Winter in New York that year was a beautiful spectacle to behold. It had snowed late in February, but instead of the blizzard they'd had last year, it came gently and gracefully, like a light blanket being pulled over your head, so soft you almost didn't notice it. It laced through the streets, settling bricks and cobblestones and into the corners of alleys and porches, like fingers reaching for something. It curled itself around the trunks of trees until it hardened into ice, covering the trees branches like a glove. The ice shone like crystals on bright mornings, and it twinkled so beautifully even the bank tellers and the military men stopped to look at it. And at night, the glow of the fire shone from the windows onto the trees and snow again so that it glittered beautifully. Most everyone hated leaving for work, for they despised polluting the soft, fine, untouched snow with their muddy footprints, but it had to be done, though it was always such a disappointment to ruin their yard. Even then, it came to be a habit in the weather that it would only snow again, enough to fill the footprints but not flood them. It was like the winter was in a perfect balance, so that nothing was out of place or ugly or dirty or cold, even when it was.
Samantha looked out of her window into this winter, and smiled at it, like a mother beholding her child. It was a cloudless sky, stretching from both ends of the streets like a beautiful blue dome. The sun was setting in the east, its rays stretching over so that no corner was untouched, nothing left to be dark and dismal, as winter should be. Earlier there had been children running up and down the sidewalks, doing all sorts of tasks that simply needed to be done on days like this. Snowmen stood in nearly every yard like guards, some fat, some skinny, some half done, some perfected over a course of hours and hours. Footprints dotted the sidewalks, telling tales of all sorts of walking-skipping and running and stopping then starting again, all footprints small and childish. Samantha wished one of these footprints had been her own-she hadn't made a snowman in a record amount of time, every since Jenny had decided she was too old for it and Samantha couldn't find an excuse to make one anymore. Nellie was far too practical for snowmen, and Bridget too mature. Samantha longed for a partner, someone to walk with her out in the winter snow, and indulge in the winter with her. She sighed. All her life her Grandmary had warned her about this-when one grows up they never grow down again, you should cut childhood with a quick slice, find something practical to do instead of sitting in your room, staring out the window. Even with all these warnings, it nearly broke her heart that she had been inside most of the day. Her longing thoughts were broken when she heard four quick taps on her door-Nellie's usual knock.
"Come in," she called, thoughts broken off from her hopeless remembering.
Her words were hardly off her lips when the door burst open and shut again, and Nellie burst in with red cheeks and a sunny smile, several pieces of paper clutched in her grasp. Samantha stared at her in a confused wonder as Nellie closed the door-it was unusual for practical, shy Nellie to even laugh at a joke, much less burst in with such a grin on her face.
"Nellie, what on earth-"
"He proposed!" she shouted, smiling so big it looked like her face may break from happiness. She shoved the pieces of paper in Samantha's hand, pulling and moving them until she gasped with delight at the fateful phrase something she'd already underlined with her pen-
...I would be delighted, Nellie, if you could find it in your heart to marry me...
Samantha hardly read another word before Nellie clasped the letter again, and she didn't need to-she could feel her friend's happiness bubbling up inside her as well. She hugged Nellie tightly and muttered words of needless congratulations into her ear. She then noticed that Nellie had been talking the entire time-
"-first page is about his brother's business, and I thought, well, this will certainly be the most boring letter I've ever read in my life, except I kept reading, because I promised Fred I would read every one of his letters top to bottom before I answered, and then the second page was all about his classes, which was a bit interesting, but still, I nearly put it down for later, but I figured, of course, you never know what he'll say...and then I read it, and I sat there for what seemed like hours before I finally realized that he'd done it...he'd finally done it..."
Nellie stopped then, for tears were starting to well in her eyes. Samantha looked at her best friend with nothing but pure happiness for her. If anyone deserved something sweet and special, it was Nellie-her whole life before she'd met Samantha thirteen years ago was half despair and half mystery. Orphaned at ten, working in a factory at eleven, raising her younger sisters the whole way through...even when she'd moved in with Samantha and her aunt and uncle all those years ago, it still felt like there was a barrier between Nellie and the rest of them-like she was still holding onto something she couldn't quite remember. And then of course, Fred came along-good, quiet, handsome, solid...dull, boring, oh no, she's marrying Fred. After years of spending hours with strict, austere Grandmary, Samantha had an unusual penchant for acting as if she wasn't the least bit bored. This penchant was challenged by Fred every chance he got. His claim to fame was his father's paper factory. The only real talent he had was with sums. Oh, and his voice...it was so deep and monotonous that Samantha often thought she was going to cry...
"Congratulations, Nellie," she said warmly, embracing her friend like the sister that she was to her. She could feel Nellie's happiness radiating off her skin like sunshine. Oh, who cares if it's boring old Fred? It's not as if he's cruel. He's just...oh, whatever, Samantha thought, throwing (or attempting to throw) all of her previous criticisms.
"Oh, I have to tell Bridget, and Jenny, and Cornelia..."
Nellie rushed out of her friend's embrace and bolted out of the room, a faint echo about seeing Samantha at dinner whispering behind her. Samantha smiled to herself; she regretted even letting the thought of how little she truly enjoyed Fred enter her mind. Heaven knows that Nellie deserved happiness like this; since she and Fred had been courting it'd been love letters and late night musings and long stares so passionate that Samantha often had to giggle into her shoulder so that Nellie wouldn't see. Their engagement had been eminent since the moment they saw each other; everyone knew they were perfect for each other before they even met. Both Irish, both quiet, both humble, both soft-spoken. Even if Nellie was a little more...exciting...Fred was a good man, and Nellie deserved a good man. Grandmary had always told her that...
Oh. Grandmary. Samantha felt a sense of dread come upon her, more intense than a man storming into war. She'd completely forgotten that she and the Admiral were coming for dinner, fresh off their boyage to France...of all the nights for Nellie to become engaged. Oh, it was such a trouble to even avoid the word engagement...it would start off fine, of course. Nellie's engaged, Grandmary's congratulatory, the Admiral asks good-natured questions, everyone's happy. And then the excitement will boil down to a dull simmer, and Grandmary will begin to steam.
"Just to think, Samantha...you would have been married by now if you'd only..."
Marrying The Admiral had not softened Grandmary a bit. In her later years she'd grown kinder, but at the same time, a fire bloomed in her opinions, and suddenly she could care less who was around when she chastised…well, anyone, but more specifically Samantha. It was as if all that frustration from childhood, all the stress, all the torn stockings and broken jewelry and smudged mud…all that had been brought to a culmination last fall when Samantha had…oh, Grandmary would tell her the story. Word for word, with Samantha as the misled damsel who didn't know any better.
Certainly Uncle Gard would interject. His hair had gone grey at the ears and he didn't move like he used to, but one thing had not changed-he stood with Samantha on all things. But there'd be a little less passion in his voice, and a little more frustration. Because even if he did stand with Samantha on all things, it didn't mean that he stood firm.
Cornelia would obviously protest. The suffragist mindset had never stopped working away in Cornelia, and anything with an independent woman was attractive to her. Oh, but she'd shake her head to herself and she wouldn't bring up the best of arguments because those she tucked away for things she was passionate about.
Nellie would for sure lay a hand on Grandmary's and change the subject, perhaps asking of France or Germany or Britain-but she would wait until Grandmary got to her highest peak of frustration, because she would be listening fervently, even when she tried to act like she wasn't.
The Admiral would stare at the floor pointedly instead of telling Grandmary to throw down an anchor and be calm, Jenny would fidget uncomfortably in her chair instead of roll her eyes to herself as she pushed around her peas, Jenny twirl a loose lock of her hair instead of letting the newfound fieriness inside her flame out towards Grandmary. Yes, they'd all stand up for her, in their own way, as little as they could, because Samantha knew that in the unusual silence in the dinner table there was a hum of agreement, although they all tried to hide it, all tried to act as if they were truly on Samantha's side. Oh, she'd have rather them just gone out and said it-that they were all wishing in the back of their minds to say the same thing. That she'd made a mistake in refusing him, that she'd been too rash, that throwing wine at him was certainly unnecessary...
This dinner had happened twice before, and Samantha could see it again, clearly-the night would end with Grandmary apologizing, like she always did, for her brashness, but her kiss goodnight would be a bit cold on Samantha's cheek when she left, and there'd still be a shadow left of that stern anger and frustration in her eye.
All because she'd refused to marry someone that was not only prideful and rude and crass, but conceited and foolish and mean and selfish. Oh, when would Grandmary ever learn? Times had been changing since the day she was born, and yet she still insisted that ankles were scandalous, posture was a virtue, and marriage was a priority. It was 1916! There was a war looming in Europe, people were dying left and right, but as long as there was even a promise of a ring on your finger, you were well matter who the person that Samantha had refused, as long as she thought that he was good enough! Even if it was someone as vile and insulting as Edward...oh please, Eddie Ryland.
Just the thought of it made Samantha shudder.