell and in it, you could feel the snow. It was icing over and all Smanatha could feel was sadness and remorse that summer was so far gone and too long to wait for. ‘Too far away’ she thought to herself.

Walking in the cold didn’t bring her to a happier mood. “Misery!”

“Sorry?” a man spoke to her. A tall man. Rugged. Hair gelled into a style that Samantha didn’t really recognise.

“Misery. It’s winter and I really don’t like winter.” Samantha gazed into his kind eyes.

“Shouldn’t you look for a more appealing place to be? If winter is so traumatic for you I’m sure somewhere south would be a better bet?” He was smiling.

“Somewhat obvious but, as we all have to, a thing called work gets in the way.” She wasn’t smiling. “I have travelled but, and there is that but, I have to pay for my week’s vacation.”

Sam looked at Mike with adoring eyes. She had fallen in love with him. She had remembered the very first time they had met. She played out the whole scene as if it had been this winter not the winter four years ago. She held his hand, kissed his cheek. “We should get married.”

“Sorry?” Mike was reading the reports that had taken an age to come in. He was on a deadline. Mike always hated the stress that came with such a deadline. He knew it was going to happen at this time each year - and, as expected here it was. “Sorry, Sam. I didn’t hear what you said?”

“It’s OK. I just want some of the attention you give those figures. It wasn’t anything. Nothing to worry about. Tea?”

Mike smiled and nodded. He opened another of the yellow folders. He pushed back on the glasses that had slowly rolled down his nose. Yet still, Sam looked at him and just couldn’t imagine a world without him.

She stood in the kitchen rapping her nails on the hardwood countertop. The kitchen had a small but effective window. Outside she saw the constant weather. The snow, the ice mixed. Sleet! Such an ugly word. It would be Christmas tomorrow and she wondered if this year it was going to be white. The last four years had been nothing but her ugly word. Miserable rain and ice. Miserable sleet.

The kettle gave out it’s warning that the contents were very hot. Sam poured and waited for the tea to steep. ‘Four minutes’ grandma was speaking in her head. She smiled sadly remembering how grandma had passed only this last year. July had lost its edge now. Grandma was 2 days away from her 87th birthday.

Sam pulled herself away from the thoughts that had added a cloud to her dreams.

She walked into the office where Mike was. He had fallen asleep. Something that angered her, for what reason she could never explain. Mike was, as she always told people, a very busy man.

She looked back at the time he had bought tickets to Cancun. She protested about the timing and how she would have to book time off. She was in a temper. Mike smiled with his calming smile and told her not to worry. Her tutting wasn’t ignored. She still protested while driving to the airport. How would she find a new job - a great concern of hers. Yet Mike insisted she not worry.

She needn’t have. Long before her absence Mike and his investment company had bought her company. She was quite annoyed at that, too.

She woke him. A gentle rock at first but she knew the play that was about to happen. She would try, ever so much, to be gentle. But Mike was a heavy sleeper even during a nap. She felt, at the conclusion, that she was quite violent. But he woke. Always smiled. Always said he didn’t mean to drop off. Always said that he loved her.

The evening drew into the night. And then later still. All was ready for Christmas morning. Sam’s mum would be arriving early with the customary gifts. Sam and Mike had tried to make this year especially happy for Sam’s mum. They felt her loss even as much as she tried to keep the grief at bay. Sam knew that grief too. She had loved her grandmother very dearly. As she looked at the man she knew would be hers forever Sam held back the tears that so desperately wanted to fall.

“Mike?”

Mike turned to her. He gave a small smile. “Yes, Sam? You want to go to bed?”

“No. I want to ask you something.”

Mike could sense the aura of her feeling. “OK?”

“I asked earlier - but you didn’t hear me. Would you like to get, you know, get married?” Sam’s gaze fell to the floor.

Mike was silent.

She looked up. Toward him with a stare trying to pierce the bone of his skull. To deflower his brain. “Didn’t I ask correctly?”

“Of course you did. I’m one of the old school who just imagined that I would be the one asking, Sam. I’m, just, well, flatted.”



“Flatted? That’s a response?” She knelt on one knee. Held onto the table underneath his hand. “Micheal Stromer. I’m asking that you be my husband. I love you with my every fibre. I want to be your wife forever.”



Mike stayed silent. She could see that his brain, that over analysing brain, was working at peak capacity. “Sam.”

She didn’t wait. She had been rejected. He was the man she adored. Loved. Yearned for with all her being and he is rejecting her. She felt she couldn’t breathe. How was this possible? This Christmas. Of all the Christmas’ to reject her in such a solemn matter. She began to tear. One droplet made its way down a reddened cheek.

“You don’t want me? I’m asking you to marry me. To be - to make me feel whole. To let me be your wife! Marry me, Mike! Please.”

His only response was “Sam.”

She stood. Sam made her way to the office door. She felt betrayed by her own soul. A few seconds passed. She spoke into the darkened hallway. “I love you, Mike. I cannot ever see my life as complete without you in it. I can wait if that’s what you want me to do. I will ask one more time and never again will I bring it up. Will you marry me?”

Still, the silence deafened.

Who was this man she thought? He is such a loving, caring, perfect man. Who is this man in this shell? Had he made a fool of her, a ruse? Was this his plan? Slowly she turned to take in the final scene.

Mike was seated. He took in all that he could now see. She was radiant. To his core he felt stunned at her beauty. He had been robbed of the moment, yet he cared not a jot. He knew that she felt strongly about him. Yet not this strong. Not to this degree. He never felt as if he was worthy of her. He opened a drawer in his desk. “Sam. Is this a yes?” Mike held a diamond ring made from her favourite precious metal. The design she had described to him had been followed to the letter by the craftsman he had secured to make her ring. It was the very replica of her grandmothers’ ring she had lost so many years before.

The snow fell and Samantha began to cry.