She stood at the window with her bare arms resting against the sill. The cold air brushed past her in gusts. She watched the swirling snow fall. She was cold, but it didn’t matter. She looked out past the barren trees to the road he used to travel. She knew he wouldn’t be coming back as he had before, but she watched anyway. A part of her waited to see his tall frame pop up over the crest of the hill and then make a mad dash towards the house. The dark birds regarded her as silently as she regarded the road. She imagined for a moment that they knew of the quiet pain that nailed her to the window. She stood there, long past his previous time of arrival.

Forcing her self to move, she straightened herself and rubbed at the creases in her skin that the sill left. She couldn’t bring her self to close the window and completely deny the possibility of hearing his laughter as he ran up the walk.

She turned back towards the room and glanced at her husband only briefly before she went to the stove. She didn’t want to look at the tears in his eyes. There had been enough crying in her home. Yet she felt the tears well up any way. She brushed them roughly away and went about making the tea and setting out the cookies. They would go about their lives as they always had; as best they could. She set the cookies and sugar on the table.

Her husband didn’t even look at the things she set out. He knew what she was doing by the familiar clinks. He longed for the missing pieces. The laughter from outside that would then charge up the stairs and then burst into the room, accompanied by scoldings over mud and messes. He wondered if his wife would ever hum to herself again as she went about her daily tasks. It seemed like forever since they lowered that casket into the ground, yet it seemed like only yesterday that his son had run through this room.

“Would you like to walk with me?” he asked.

She paused over the pouring of the tea. He looked up at her with his sad and longing eyes. She imagined hers looked much the same. She nodded. Neither of them wanted to serve tea to a boy who would never be coming in from the cold. She set the tea pot back on the stove. He rose from his chair and tightly closed the window. It was then that her tears came. They were hot and immediate. He heard her sobbing and went to her, drawing her into his arms. He wished he could offer her more comfort then the warmth of his body and the heat of his tears on her hair.

“Well, we better go before the snow gets too heavy.”

She pulled from him and headed towards the door. She wrapped her self in her coat and donned her scarf, gloves and hat. She watched her husband, avoiding the gloves that were still laid out on the heat register. He had left them there to dry after having played in the snow. It had been long enough since his parting that people asked her why she hadn’t removed his things. Was she supposed to clean out the house; scrubbing away the few traces of him that remained? She couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t. She simply did not want to erase him.

She started when her husband took her hand. He opened the door and led her out. She smiled sadly at herself. Perhaps they were right. All his things sat around her; silently staring at her from their various niches. They made her expect him. Seeing his gloves by the door had sunk her quickly into the world of memories. She felt she could easily drown there.

They avoided the road. Instead they walked through the wet snow, making a sharp line of foot prints as they marched somberly across the lawn. She looked over her shoulder at the house’s window. She imagined him waving at her; smiling behind the glass.

“It will never be the same again,” she said out loud without meaning to. It wouldn’t matter if she moved his things or not, his foot steps and laughter would always echo here. In this place; where he had been born, lived and died. He would haunt it forever.

“No. Nothing will ever be the same,” he agreed; also pausing to turn and look back at the empty window.

“We should move,” she whispered.

He glanced at her, but said nothing. This had been his parents’ house and his home during childhood. She knew he was reluctant to leave it. There were so many good and happy times here that brightened the place. Yet, she could still see the blood that had once pooled beneath the window.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Moving really wouldn’t change anything. Would it?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

She began to walk again, giving his hand a gentle tug. He followed, still looking at the window for a long time. He walked with her, wondering if he could give this place up for the sake of his wife’s heart. To him, there was a simple pleasure along with the sharp grief that came with the memories of his son in this place. He hoped that the pain would ease and that he would be left with the happy after images of the life they had shared. Everything here had been touched by those curious child hands. He wanted to continue to touch these things…

They followed their own trails of thought; connected only by the clutching hands swinging between them and the sloshing of the snow beneath their boots. They made a wide circle around the house, coming again to the front door. Their walk had been slow and had eased them into the evening. They stopped on the porch and looked out over the snow at the setting sun. The colors seemed more crisp and rich when they hung over that stark white. Eventually, the wafts of swirling snow urged them to retreat back to the warmth of the house.

They carefully peeled off the wet layers and laid them out on either side of the long since dried pair of gloves that waited to warm cold hands. She gently pressed her fingers against the rough wool and smiled. Somehow the pain seemed distant; as if the cold had numbed her heart along with her hands.

She went back to the tea, but it was cold and the cookies dried out. She dropped the cookies into the trash and dumped the tea into the sink. She rinsed out the pot and set it up on a shelf rather then putting it back on the stove where it usually lived. She didn’t think that they would be having afternoon tea any more.

They ate cold left over casserole for dinner. No words passed between them. Only heavy memories and choked back tears as they stared down at the overwhelmingly full plates. At the end of the meal, most of the casserole joined the cookies in the trash.

The next morning, they struggled to find a new routine. This was his first day back to work and the morning bustle led them to tripping over sorrow. She made two lunches without thinking. Weeping, she threw the second lunch away; box and all. Her husband said nothing when he looked down into the trash at the Spiderman lunch box. He simply scooped up the plain metal box and kissed her cheek.

Then he was out the door. She watched him from the window as he got in his car. He waved up at her and she grimly waved back. The car roared into the silence and then he drove away. She looked at the clean and empty house. What was a stay home mom supposed to do when there were no child messes to clean up after? She busied her self with her usual routine of cleaning the kitchen, but it didn’t last. Before long, she was standing at the window and looking out to the road. She imagined a second wave good bye and stopped her self before she waved back to him.

She pressed her hands down into the sill, letting the metal cut into her. She leaned out the window a bit, hanging her head to hide her tears. She thought briefly about letting herself go. She wondered how long she would lie in the snow. What would her husband do when he drove up to the house? Would he see her body or would it be covered by the snow? She eased back, shifting her weight onto her heels. The pain in her palms was sharp as she let up on the pressure. She looked down at the hard lines across her skin. Still intact. Everything was still intact and yet completely broken. She crumbled to the floor and clutched her hands to her face. She sobbed and wailed into her aching palms without relief. When the tears finally ebbed, she laid down on the floor. She pressed her back against the wall and tried not to think about the window’s maw that gaped over her. The cold air rush in; bringing in trailing puffs of snow. It was cold in sharp dots then melted warm trails across her cheek.