Snow Fell That Evening

Evening saw the snow falling in gigantic amounts as though the sky had eventually released something that it had been keeping for way too long.

It was the first genuine December snow, covering Willowridge's quiet town in profound, unbroken white. Streetlights burned softly through slowly falling snowflakes, and rooftops seemed to be swathed in silver. Streets were deserted, untraveled, save for a single pair of footprints—Anna's.

She wrapped her coat around her and had her hands stuffed in her pockets. She'd walked these streets before. When she was a child, an adolescent, even when she wasn't much more than a young woman herself, in her early twenties. But this night, they were a memory she wasn't quite prepared to deal with yet. The snow dampened all noise, and the world was a silent dream—a one she wasn't sure she was prepared to wake up from.

It had been a week since she'd awakened next to her father's grave. Since then, she hadn't walked. But last week, her mother had called. Her voice shaking, about to break.

"Come for Christmas, Anna,"

she'd begged.

"Too long."

And it was. Too much silence, unwept grief, and never-made calls.

Passing by the old, dilapidated bakery, now boarded up with its askew "For Sale" sign leaning in the window, memories. Saturday mornings spent with her dad: buttery croissants, hot chocolate, cinnamon-sweet warmth aroma. He always said to her, "Snow has a way of mellowing the world. "Maybe it's the universe making amends".

She had thought at the time that it was only something he had said to comfort her.

Tonight, however, she was not sure there was any basis in it.

Snow settled more heavily as she made her way to her childhood house. The porch light glowed weakly through whirling snow, still burning after all these years. Her mother had left the light on—either someone was coming home or just missed.

Anna stood at the bottom of the steps, unsure if she had the courage to go further. But before she could decide, the front door slowly opened.

Her mother stood there, looking smaller than she remembered, wrapped in a heavy shawl. Time had gently reshaped her. Her eyes, however, still held that same searching warmth.

"I wasn't certain you would show up," her mother said, rising to a standing position.

“Neither was I,” Anna replied softly.

There was silence, a thick and heavy one of unspoken things. And then, not a word spoken, her mother parted to let her through.

Everything inside was the same. The fireplace with its ancient-fashioned mantel, the creak in the boards that she knew so well, the scent of pine and spice that only this house could possess. Anna dropped her coat to the floor, standing there as a stranger viewing home for the first time.

“I left your room just as it was,” her mother said from behind her. “I always hoped you’d return.”

Anna's throat closed up. She stepped into the living room, where there were still stockings hung over the fireplace. A faded family photo sat on the mantelpiece—she, her parents, caught in an instant of the past.

She picked it up and dusted the photograph with a soft cloth.

"I miss him too," said her mother.

That is all. The sobbing just burst out. Anna collapsed onto the groaning couch, and her mom sat down next to her without a word. No judgment. No question. Just quiet compassion.

They talked late into the night. About the solitude that follows grief. About the town, and the house, and all that they had each tried to shut out. And for a first time in years, their words bound them together instead of dividing them.

And then Anna went outside again. The snow kept falling, blanketing the world in white. Outside in the street, the maple tree she had climbed as a child sparkled with a coating of ice, as if it had remembered something important too.

Her mother came out behind her, wrapping her shawl close around her throat.

"It's quiet, isn't it?" she said.

Anna smiled. "He used to tell me all the time that snow was a second chance."

Her mother smiled. "Then maybe tonight is ours."

The snow was falling all night long—over the roofs, over the trees, over the hurt, and all the years that had already accumulated. It did not change what had been, but softened its harsh lines kindly.

And so, out of that stillness, a new beginning did emerge.