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They came early in the season, before the snow closed the last of the roads. The bags on the back of the old pick-up truck told of ambitious plans of wintering there, in that land where so little was given and so much was taken away. The woman stumbled out of the car in a bundle of down outerwear and brand-new winter boots that looked lined with fur. The man looked more at home, walking briskly even in the deep snow, teasing her loudly as they trekked up the steep path to the log cabin.
"Wasn't my idea, kid," he said, laughing before passing her swiftly, collecting the bag she was carrying in a fluid motion and marching in front of her. "I still think Montreal woulda made a damn fine honeymoon."
She was left with free hands and a small backpack, making a game of setting her feet in his footsteps. "I wanted to see where you grew up!"
"You know this ain't where I grew up, right?"
"I know ," she said, huffing in her trek through the snow, "but it's just as cold !"
That night she made cocoa with a pinch of salt and curled under his arm on a couch that had spent many years learning to be comfortable. She brought a blanket from the bedroom and slipped her feet into thick socks, then lay her head in his lap when she finished her cocoa. They watched the fire he built, silent except for small sipping sounds and the fussing of the wood as it lost ground to the fire. The world outside had nothing to say to them, perfectly muffled by the snow.
"I like this," she said quietly, not looking at him. "I really like it."
The man's only response was to squeeze her hand, but his shoulders sank and his forehead smoothed completely.
It was obvious that he was used to the winter. He came out every morning, early in the day, often without a jacket, to take in the sunrise over the mountains. She joined him occasionally, always bulging in that thick down jacket, a steaming thermos often between her hands. When she did, you could tell from the way he put his arm around her shoulders and tucked her into himself how much he wanted her there. But then she'd start shivering, and he'd ask, "You cold?" and try to wrap his own jacket around her, which invariably led to much protest.
"What, just because you're a growly badass who heals you don't need a jacket ?"
He raised his eyebrow. "How about cause I got a tropical swamp rat for a wife who won't admit she's cold even with her teeth telegraphing a distress signal?"
There were days when she stayed out with him. Not necessarily the warmest days, or even the sunniest ones. It might have had something to do with the nights that preceded those mornings, and how they involved elaborate meals that he was usually the one to cook and sometimes soft, slow music that filled their small living room. Those nights tended to tend spill into the bedroom, sometimes with her slung often over his shoulder, squirming in hysterical laughter, or sometimes wrapped around his torso, lost in frantic kisses, and once (and only once) gently carried in his arms, with a look in her eyes that persisted all night, even long after he'd set her down into the bed and loved her until she overflowed.
On other days, she went back inside. Sometimes he went with her, a hand around her waist as if she was a precious amulet. Sometimes she handed him the thermos and he stayed out, sipping coffee or tea or whatever they made, watching the horizon until ever-more-tempting smells began to drift out of the cabin one by one, enticing enough that it was rare for her to have to call, "Logan! Come eat, baby." They ate at the kitchen table, covered with a red-checkered cloth that she tried to hang outside one day. When it froze almost instantly, he came out of the cabin laughing and kissed the top of her head when she said, "Shit, I didn't even think of that."
On weekends they went into the town to load their pick-up with flour and butter and fresh milk and thick bacon, presumably the very things that would later produce those remarkable smells. She was the one to stand in the baking aisle, consulting a small paper list while scanning the shelves for the prices, but he was always the one at the butcher's counter, waiting for hand-picked cuts of meat while the attendant rattled on hockey scores.
He played, too. She came once to the town pick-up game and tried to cheer him on for as long as she could before the rattling of her teeth made even whooping impossible. He dropped out early and took her to the local diner, where after two cups of tea and a seat in the warmest booth she swore it'd been worth it, even though she'd expected more fighting.
The local dive saw them come in sometimes, usually on Fridays. On nights when there was no live music he went to play pool with the men from the town while she sat at the bar with a beer or a bourbon — at least until the time she surprised them all by entering the game and beating every last one of them for a hefty dollar prize that bought the whole bar a round. On nights when there was, they stood together in the corner, her back to his chest and arms tangled in front of her waist, maybe swaying a little, maybe tapping their feet. Once, after more beers than were her custom, she went to stand in the middle of the dance floor and pouted and pleaded until he put down his whiskey and followed her, scooping her into a two-step that left her flushed and all the other women wide-eyed, elbowing their men to ask why they couldn't learn to dance like that.
As the weeks went on winter unfurled over them, in turns raking in clouds or showering the counterfeit sunshine that every local knew as a mark of the coldest days. Sometime in mid-December they went to the diner for breakfast and she paused in front of the Christmas tree that had just gone up, the longing in her eyes reflected in the twinkle of the ornaments. Her husband watched from the corner and made no answer when she mentioned that if it hadn't been just the two of them, she would have insisted on a tree.
The next morning, he disappeared into the woods with a coil of rope and reappeared near lunchtime dragging a short pine tree, even though there was no sign of an ax. She ran out to help him, squealing and clapping her hands in the way a child might, and together they pushed the tree inside the door and to the corner of the living room where he set it up while she ran down to the town and delighted in even the cheapest drugstore ornaments, filling her basket with red and gold and green. That night he sat on the couch with a drink in his hand, an insistent smile on his lips as she hung up one trinket after the next, tilting her head while she thought up the right way to arrange them.
Near Christmas Eve, the preparations ramped up. He packed most of it into the backseat of the pickup truck while she went across the street to the coffee shop and stood in line, hopping from one foot to the other to bring the blood back to her feet after standing in the parking lot for too long. He joined her after a minute, the door chimes ringing cheerfully as he came in and slipped off his hat into his hand.
"You order already, kid?"
"Yup. I got you some drip."
"You mean you got me coffee ," he mumbled.
But she seemed to disagree, greedily sipping something creamy and sickly sweet as they walked back to the car, holding hands until it became physically impossible for them to enter their separate doors without letting go.
All afternoon, the cabin filled with smells even more luxurious than usual. The yeasty song of fresh-baked bread, the complex harmonies of a long-cooking stew, and later in the evening not one or two but three pies materialized on the kitchen table, and a wrist was slapped with a yelp of admonishment when the man came too close to them.
"These are for Christmas Day , you silly bean."
"We're not gonna eat three whole damn pies on Christmas Day, babe. Might as well get started."
"Yeah, but we start them on Christmas Day. And then we eat the leftovers."
"What the hell's the difference?"
She set down the knife she was using to chop onions, and looked at him through narrowed eyes. " My pie, my rules. You make your own pie, you eat it whenever you want."
"It's just us, baby, what does it matter?"
"It matters because it makes it special ," she said, and went back to her baking.
Later that night, when the stew and the bread had already been put away, he came from the freezing cold outside where he'd smoked a cigar to find her alone in the bedroom, sifting through a dresser drawer that he'd cleared for her things.
"Whatcha looking for, baby?"
"My necklace," she said, not looking at him. "I thought I brought it."
"Never seen you wear a necklace."
"It's my Christmas necklace."
'The hell's a Christmas necklace?"
"A necklace I wear every Christmas, obviously."
He chuckled. "Cause that makes it special?"
She smiled. "You must think I'm crazy."
"I do, baby." He kissed her then, on the top of her head. "I kinda like it."
Christmas Day was sunny and clear, and she dragged him out the front door by the hand. "Come on, babe, I never got to make one." She started small, picking up handfuls of snow in her gloves and asking about making snowballs. He showed her how to compact one, how to hurl it as far as possible, threw one at her back when she wasn't looking and seemed both surprised and proud by the swift wrath of her revenge. Then she set about making a snowman, and even though he shook his head somehow he ended up kneeling near her, and it wasn't until she was done that she turned over and noticed that he'd made his own snowman — bigger and taller than hers, complete with a cigar in his mouth — and a three-foot-tall sidekick to boot, decorated with ear mufflers and a hat.
"I recognized the cigar," she teased, a smile crinkling around her eyes. "But who's that ?"
He shrugged, and averted his gaze. "Someone else to help eat all that pie, I figure."
She giggled at that and he watched with a warm smile, but only for a moment before he hit her with a snowball.
For dinner they had ham, sliced and drizzled with honey and served over fresh, steaming biscuits, after which they gorged on her pies and sat at the table until late in the night, laughing at nothing, remembering people who might have joined them for dinner if they hadn't been on the other side of the continent. There were no phone calls, but there were words of affection and well wishes, beamed out of content hearts to be carried by the wind.
After the meal, when they sat by the fire again, the woman draped over the man's chest, he asked her what her favorite Christmas had been.
She smiled. "Oh, it's not even a question."
All her childhood, it turned out, Christmas had meant a long drive to her father's parents' house in Oklahoma City. His father had been the youngest by many years, which meant that even when she was a young child his parents were old and somewhat frail. The cousins were too old and their children were too young; religious rites involved long, somber readings and no singing; the gifts always vaguely reminded her of airports, especially in the year when an aunt gave her the exact same set of college-ruled notebooks she'd gotten the Christmas before.
"It was so boring. I remember watching Christmas movies and thinking, 'Christmas isn't like that at all .'" Her eyes lit up. "Until I was seven, at least."
That was the age when her grandparents moved to Florida in search of more temperate weather. The drive was too long to be practical and air travel was hindered by crowds and high prices. That year, her mother suggested spending the holiday in the small coastal town of Pass Christian, where her own aging mother lived alone.
"It was so different. Meemaw was fun . We said grace before the meal, but it wasn't all dead serious like my other grandparents. It was light-hearted, you know? Joyful. She made three different kinds of pie and one cake." Smacking her lips, she added, "A gingerbread cake. I still remember that frosting . She used to double the recipe and give me a bowl of the leftovers and a box of graham crackers."
"So she spoiled you rotten, is what you're saying."
"I'm the only grandchild on that side," she said, making no effort to contradict him. "Meemaw gave me this necklace that year." On her neck was a simple gold chain with a green gemstone in the shape of a heart. "I've worn it every Christmas since." She extended her hand and the ring on her finger caught the light of the fire: a small emerald, flanked by black pearls on a gold band. "It goes with my ring, right?"
He simply nuzzled the crown of his wife's rich brown hair and inhaled deeply, as if to say that no other precious thing could compare. Around the cabin, the wind played with the trees. "How about you?" she asked. "What was your favorite?"
His arm tightened around her waist, drawing a little hum of pleasure out of her. He took a strand of her hair in his hand and twirled it around his finger.
"This one," he answered, her hair thick between his thumb and index fingers. "This one's my favorite."
Her face fell. "Oh, baby, I didn't mean—"
But he wouldn't let her protest. There was nothing to apologize for; she'd told him sincerely about a memory of her childhood and he cherished it, as he cherished every other part of her. It meant more to him than that.
"I like that you had a favorite Christmas, kid. I like that you had gingerbread cake and a grandma who spoiled you and a memory you wear, Marie. I don't know all these goddamn rules, I don't know what makes this thing or that special, but you do. And I don't want us to be a family that's never known what a family is." He took her face between her hands and held her gaze. "I need that, baby, you understand?"
From the way she kissed him at that moment, from the way she trailed devotion all over his body, from the way she moved over him when he was ready for her again, it seemed as if she did.
They left less than a month into the New Year, as if the point of the trip was to see the peak of the cold and then turn around. Time passed in the capricious way of winter itself: it came and went like the wind, sometimes in gusts, sometimes a steady breeze, sometimes dead still like it was planning an ambush. The snow piled high that year; then the Chinooks came with a vengeance and laid way for the green. The summer that followed was hot, but it wilted early into a long, agreeable fall that blurred into winter in mid-October when the snow began again.
It was December when they returned. She spilled out of the same pick-up truck, still bundled in that long down coat, but this time she navigated the high pile of snow more easily. In her newfound confidence, she hauled two heavy bags to the door — or at least to the point where he took them, running behind her at a speed that suggested great urgency.
"Woman, are you crazy ? What are you doing ?"
"Logan, I'm not an invalid !"
Whether or not she was, he carried the bags for her, and then insisted on not letting her return to the car even as he made many trips back and forth.
That Friday, there was live music at the dive bar. They came in their pick-up; he greeted some of the locals, fielding calls to play pool, and she waved timidly to the ones she recognized, laughing at jokes about hiding their wallets if she planned to join. Inside the bar, neither of them ordered a drink; they simply found the same corner where they'd often stood the year before and lingered there, leaning against each other, his arms not quite wrapped around her waist but circled over her stomach, which when relieved of the bulky down coat was a clear announcement of new life in the spring.
"What would you say if your poor flat-footed pregnant wife tried to make your growly ass dance with her?" she asked at one point, rubbing her belly absently.
He chuckled softly and kissed the top of her head, so tenderly that it might as well have been the first time. "I'd say that's why she's my wife."