Picture it Perfect

DARK ROOMS are darker in the winter. The falling snow leaves a film on the windows, not like the clear film of rain that lets the light through. Bed sheets gather chill from the air and carry it on them, only warm where skin has touched. Floors, even rugs, send a shiver through the feet and to the legs, the torso, the arms and hands. West rooms are all the same.

Waking with the dawn, pulling down the sheets, and placing soles down as she sits up in bed, the woman feels exceptionally cold this morning. Her long sleeved garments serve little protection against the atmosphere, and she thinks for a moment about returning to bed. She decides against it and walks to her closet. She dresses.

There’s a hat tied under the chin that covers her ears, and black gloves protrude from a lightly tanned jacket. She wraps a black scarf around her neck, knots it, tightens, and carries on to her dresser. There she opens a drawer and searches for the glossy paper. She finds it, inspects it reminiscently, and places it in her pocket. Soon she is out with the snow.

She walks along the driveway, then the sidewalk, then on the snow. She is light and does not fall through. Her breath is foggy in the air, and her chest feels heavier as the walk continues. She is not so young anymore. She crosses the bridge of Devon Wood. Passing over, she watches the lake, now ice, glisten beneath.

There is a myth within the depths of lake Devon Wood. In earlier times, before the lake was closed off in the winter, a child said to be playing atop the ice fell through and died there after. In an episode shortly following, it is said that the child’s mother, in such desperate despair, returned to the spot of death with the child’s picture. Upon taking her own life, the mother, crying madly with fatigue, looking upon the dead child’s figure, had wished with her soul for all others to be free from any loss of a loved one. She knew it could not be, so instead wished with all her heart that for a moment, short as it was, any time could be restored, and, looking again at the captured memory, had decided that the moment could only be chosen from the happy pages of a photo album. The moment was of choice, and the choice should be carefully decided.

Having walked over the bridge, the woman carries on toward the lake’s side, passing by gray stones as they protrude from the ground. Reaching the edge of the lake, the woman takes in a deep breath of the site and walks over to the stone of her choice. She sits. The snow turns to water under her, and the cold begins settling in. She places her hands in her pockets.

There is a man to the left of the woman. “Hello,” he says.
“Hello,” the woman smiles.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” the man says. “It’s cold out here. What took you so long?”

The woman laughs. She is young again.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “But I’m here now.”
“Your right,” the man says, looking at the icy lake. There are children skating. “And that’s all that matters.”

There is silence in the air. It is not an awkward silence, but instead a comforting one. The woman stares at the man, smiling every second.

“I’ve been thinking,” the man says, looking at the woman now, his eyes a shade of blue.
“About what?”
“About us,” he says. “I miss you every morning. I miss you every night. I miss you every moment your not by my side.” He smiles at her. “I’ll miss you forever if you ever leave.”
“I won’t leave.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
“You don’t know.”
“I never leave you. You leave me.”
“I’d never leave you.”
“You don’t know.”

The man lowers his eyes to the white covered grass. The woman looks at him intently, a smile no longer on her face. This is not right.

The man looks up again. “I love you,” he says. “Marry me.”

That is right.

The woman smiles again, wider now. “I love you, too,” she replies. “Today, tomorrow, always.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes.”

The man’s nervous face turns gentle with the word, and his lungs release old breath caught in his chest. He smiles at first, and then laughs in joy.

“You said yes,” he says.

The woman is laughing now, too.

“She said yes!”

The children on the ice look over. The man shouts again, then waves.

“Wait!” he finally says. Everything is right now. “Wait. I want to remember this forever.” The man reaches into his pocket and takes out a camera. He stands to his feet, skips a few paces ahead, and before taking the shot says, “Your beautiful, and your mine. Here‘s the proof.”

The woman‘s eyes close with the flash. When she opens them, the man is gone. She turns her head to the ice. The children are gone, too, and she can see the yellow restriction tape clear in the distance. Age has seeped again through her bones, and she struggles as she stands herself up. Succeeding, she looks to the picture and then to the stone:

ARCHDALE REEVES: 1943-2004
LOVING FATHER AND HUSBAND

She walks off again in the snow.