love to keep me warm

Martha Frederick looked down at the stone on her finger. The diamond sparkled in the light from the window when she wiggled her finger up and down. It reminded her of the snowflakes that still stuck on the sleeve of her jacket. They were intricate and cold and cut like chiseled ice.

"Hello, dear,” Dashel McDermott wrapped a black arm sprinkled with snow around Martha’s shoulders as he kissed the top of her head. He smelled distinctly like pine. “Have you been waiting for me long?”

Martha smiled in response as Dashel sat across the table and unwrapped the scarf from around his neck. He placed his hat on the table and draped his jacket across the back of the chair.

“Have you ordered for me?” Dashel asked, rubbing his hands together to warm them.

Martha opened her mouth to answer when the waiter brought over two bowls of potato soup and set them down in front of the couple.

Dashel looked at Martha and smiled charmingly. It was difficult for him to smile any other way. Martha used to want to kiss the dimples that formed when he smiled at her.

“I’m sorry I have to make this quick, Marty,” Dashel said, slurping a spoonful of soup “I have to get back to the lumberyard before the snow gets too deep.”

“Will you be home tonight? I have your birthday present.”

He smiled. “I like when you call it ‘home.’” He reached across the table and grasped her hand. His hand was still cold. “Listen, Marty, why can’t we get married in February? You know we have your parents’ blessing. Is that what’s keeping you back?”

Martha felt the prongs of the ring pushing into the sides of her fingers. She blinked and smiled carefully, shaking her head.

“Then let’s do it. Then I can come ‘home’ and stay home, and you won’t have to be by yourself anymore.”

His words sounded louder in her head than he said them. She’d been alone for 25 years before Dashel came, and he was the only thing keeping her from spending her evenings listening to the radio in her parents’ living room. She had loved his company at first.

“All right.” Her voice was unnaturally permissive.

“All right?” Dashel said. He squeezed her hand and smiled again, then hurriedly ate his soup.

Dashel McDermott was tall. That’s what had attracted Martha at first. Then the way he smiled at her, followed by the way her hand fit into his. He ran a lumber mill outside of town, and he didn’t shave as often as he should have. He was turning thirty the week before Christmas, and his first fiancé had walked out on him three weeks before their wedding. That was seven years ago.

Martha Frederick didn’t love Dashel any more now than she had two years ago when he had first held the door open for her to this very café. She had thought she loved the smell of his jacket and the roughness of his unshaven cheek when he kissed her. She had thought she loved the roughness of his hands and the sound of his voice saying her name. He was the only one who called her “Marty.” He was the only one who called her. He was the only one.

“I have to go,” Dashel said, rewrapping the scarf around his neck and slipping on his jacket. He stood and placed a roll of bills on the table, bending over to be eye-level with Martha. “I’ll see you tonight?”

Dear Dashel. Martha brushed his windblown hair to one side of his forehead. He kissed her soundly and stood up, glancing behind him one last time before walking out the door. Martha watched him out the window as he walked down the sidewalk covered in snow, head bowed against the wind. She looked down at her ring, still shining in the window light, but all the snowflakes on her sleeve had melted into wool-soaked puddles of water.