The Weight of White

The first real snow of the year wasn't a gentle thing. It didn't drift. It fell. A thick, relentless pour that had started sometime after nine and hadn't let up. Sarah knew, because she’d been watching it, through the kitchen window, then the living room, now the bedroom. Mark wasn't home. Not yet. She’d given up on bed hours ago, too wound up to sleep anyway. The silence outside was the real shock, though. It ate sound. The usual hum of the city, the distant grind of a snowplow, the rustle of the old oak in the yard — all gone. Just a profound, soft hush.

She stood by the window, a cup of lukewarm tea forgotten on the sill, tracing patterns on the cold glass. Her breath fogged it, then cleared. Streetlights wore fuzzy halos. Every branch, every railing, every dip in the lawn was capped with a clean, white pillow. She pressed her forehead against the glass. Cold. Good. Her temples throbbed.

The garage door creaked open, a groan of metal cutting through the unnatural quiet, then the faint thud as it lowered. He was home. Sarah didn’t move. She heard his heavy boots on the porch, the fumbling with keys, the click of the lock. Then the house absorbed him. No greetings. Never any greetings anymore, not after midnight. Just the scuff of his shoes in the hall, the clink of his keys dropped into the ceramic bowl by the door. The rustle of his coat. All so damn loud in the vast quiet the snow had created.

He came into the bedroom. Didn’t turn on the light. Smart. It would’ve stung her eyes. She felt his presence more than saw him, a bigger shadow in the dim light filtering from the snow outside. He paused, seeing her at the window. He didn't say anything. Just stood there, stripping off his tie, loosening the top button of his shirt.

“You’re late,” she said, her voice thin, a razor blade on the new silence. She hadn't meant for it to come out like that. It just did. A reflex.

He sighed. A long, put-upon sound. “Traffic. What d’ya expect? It’s snowing.” His voice was rough, tired. He kicked off his shoes. They landed with dull thuds on the carpet.

“I waited,” she said, turning from the window, pulling her arms around herself. Her old robe felt thin against the chill in the room. “I always wait.”

“You don’t have to.” He walked to his side of the bed, sat down heavily. The mattress dipped. “I told you, go to sleep. Nothing new.”

Nothing new. That was the phrase, wasn’t it? The mantra. Nothing new in the late nights, nothing new in the arguments that festered, unsaid, in the quiet spaces between them. Nothing new in the way the quiet, when it finally fell, felt less like peace and more like a vast, empty canyon.

“I just wanted to know you were safe,” she lied, or half-lied. She wanted to know he remembered her. That she was here. That the small, cold space between their bodies in bed wasn't a permanent fixture.

He grunted, running a hand through his already messy hair. “I’m always safe, Sarah. Just working.” He stood up, went to the dresser, pulled out clean sweats. His back was to her. A broad, familiar wall.

She looked back out the window. The snow was still falling. Steadily. Covering everything. The neighbor’s shed, the forgotten wheelbarrow, the faded paint on the picket fence. All the worn-out, ordinary things, made pristine. Made new. But only on the surface. Underneath, it was all still there. The rust, the rot, the splinters.

“Mark,” she started, but the name caught in her throat. What was she going to say? What could she say? Ask him why he never looked at her anymore? Ask him if he remembered that first snow, twenty years ago, when they’d danced on the street like idiots? The words felt stupid, heavy, too big for the room, for the moment, for the tired man across from her.

He turned, pulling his t-shirt over his head. His eyes, dark in the dimness, met hers for a fleeting second. A flicker of something, maybe concern, maybe just exhaustion. He didn’t press. He didn’t ask what she was going to say. He just walked to his side of the bed, pulled back the covers. The mattress creaked. He got in.

Sarah watched him settle, a lump under the duvet. She waited. For him to say something. Anything. For the silence to break. But the snow kept falling outside, a ceaseless, gentle whisper against the glass, and the only sound in the room was the soft, rhythmic inhale and exhale of his breath, already evening out, already slipping away.