December 1, 2011
A creeping numbness spread through my fingers. My muffler was wrapped around my mouth, but still, every breath was painful. Caleigh shoveled sullenly alongside me. “Can we go in now, Mom?” she asked. “I can’t even feel my feet.”
“We’re almost done. Next time, I’ll call someone to plow.” Dane had a growing arsenal of snowballs at his side. He squinted at the slate-gray sky and aimed carefully. “Take that!” One by one, the icy snowballs sailed like missiles causing a flock of geese to flee in an angry squall.
“Dane, what’s wrong with you? What if you had hit one of those birds?” I threw a shovel full of snow over my shoulder. The sky looked like matte-gray paint and the children’s moods matched it perfectly.
“I don’t care. I don’t want to go to Grandma’s, Mommy.” He came to stand by my side and clung like a barnacle to my leg. His breath made tiny clouds in the air. “My face hurts.”
“That makes two of us,” Caleigh complained. “Everyone’s going to Shelby’s party tonight. Why do we have to visit Grandma and Grandpa this weekend? And why do I always have to help shovel? I’m cold.” As if for special effect, she shivered violently.
“Come on, guys, you’ll have fun. The weather’s cleared and Grandma and Grandpa are really looking forward to seeing you,” I said in the sort of voice a mother uses when she tells her kids everything is going to be all right. It was the first time since Matt’s death we would be apart.
Caleigh wiped her nose with the back of a mittened hand. “What about you, Mom? Are you going to be okay?”
“Won’t you miss us, Mommy?” Dane asked. “I don’t want to go.”
Last night’s snow clung to the evergreen branches in the yard, weighing them like overweight luggage. “Why don’t you bring your sleds?” I suggested. “Maybe Grandpa will take you to Eastwood Park.”
An hour later, the Jeep was loaded with sleds, overnight bags, and books. The plows hadn’t been out yet on our dirt road. The road could have been a luge track. I put the car in four-wheel-drive and tried to stay in the middle.
At the summit of Pill Hill, in front of my in-law’s house, I inched back down the quiet street of stately homes. The neighborhood had been inhabited by doctors beginning with Dr. Will Mayo since the early twentieth century. It was now insulated by a thick blanket of snow. Matt’s family’s house was designed by Harold Crawford, a local Rochester boy who had returned home from Harvard and designed many of the homes on the hill. My in-laws, Dr. Stan and Dahlia Rendeau’s neighborhood was a study in contrasts next to my hometown of Hopewell Junction. My father had barely graduated from high school, and died while I was in college. I missed him still. My mother had remarried and contact with her was fortunately sporadic.
The early cloud cover soon gave way to the possibility of sunshine. I suppressed the urge to turn around and make sure the children were okay and began to anticipate two days of solitude with a degree of pleasure. I had a new mystery I’d been wanting to read. Maybe I’d even have a long, luxurious bubble bath. But that day, the freedom of exchanging my briefcase for a pair of long, shiny skis was first on my list.
* * *
Quarry Hill Nature Center looked like brilliant strokes of green on a blinding winter canvas. The sky had cleared and the snow reflected a bluish sheen from above.
I wasn’t the only one with plans to ski this morning. Standing outside the rustic nature center, once the grounds of the old state hospital, was a tall, lean man strapping his skis on. He had a quick smile and seemingly, an even quicker wit as he bantered with the staff. I busied myself with stepping into my own cross-country skis.
With more enthusiasm than I had felt in months, I attached the bar in the toe of my shoe to the binding plate, fit my shoes into the ridge running along the binding, and then nothing. There was no satisfying click to reassure me my foot was correctly in place. Okay, let’s try this again … Square toe of the shoe in first, and then … Nothing. I smiled sheepishly as the man, now ready to set off, side-stepped over to me. “Can I help you?” he asked.
“No. I can do this.” Thankfully, my last attempt ended with my shoes strapped firmly in the binding. He took off ahead of me with a long, athletic stride. I found my own rhythm and soon the weathered cedar nature center became a distant red glow. I skied beyond the pond, gliding easily along the trail running beside it, past black-tailed jackrabbits and flitting red-bellied woodpeckers. I was dressed warmly in black ski pants tucked into cross-country ski boots, an oversize parka, red turtleneck sweater and bright-red woolen mittens. My red hair was pulled into a ponytail. I was glad I had worn a faint coating of lip-gloss to protect my lips from the cold. My skin tingled in the biting chill and perspiration soon dripped from under my arms. The joy of physical exertion and the sound of my skis crunching on the tamped-down snow were exhilarating.
It neared lunchtime, and my calves cramped with the effort of skiing up the incline back to the nature center. I hit a patch of ice and crashed headlong onto the snow, pain bursting like a spigot through my ankle. My left foot was twisted underneath me, still strapped in its ski. It crumpled as soon as I struggled to stand. It was at least three miles to the nature center, but I lifted my skis over my shoulder and began the long trudge back, sinking into icy cold snow with every step. Before long my toes grew numb.
“Hey, do you need some help?” a voice echoed through the chill.
A tall, lithe figure skied toward me, wearing a fitted black jacket, ski pants, and a cranberry-colored knit cap and sunglasses. I wasn’t alone. I didn’t recognize the man from the nature center until he was almost on me. The cold and exercise had brought out the ruddiness in his cheeks. “You again!” he exclaimed. “Are you okay?”
I squinted and blinked to lubricate my eyes. In the cold, my contact lenses felt glued to my corneas. “I think I twisted my ankle.” I grimaced. “I’m having some trouble getting back to the center. If you wouldn’t mind carrying my skis back and returning them, I’m sure I can make it.”
“How about if I carry you and your skis back? I don’t think you should be going anywhere on that foot. I can bring my car to the road just beyond that circle of birches. It won’t be nearly as far as going back the way you came.”
“Thank you so much, Mr …”
“Sawyer. Call me Alex. Not a problem. It’s not often I get a chance to practice first aid out here. Did you hurt your eye?”
“Grace,” I said, offering my hand. “No. My eyes are fine.” I closed them, hoping it would help.
“Here, put your arms around my neck.” I reached my arms around his neck, painfully self-conscious as he picked me up and set me on a nearby log. “I guess Grace is not so graceful.”
Jerk. I moaned in pain.
“Sorry! I’m going to leave you here for about fifteen minutes while I ski back and get my car. Try to keep moving to stay warm. Here, take my scarf.” He removed his thick woolen scarf and handed it to me. “I’ll be back to get you, and then we’ll see about your ankle.”
I tried to keep moving but my contacts felt like they were folded in on themselves and my ankle was swelling rapidly. Once he was out of site, I contemplated taking the contacts out and throwing them away but I wouldn’t be able to drive home. It didn’t occur to me I might not be going straight home.
Half an hour later, I sank onto a lumpy couch at the center. Pain prodded my ankle like a spur. Alex placed an icepack on it and palpated the lemon-sized lump. He held it up as gently as a newborn, being careful not to move it while he expertly wrapped a bandage around it and secured the icepack in place. “I don’t think it’s broken but we can stop at the hospital for an x-ray if you’d like. Let’s get you some crutches.”
I tried not to wince. He had bandaged it expertly. “I think it’s a sprain. Luckily or not, I suppose, I have crutches at home. Where’d you learn to do this?”
“Med school. I haven’t bandaged many ankles lately but hopefully I haven’t lost my touch.” His eyes shone like well-polished furniture. “I’m in Infectious Diseases.”
“I haven’t bandaged many ankles lately either, except in my case it’s psychiatry.” I thanked him for his help and wondered how I’d make it to the car. He offered his arm. Hobbling to the parking lot with Alex supporting me, I finally realized I was not going to be able to drive. “If I could just get my purse out of the trunk …”
He opened the trunk and suggested he bring me to the emergency room.
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I said.
“Do you feel well enough to stop for hot chocolate? Maybe we can elevate your foot there. There’s a coffee house not far from here.”
Why not? Buying hot chocolate for him was the least I could do. I leaned on his arm and we walked or rather he walked and I tottered toward his car. The snow-covered parking lot was blissfully silent. I sat down in the passenger seat, fished for the contact lens solution in my purse and squirted two drops in each eye. Alex’s skin glowed and his brown eyes shone when I blinked to look at him.
Minutes later we pulled into the parking lot of the coffee house.
“What’ll it be?” he asked shortly afterwards. A fire blazed in the corner fireplace and the air was thick with the smell of cedar and coffee. “Are you hungry?”
“Hot chocolate is perfect. It’s so good to be inside.” I unwrapped his scarf, and still shivering, handed it to him. There were shoppers coming in out of the cold, and each time the door opened, an arctic blast swept through the coffee shop.
Alex sat back and took a sip of his hot chocolate. “So, you’re a shrink? I wouldn’t have thought it.” He unzipped his jacket and took it off. His hair was longish, the color of wheat on a summer day.
I slurped the cocoa thinking he looked more like a poet than a physician. “I guess I wouldn’t have taken you for an infectious diseases doc either.” I took my hat off. My shoulder length hair was full of static, crackling like the nearby fireplace.
Alex stirred the dollop of whipped cream into his drink. “So, what were you doing skiing so far out by yourself?”
I know I blushed at the intensity of his gaze. I looked down at my hands and pulled at a hangnail. My torn cuticles and short bitten nails were an embarrassment and I hid them in my lap. I had recently taken off my wedding ring and my hand felt naked without it. A drip of perspiration ran off my forehead. “My children are away for the weekend. I needed some time alone. What better place than the nature center, enjoying the day, and getting some exercise to boot? I guess I forgot how many years it’s been since I was on skis. How about you? You were pretty far out too.” I couldn’t seem to stop talking.
“I try to get out every weekend. It helps to clear my mind.” Something flashed in his eyes almost as though he had opened a door and then suddenly shut it. The hands cupping his hot chocolate showed slender, long fingers wrapped around the handle of the signature mug. Where he had rolled up his sleeves, I could see dark curling hair on his forearm. For some reason, the sight of his forearm caused my heart to flutter and my mouth to dry. I hardly recognized the sensation of sexual attraction. It had been years since I had felt the comfort of a man’s laughter, or lost myself in eyes like Alex’s. “Would you mind driving me home?” I asked. My ankle was aching, but more so, the unwanted sensations made me feel uncomfortable.
“Not at all.” Alex stood. “I’m sure there is no skiing in the near future for you. How about coffee next weekend?”
My scalp tingled with the prickly heat as warmth crept from my neck to my head. It had been so long … Could there be any harm in that? There was something about him. Images of the children came to my mind and I hesitated. “I’d like that,” I finally said.
Alex held the door with one hand and tried to support my weight with his opposite arm and shoulder. I stepped gingerly on the icy sidewalk with my right foot, still keeping weight off the left, and my foot slid out from under me. “Grace! God! Are you okay? I’m so sorry. Here, let me help you.”
In a heap on the sidewalk, I was mortified. Tears pricked my eyes at what a klutz I was.
“Hang onto my arm while I open the door. Should we stop at the ER?”
“No. Really. I’m sorry! I think you can put me down now. If you’d bring me home, I’m sure I’ll be fine.” The sharp sting of embarrassment slapped my cheeks.
“If you’re really sure. How about if I give you my number and tomorrow if you’re feeling well enough, we can pick up your car?”
“I have my right foot for driving. As long as it’s no trouble …”
“No trouble at all,” he assured me.
We drove in companionable quiet down the snow-covered dirt road to my house. Alex pulled into my driveway and as we said goodbye, I realized I looked forward to seeing him again more than I wanted to admit.