Hope

Laury stood next to the window, a mug of hot chocolate in her hand. The curtains were closed, but she knew it was snowing: her leg had been aching all morning. She stared at the spot where the curtains fell together and took a sip of her drink. Her free hand drifted down to rub at her left hip. How many years had it been? Seven? Seven years and she was still living alone in the same little house. Seven years and she had only seen the snow twice. She turned away from the window and paused. Turning back, she slowly took hold of the edge of a curtain and before she could change her mind she pulled it aside.

For a second all she could see was white and then the dark shape of the forest's edge came into view. Soon she could see her backyard. Wooden posts that marked the fence line were barely visible under mounds of snow. The gate to the corrals was invisible. The small pond was buried. Her barn, dark and neglected, looked happy and cozy under it's blanket of snow. She watched the big flakes falling lazily and even from inside her house she could hear the muffled silence that snow brought with it. In a word, it was peaceful. She leaned against the window frame and watched the snow, occasionally sipping her cocoa and getting lost in the quiet. She didn't notice her neighbor trudging his way through her yard until he was almost to her house. 

He looked up at the same moment that she noticed him and their eyes met. His big, infectious grin spread across his face and he took off his cowboy hat and nodded politely at her. Laury couldn't help but blush and she nodded back. Minutes later he knocked on the mud room door and entered her house, just as she had asked him to seven years ago when she had decided that she never wanted to see the snow again. She looked back out the window and wondered for perhaps the millionth time why she hadn't moved. 

And for the first time she wondered how she had been living without snow.

She could hear her neighbor taking off his boots and snow gear, being careful to leave the snow in the small room just behind the kitchen. She touched a finger to the window, smiling at the frosted edges. Smiling at the snow.

The kitchen door opened and a pleasant baritone voice started talking, "The horses are doing fine, Laury. Plenty of hay still and it's only the middle of winter. Jerry and I made sure to take the little filly out while we were exercising them yesterday. She's doing fine, her leg hardly seems to bother her anymore."

That filly. Laury had never expected that project, the horse had broken her leg in the spring, almost a month after she was born. Laury and Matthew had found her by the pond, whinnying pitiously. Her leg had been a mess and they simply couldn't figure out how she'd done it. They'd been afraid they'd have to put her down. Had she been older, they would have. But she was little enough that they were able to figure out a way to keep her off that leg by rigging a full body sling in a stall in the barn. They also had to put the leg in a cast-like thing that had taken the vet hours to get right. It had all paid off. A few months later the little filly was back on her feet, stumbling about like a newborn again. By the time Laury was ready to bunker down for winter again, the filly was running around with the rest of Laury's small herd, only a bit of a limp to get in her way. They had named her Hope.

Laury could still remember the shock of finding a broken little Hope in the same spot she herself had been. For some reason the memory wasn't bothering her as much today. Her mind kept turning to the last time she had seen Hope prancing on the weeds by the pond, perfectly healthy. She turned to look at Matthew, smiling, "Thank you, Matthew. I do appreciate all your work every winter. I do wish you'd let me pay you."

"My pleasure," he set a saddlebag by the door and walked forward in his socks and kissed her hand, "and might I add that it was a wonderful surprise to see you looking out your window this morning."

Laury felt her cheeks start burning and she set her mug on the window seal so she could cover at least one cheek with her hand, "You know that nobody else kisses hands anymore, Matthew."

"And you know that nobody else calls me me 'Matthew' anymore, Laury." He smiled up at her and walked back to his bags. "Anyway, I couldn't ever let you pay me, not when I get to ride such fine animals for free!" He winked at her over his shoulder, "I just came to check in on you. I brought some more potatoes and squash and Mom sent me with some homemade stew and rolls. She worries about you cooped up in here for all these months all alone."

Laury smiled and walked over to put the food away. "Your mom has always been so sweet. I remember how she spent most of the first winter cooped up here with me. Helping out when my leg kept me in bed. I hadn't felt so loved since my own mom died."

Matthew looked at her for a long second and she knew that he had to be surprised. She hadn't ever talked about that winter before. She had refused. She sighed and turned to put the stew in the fridge. She didn't know why today was so different. She felt better, more at ease. It was like a dream, almost, what had happened. And it was also still so real. She rubbed at her hip.

"I still remember when we found you," Matthew said, almost out of the blue.

Laury turned to look at him, curious and horrified to hear what he remembered. He had left his hat in the mud room and his red hair was a mess, a bit too long. He would probably get it cut soon, he hated it in his eyes. His brown eyes were currently shadowed by his hair, they were looking at his socks.

"I've never been more scared for anybody before in my life. You looked dead. Your lips were blue, your clothes were soaked through and your leg was all wrong."

Laury could see in his eyes that he could still remember the shock of seeing her by the pond. And he didn't have any happy memories to think about. Her hand went to her mouth as her eyes burned and filled with tears.

"We had been coming to skate with you, on the pond. It was the first hard freeze and Jerry and I knew you'd be out there with your broom, sweeping off the pond and then skating away to your heart's content. The broom was against the fence, we could see it as soon as we got close. But you, we couldn't see you." Matthew looked up at her then his hands were trembling and his eyes were filling with tears, "Jerry went to your house to tell you that we were skating without you. And I walked around the pond. I found you in a snow drift. Half buried. You looked like you'd been trying to crawl out of it before you lost consciousness and I thought you were dead."

Laury could only think about her little filly. Lying broken. Alone. How would it have been to watch that horse hide in the barn all Spring? That would have broken her heart. She rubbed at her eyes and rubbed at her hip and limped to the table to sink down into a chair. She hadn't limped in ages. Matthew came over and knelt by her, grabbing her hands. He looked up into her face and she couldn't look away.

"And then your leg got better and you didn't. Laury, I have watched you die every winter for the past 7 years and it has broken my heart. Seeing you looking out the window and smiling today, that was like watching little Hope playing by the pond."

Laury started to cry then, big sobbing gasps. She pulled her hands away to cover her face and he stood up, pulled her off her chair, and wrapped her in a hug. She wrapped her arms around him and cried into his shoulder.

What felt like ages later, when her sobs had hiccuped away into sniffles, Matthew quietly said, "Laury, I love you and I just need you to be ok."

She pulled back a bit and looked up at him. 

He brushed a tear away from her eye, "Can you try to be ok?" he asked.

She looked down, her arms falling to her sides, "I-I don't know."

He looked down and took a deep breath, "That's ok." He took her hand and kissed it, "Well, Laury, I've got to get going, mom's chickens need a new roof." He walked to the door, picked up his bag, and smiled back at her, "Don't forget about the stew! It's delicious. He waved and was gone, shutting the kitchen door behind him. Minutes later the mud room door opened and shut. 

Laury went to the window and looked out, watching him leave. He saw her on his way past and grinned, pulling off his hat and nodding at her. She smiled back, waving. She watched him trudge away through the snow and stayed looking out long after he was gone. Could she try?

The next day Laury pulled back the kitchen curtains first thing. She looked out at the falling snow as she ate breakfast. She pulled back the living room curtains as she read and knitted a scarf for Jerry's little boy. He was only five and Matthew had been telling her about his nephew's crazy sledding adventures. As she warmed up stew for lunch, she watched the snow stop falling and as she ate, the sun poked out from behind a pile of clouds and the snow sparkled. She pulled back the curtains in the spare room as she worked out, watching the clouds leave the sky with hardly a trace left. As she drank a mug of hot cocoa, however, she was looking at the door to the mud room.

Suddenly, without being totally aware of what she was doing, Laury set down her mug, crossed to the door and opened it while it was still winter, for the first time since the accident.

It was pristine, just a few wet marks from Matthew's visit yesterday. She stepped into the room and crossed to the chest beneath the coat hooks by the outside door. She knelt and opened it. Her coat was on top and she pulled it out, surprised that it didn't stink. She set it aside and pulled out her red scarf, hat, and gloves and her snow boots, setting them aside as well. The bottom of the chest was filled with winter clothes that she wore in her childhood. She smiled at a bright, yellow hat with a smiley face stitched into it. She had worn that last when she was 20, right before the accident. There was a goofy picture of the three of them somewhere, her Jerry and Matthew, all wearing clothes from when they were seven going out to sled. She smiled and pulled it aside, taking out her snow pants at the same time. Then she froze, there were her skates. They looked surprisingly clean and fine for what they had gone through with her. She pulled them out and inspected them. Somebody had gotten them sharpened for her, probably Matthew. There was a pair of long, thick socks sticking out of one of them. She sighed. She couldn't do this right now. She put the skates back in the box and closed the lid. Then she stood up, leaving everything else on the floor, and walked back to the kitchen. She sat there, drinking her now-cold hot chocolate slowly and watching the sun set behind the trees.

She woke up early the next day, that was often her problem in winter, she simply couldn't get enough exercise in her spare room to make her tired. She opened her bedroom curtain and looked out at the dark sky and the white snow. She watched it until the sun came up and then she made a decision. Foregoing breakfast, she went into the mud room and started pulling on her snow gear. The pants were a size too big and so was the coat, but everything else fit just fine. She put her red hat on a hook and pulled the yellow one on, it didn't even cover her ears, but she didn't care too much. She needed the cheery-ness of it.

Fully decked out, she turned to the back door and took a deep breath. Then she opened it and stepped outside. It was wonderful to hear the crunch of snow under her boots again. It was still cold, the sun hadn't even properly risen yet. She wandered around her yard for hours, even going to the barn to check in on her horses. Hope did look good, as if her accident had never happened. Laury finished the morning by making a snow angel just outside her kitchen window. Then she went in and had lunch.

She finished off her day much as she had for the past seven years, but this time, she slept soundly straight through the night and only woke when the sun brightened her window.

As the sun peeked in, she stirred, smiled, and jumped right out of bed. She went right to the mud room and only stopped when her stomach growled at her. She stopped in surprise, her stomach didn't usually growl in winter any more. She turned back and quickly snagged one of Matthew's mom's rolls. She quickly ate it as she walked into the mud room and started pulling all her snow gear on. The bottom of her pants were a little damp from yesterday, but when she pulled them over the top of her snow boots, she didn't even notice. She looked around and found her shovel and broom leaning against a wall, they looked dusty.

She took them outside and began the long task of digging out the long buried pond. It took her all morning, even while working at top speed. Then she took the broom to the pond and swept off the last little layer. The pond was perfectly frozen, but a bit bumpy. It was a bump that had done her in last time, she remembered. She had landed an axel and hit a bump that she hadn't seen. She winced at the memory of the pain, but not the memory of the day. That must be a good sign.

As she finished, she stepped back to survey her work and leaned the broomstick against the fence. She put her hands on her hips, it looked good, good enough to skate on. She smiled and turned suddenly as she heard a shout ring out behind her.

Matthew was running toward her, his smile so big that it was threatening to swallow up his face. He had his arms out and when he reached her, he pulled her into such a big hug that she lost her breath for a minute. Then he kissed her and she really did lose her breath. She wrapped her arms around him and thought that maybe she loved this man. They'd been friends for years, but maybe she loved him as well.

"You're out!" he said, picking her up and swinging her around.

She grinned up at him, " I couldn't stay in any longer."

He kissed her again and then hugged her fiercely.

They surveyed her handiwork for a second and he smiled again, "Want to give it a go after lunch?"

As soon as he said it, her stomach grumbled and she smiled at him, "Sounds like I'm hungry! Come on in, I think I have just enough stew left for the both of us."

He grinned and followed her inside. They left their stuff in a hap-hazard pile and went to warm up the stew. They chatted all through lunch and ended up finishing off the stew and the rolls.

"I want to try to skate," Laury announced cautiously as they were cleaning up the dishes. "but I'm scared."

Matthew looked at her and wrapped an arm around her, "I'll be there. I'll hold your hand and we'll take it slow."

She smiled up at him, "ok."

"I don't even have my skates with me, so you know I'll be steady as a fence post in my boots!"

"You'd be steady anyway," she laughed, "You're an excellent skater.

He kissed her forehead, "So are you," he whispered.

As they put their gear back on and grabbed her skates Matthew said, "Hey! You could come over for dinner tonight. Mom will be so excited and Jerry and his little family are coming, so you know there will be enough food."

"I'd love to," Laury said, smiling and truly happy for the first time since summer, "That sounds nice."

When they got out to the pond, Laury sat down and Matthew helped her change into her skates. Then he pulled her to her feet and stepped onto the ice backward, holding her hands. 

She looked down at her skates and then at the ice nervously. Then she looked into his confident, happy, brown eyes and knew she would be ok. She took a deep breath and set a shaky foot onto the ice.