How Slowly Thaws the Frozen Heart

   They’d always called her cold, even when she was a child. Detached was what they really meant, but there were implications to that word and how it would apply to a child as young as nine that no one wanted to face.

   Cold was a simpler definition. Cold could mean shy, or uninterested, or antisocial, which were all perfectly normal (if undesirable) things for a child to be. It didn’t hold all the nasty assumptions detached held, even if it meant the same thing in the end.

Cold was easier to live with, so it’s what they all settled for – and with a name like Winters, they could even write it off as fitting.

Still, it was an odd circumstance that someone as well-loved as Richard Winters could have raised such a closed-off young lady as his granddaughter. Not so much why he might have left everything to her once he’d passed – there was simply no one else to leave it all to – but how so many years of having doted on her as lovingly as everyone expected he had had resulted in the stone-cold person that Bridgette had turned out to be.

It was a rather discomforting matter, and one that Mr. Winter’s executor – a short, plump, middle-aged woman by the name of Mrs. Sherman – resolved herself to evade for politeness’s sake as Ms. Winter’s long, black sedan rolled into the drive way of her grandfather’s old estate that evening, slipping through the speckled shadows of the old elm trees like a solitary phantom.

As her client climbed smoothly out of her car and began to make her way over to where Mrs. Sherman patiently waited for her, the executor forced herself to smile and greeted the younger woman with as sugar-sweet of a tone as she could manage.

        “Good evening, Ms. Winters! How are you today?”

     As expected, the older woman’s efforts were rewarded with nothing more than a curt nod in her general direction and a strained response of, “Fine.”

         As a cool autumn breeze swept through the air, Mrs. Sherman took a moment to study her client for any signs of the typical emotion one might expect in such cases as these. Despite what she’d heard regarding the young woman, she’d been in her line of business long enough to know that everyone grieved differently. Sometimes, that grief was a cacophony of sobs and reminiscing on times long gone; sometimes, it was a quieter, hidden thing that only emerged when it felt most comfortable, most safe, to do so. Sometimes it was an open experience, comfortably shared and addressed among loved ones; and sometimes, it stayed down and suppressed, but throbbing just below the surface.

         As Mrs. Sherman examined her young client, she’d expected to spot evidence of the latter kind, presented subtly in the softening of an expression or the slouching of a figure. But the more she studied the silent woman, the more she grew to understand what people meant when they called her cold.

           Bridgette Winters was a pretty young woman – the kind most people assumed might have been prettier had she smiled. Her auburn hair was delicately splayed in curling waves across her shoulders like a veil of fire, and its contrast with her pale blue eyes made their freezing gaze all the more striking. Her features, though stony, were smooth and elegant, and she was known to carry herself with a professional grace. She was petite in build, but she held herself up so proudly that she appeared to tower over even those substantially taller than her, casting a rather intimidating figure.

           But as intimidating as she was, Mrs. Sherman had a job to do, and she could afford neither the time nor the energy to placate Ms. Winters in her antisocial efforts.

      Clearing her throat rather pointedly, the executor nodded towards the old house. “My condolences for your loss, dear. Mr. Winters was such a wonderful part of this community, and we all deeply miss him.” Mrs. Sherman paused for a moment to gauge her client’s reply; upon receiving none, she hastily continued, “I understand this might be hard for you, but it is, unfortunately, imperative that we sort through his assets before we discuss any sort of auction of his property.”

         Her mysterious client’s steely gaze never left the front door of the house as she replied, “Yes, quite unfortunate. You must forgive me, but I haven’t much time to waste here. How long should this take?”

        “As long as you need, Miss –”

      “Bridgette,” the younger woman corrected her, finally tearing her gaze away from the old house to regard the executor in turn. “Call me Bridgette; Winters isn’t a name I prefer, where it’s not needed.” 

        Mrs. Sherman nodded. “And are you sure that you don’t want to keep…?”

        “No,” Bridgette replied, her voice devoid of emotion. “I’m not interested in having anything to do with my grandfather’s estate beyond ensuring that any lasting debts he has retained are paid and that his house and everything in it are no longer my concern.”

     Her tone left no room for discussion, and Mrs. Sherman – knowing a dismissal when she heard one – simply nodded and handed Bridgette the keys.

“Very well then,” she sighed placentally. “I’ll leave these with you. Make sure to lock up when you’re done, and I’ll have the papers prepared for the estate sale tomorrow morning.” 

Then, after quietly wishing the younger woman goodnight and a safe drive home, Mrs. Sherman departed, leaving Bridgette Winters standing alone on her front doorstep for the first time in five years.

As the executor’s car disappeared down the road, Bridgette felt the tension in her limbs subside, if only slightly. It was just her and the house, now.

       Somehow, she thought, this was worse.

      Anyone who’d known her grandfather would have said it was a house that held many memories. And indeed, it looked like any other well-loved family home from the outside: the paint was a little chipped and the porch a little unkept, but considering the fact that he’d lived in the place for sixty years and had raised an entire family in it, it wasn’t in such terrible shape.

But if you bothered to ask Bridgette – as no one ever did – she might’ve said it held many ghosts, and none of them were fond of its walls.

But it did her no good to dwell on the past. Or, at least, it did her no good doing so out here. Daylight was quickly fading from view, and as much as the young woman was dreading investigating the house during the day, she was even more loath to do so in the shadows of the night.

The keys were heavy in her hands, and the cool metal burned molten-hot against her fingers as she turned the largest one in its lock. Something hotter, more bitter, was bubbling up in her gut, but she forced it down as her trembling fingers found the knob and shoved the front door open.

Passing through that first barrier was like stepping through a wall of ice in comparison to the thick humidity of the outside air. As Bridgette stood in the quiet foyer trying to settle the trickle of goosebumps that had lined up along her skin, her mind grappled for something to cling to so it wouldn’t have to settle in the silence. The only thing she found herself able to grasp in the moment was the distant, fragile memory of a lesson she’d been taught back in her school days about how glaciers break apart. They don’t thaw all at once, and not just from one angle: the process is a gradual assault raged against the ice from all sides, slowly breaking it all down and widening the fissures already existing in the structure until it all falls apart, piece by piece.  

Such a bitter, cold young girl.

      She’d had a plan before she came in here. There wasn’t much she’d wanted to take from this place, but there were a few precious pieces that had belonged to her parents that she’d wanted to reclaim. She knew her grandfather had kept them locked away and out of sight in the attic for years, and it shouldn’t have been a hard task to seek them out.

The only problem was…there was just so much of the house to get through before she could make her way there. So much that she would have to pass through and revisit before she finally reached her destination. And the longer she stood there in that doorway, the more she could feel the fragile strands of her resolve slipping away.

She tried to track the route in her head: through the foyer, down the hall, past the kitchen, up the stairs –

But as she mapped her way through the silent house, she couldn’t keep her nervous gaze from wandering to the row of pictures on the wall. Her grandparents’ wedding day, a photo of her father as a child, her seventh birthday – should she take them down? – the first summer she spent with her grandfather after the accident, her first dinner party…

           Ah, she remembered that party.

          She couldn’t remember what it had been for, but she did recall that it had been one of the first important social events her grandfather had made her attend. Perhaps it had been a birthday, or a holiday party, or some other kind of fluffy community event – it didn’t matter, in the end, because it was the very first party where she’d been put on open display for the world her grandfather inhabited.

She remembered how he’d bought her a special dress to wear – a white one with pink roses and daisies all peppered across the skirt. She remembered how scratchy and rough the material had felt under her arms and along her back, but she never said a word about it as he proudly showed her off to his guests.

She was only about nine at the time, and already not one for conversation, so she’d spent the evening hanging off her grandfather’s elbow like an obedient little ornament in a frilly white dress. The adults had all cooed and fretted over her, and she hadn’t minded it so much until one of them told her to smile.

“Don’t look so cold,” the gentleman had encouraged her. “A pretty little girl like you should smile more!”

She couldn’t remember how she had responded – whether she’d satisfied the gentleman or rebuffed him in the end – but she could remember how her grandfather had tightened his grip on her arm and pulled her away, still smiling and keeping the atmosphere friendly as he steered her aside from the rest of the guests. His nails had bitten into her skin, leaving tiny red crescent marks that no one ever got close enough to notice.

She couldn’t remember what she had done the first time someone called her cold, but she could remember that whatever she had done, it had been the wrong choice.

     Biting back a shiver at the memory, Bridgette urged herself to move on, keeping track of her journey through the house.

Through the foyer, down the hall, past the kitchen –

But the kitchen was its own pool of memories, and Bridgette found herself stumbling through it almost against her own will. Someone – probably the well-meaning executor – had set the table with her grandfather’s finest ceramic set, and before she knew it, she found herself stranded in the middle of another distant memory from a not-so-distant time.     

It was a sharper memory than the party, and even more bitter: she’d just turned thirteen, and her grandfather had invited one of her teachers from school to dinner after one too many notes had been sent home regarding Bridgette’s “troubling behavior” with her classmates. The teacher was a young little Southern thing, fresh out of college and carelessly thrust into the perilous world of teaching middle school; and yet, despite all that, Bridgette had liked her. She was kind, and at least pretended to care that Bridgette didn’t have any friends – which was more than Bridgette could have said about any of the other adults in her life.

But then she went and got herself invited to dinner with the Winters, and from there on out, Bridgette couldn’t help but hate her.

It wasn’t her fault, Bridgette knew. What the young teen had wanted from her teacher – to peel back the fancy wallpaper and sandpapered floorboards and catch a glimpse of the rot lying underneath – wasn’t something that she, or any other adult in Bridgette’s life, was prepared to offer her. To have expected that things might be different just because this woman was making the effort to try and care was ridiculous and naïve, and everything that had taken place after the fact was solely on Bridgette for having thought differently.

           “You’re such a dear for taking her in, Richard.”

Bridgette had stifled the urge to scoff then as they chatted so openly in front of her, never once glancing her way. It was preferable to the alternative – trying to rope her into a conversation she had no interest in being a part of – so rather than fruitlessly attempt to correct the woman in her assumptions, she’d stayed quiet and out of the way, as always.

Apparently, he’d wanted her involved that time. Or maybe it was just the fact that the teacher had made a fuss at all that was the problem – she couldn’t give an answer then, and she’d be hard-pressed to do so now.

Standing alone in the kitchen, no longer a child but still just as cold as she’d always been, Bridgette felt the phantom grip of calloused hands wrapping themselves around her arm, her shoulders, her neck -

Somewhere outside, a whippoorwill let out a rattling call as the final flickers of sunlight faded from sight, leaving only a lonely moon hanging in a starless sky. To Bridgette, it sounded like a warning call – get out – and before she knew what she was doing, she was running, racing the rising of the moon to the peak of the sky as she climbed the stairs two-by-two, all the while repeating the resounding mantra in her head:

Through the foyer, down the hall, past the kitchen, up, up, up the stairs –

The attic was there – there! At the end of the hall! She was almost there –

But the door to her old room was open. She didn’t mean to stop, didn’t mean to glance inside and catch a glimpse of what she knew was already there, but it was like something was dragging her to the doorway, yanking her chin up from the floor to gaze straight on into the barren room.

She’d taken everything with her when she’d left, and all she’d left behind was the tiny, four-poster bed she’d lived in for twelve years and a full body mirror with a black frame nestled in the corner, near the closet.

Her eyes caught the mirror, and everything else vanished.

Rather than take in the sight of the strong, cold woman everyone else could see, Bridgette found herself fixated upon the image of a fragile little girl frozen in time, stuck in skin that would never belong to her in a gilded cage that would never let her go. A projection, far more than a reflection – for it had always been a far easier matter to glance over the surface and see the person everyone called cold and never bother to glance over her shoulder at the tyrannical storm of hail which threatened to freeze her over.

(When a glacier breaks apart, it doesn’t happen all at once.)

But even when no one else had bothered to take a closer look and catch the dark reflection, this mirror had still seen it all. This mirror had taken the stories freely given by a lonely girl in need of someone else to simply see and kept them frozen, too – and as Bridgette stood there, it opened itself up to her once more.

Everything freely taken was now freely given back.

(It thaws slowly…)

Everything freely taken…

(…over time…)

        …but nothing taken by him.

(…and from all fronts.)

This mirror had seen everything, and now it saw her: this fractured, battered woman who’d been burning and burning and burning from the inside out for so many years until it hurt, until the smolders so many ignored were lapping at the surface of her skin and erupting from everywhere it could go –

And suddenly she was screaming, and suddenly she was thrashing, and suddenly the burning became a piercing, stabbing pain as her fists hit the glass because this energy that had dwelled inside her dormant for so long was clawing its way out of her in any way it could, and there was no mask of ice in the world that could have stopped it.

And when it was all over – when all she had left was a halo of broken glass and blood surrounding her – the hot tears slid gracelessly down her face as Bridgette caved in on herself and cried.

        An hour later, she left, taking nothing with her but her purse, an old bandage she’d found in one of the bathrooms to wrap her bleeding knuckles, and a single shard of bloodied, fractured glass.

        She didn’t look back as the flames licked the midnight sky in scarlet arches, reaching with curling fingers towards a waning moon. She didn’t look back as everything he’d ever held between his two terrible hands went up in smoke, bit by bit, until it was all reduced to blackened soot and ash.

         She didn’t look back.

         They’d always called her cold, even when she was a child. She wondered now what they would say had they known what it had cost to finally embrace the heat.