It was the worst week that far of the worst winter we'd seen for several years. If we had gotten more snow, it might have warmed things up a little bit. As it was, only the north facing walls that wore drifts, however briefly, were secured from the ever present drafts. It was the year after my wife and I got married. When we got settled, she sent for her daughter, who had been living with the ex-husband.
During that frozen week, my wife was spared our suffering. She had been called away for a two week conference in, of all places, Miami. So, though when we spoke by telephone she expressed sympathy, I knew she was happy to be almost anywhere but Montana. Fortunately, I worked at home those days, so I didn't have to contend with the traffic nightmares others did. My stepdaughter was a senior in high school that year. She bundled up every morning and trudged to the end of the long driveway and caught the yellow bus that she rode to school. She had long since gotten over the social stigma of not having her own car -- or a boyfriend with a car -- to carry her to school like the "cool" kids. They'd treated her rather poorly when she had arrived the year before, just after her mother and married. As the 'new kid', it took a while for her to make friends. Part of that was due to her different perpective on things. In many ways she was more mature than her peers, so that didn't help. In a lot of other ways she lagged, lacking in the natural cockiness most of them possessed. Of course, she'd been transplanted rather abruptly, so we told her it would take some time. The trouble was that, at the time of this story, it was her senior year, so she didn't really have the time.
She'd made some friends, but in the way of teenage girls everywhere, some of these new friends were kind of fickle. One week they were 'best buddies', the next, they seemed to find fault with much of what she did. I hurt for her a lot, having moved around a lot when I was growing up, though my birth family held intact until the end.
The weather hadn't been too bad up until New Year's. The temperature hovered from just below freezing to around ten below. But that second week of January the wind picked up and didn't stop. Even after that, the temperature didn't climb much, but I'm getting ahead of the story.
Our house was not all that old. But it had aged enough to have settled and loosened the way a tight new house tends to do over the first few years of its life. So we had drafts the way almost everybody else did. We lived three miles from town. Not far, but far enough in that weather. Arianne signaled her return from 'the wars' by stomping her way up the steps out front that Friday afternoon. A few last kicks and she decided that she'd removed all the snow and ice she could from her boots. Entering the slightly warmer mud room, she quickly slipped the frozen footwear off and replaced it with her thick fleece-lined house slippers before opening the inner door.
By the time I saw her, she'd rid herself of coat and muffler and had made herself a cup of hot chocolate. She was standing in front of the heater in jeans, sweatshirt and a baggy sweater. I wasn't cold myself because I'd been inside all day. I wore my usual flannel shirt and jeans. I crossed the room to her and enfolded her in what I tried to make a warming hug. She was trembling and her cheeks and ears were bright red. She snuffled as she leaned into my chest. After a second I even felt the cold of her nose through my shirt. "Oh, man, you are really frozen! Why don't you go up and run yourself a bath?"
"I will in a little while after I thaw a little bit." Her words didn't come out that smoothly, since her teeth were still chattering intermittently. I rubbed my hands over her back rapidly to try to create some friction. She had to set her cup on top of the heater to keep from spilling. Her arms went around my chest and she hugged me back. She'd always been an affectionate girl, after she got to know me. We'd stop and hug passing through the house. She seemed to have a special need for that kind of physical reassurance. I loved her mother a great deal and I was lucky that Arianne was the kind of person to whom that love could overflow. My wife had told me many times that Arianne had really come to love me as well. That made me proud.
I left her to her chocolate and went to the kitchen to start dinner. Since she was just in the next room, we discussed her day and the call from her mom I'd gotten earlier. Arianne asked how my book was going. She hopes to be an author one day, too. That had been another thing that had drawn us together. We talked writing for a few minutes then she returned to the kitchen and said, "Well, I'm going to go take that bath. How long until dinner?" I told her she had at least an hour. She rinsed her cup, kissed me on the cheek and went up to the second floor bathroom. A few minutes later I heard the water running and the water heater start up in the basement.
After her bath she seemed more comfortable. We ate and she worked on her homework while I pecked away at the keyboard in the den. About ten o'clock she came in and told me she was going to bed. When she wrapped her arms around me from behind I caught the scent of her bath soap. I told her she smelled nice and she thanked me. She tucked her face into the crook of my neck and said, "You smell pretty nice, yourself." I thanked her in return, but allowed that I couldn't see how, since I hadn't showered since the night before. "Still," she said inhaling deeply again, "I like it! It's a natural smell." She pecked me again on the cheek and spun to mount the stairs again.
