Tessie D

An ice storm came through this morning. Luckily, the pipes and tanks in the barn didn’t freeze up. The cattle huddled together near the barns and under the awnings. They looked like statues, standing still together to keep warm and conserve energy.

The dairy was still, as if a white weighted blanket had been dropped over everything, dulling all sense of sound, sight, and smell. The ground, normally brown and muddy from tractor tires cutting up the ground near the house and barn, or cattle stomping across the pasture, tearing up the ground and dropping black and brown mounds. But this morning, everything is clean and fresh, as if newly born. The only sounds were the occasional sheet of ice sliding off the barn roof, or a tree branch would crack and break.

Everyone still had to come in for work. There isn’t any such thing as a “snow day” at the dairy. Cattle still need to be tended to: fed and milked.

Angel was worried about me driving in through the ice, though, so he picked me up in his truck on his way in. We pulled into the dairy early, the sky black and overcast, a while before the sun would be coming up.

We pulled into the driveway in front of the office, and Angel put the truck in park. I started to open the truck door, but Angel said, “No, wait.”

He got out and came around to my side, opening the truck door and bathing the truck’s interior in orange light. “Careful, it’s slippery,” he said, holding out a hand for me.

I stepped out of the truck, and my boots crunched on the pebbled ice below my feet. I moved to the side and Angel closed the truck door, the lights went out again, and we were bathed in darkness. But before I could take a step toward the house, Angel moved forward and pinned me with his body against the truck’s door.

He leaned in close and bent his head down, nestling his face into my hair and the nape of my neck. “Surely, you know how I feel about you?” I felt pulled toward his body and instinctively moved my hips toward him.

I could see his breath swirling across the front of my coat. He pulled my hands toward him and started rubbing them. He was standing so close to me that I could see the pink flush of his freckled nose and full lips even in the dark. Then, he moved in closer and kissed me gently for a moment.

He pulled away for a moment. “Let’s set the date and get married. Next month? Valentine’s Day,” he whispered.

His question broke the spell for a moment. “That’s so soon, and I haven’t even told Momma about us yet,” I whispered back.

He leaned in further and rested his cheek against mine. He said softly, “I know that you love me, and I love you. There is nobody else for me. So, why wait? Let’s leave everything else in the past–nothing else matters. We can move forward and build our new lives together. You haven’t given me a good reason why. If you care about me, if there is no one else, then why not now?” He paused, pulled back, and looked at me, “Tell me. Please”

His body and his breath felt so good against me, shielding me from the cold morning air. The warmth of him spread through my body, and I believe I could have stood out there with him, protected and safe from the outside world forever. He was the sun–all the warmth and goodness that I’d craved for so long. I’d endured so much loneliness and despair and had longed for someone like Angel who would see me for who I am, for who I wanted to be. I thought of telling him about Baby then. I almost did. Her name was floating in the silver breath between us. He would understand. He would love me because of my trials, not despite them.

But the words never came. They disappeared.

I looked up at him, his dark brown eyes shining in the cold morning air. “I will, we will set the date. Just give me a little more time,” I said.