Save me

12. Winter

G.B's POV:

Do you ever feel like the winter won't end, the snow won't stop, the clouds won't move and the sun seems to never be coming back?

I used to like winter.

 I liked the sound of the crunches between my steps as I went to feed the horses, I liked the thin layers of ice frosting over each window and I loved walking through town with my mother as the smell of Avonlead bakery filled with fresh gingerbread-its strong smell wafting in the streets.

 When we'd arrive home with a basket of ingredients, my father would light the fire with the wood that he'd shown me how to chop the morning prior. 

Slowly after dinner, we'd all watch each log burning, the warmth radiating into the room.

My father would always have a new book, he'd sit in his leather chair and begin reading in his deep raspy voice, and I'd sit on the woven rug closer to the warmth, listening to its crackle. 

My mothers knitting needles would clack together an occasional pause to pull out a wrong stitch or loose thread. She liked to make hats and jumpers for the travellers that wandered through Avonlea during the colder days.

 One thing that remained consistent even after she passed was the reading. My father continued to read each winter night, always pausing slightly after a longer word to offer its definition to me. I thought that would never end. 

I felt it all started that day though. That it was warm against that fire place just like it had been before.

The day I first saw her. 

 I knew Samuel didn't have a sister, and even though there was a slight similarity in their hair colours and curls, hers was more noticeable, It was so sleek and shiny it almost moved with the light. 

It was only when she turned around and I saw her eyes that the entirety of...her. Hit me. 

She reminded me of a kitten or a puppy, looking around like it was the first time she'd seen the world, yet she seemed to have a flow about her movements, she was choreographed and careful. 

I liked the way she moved and paused as she walked to look at things in more detail. I liked how she would nod and smile at everything her Aunt said and it was genuine. 

I had only been there at the right time because my father had sent me to get thread so we could attempt to mend his coat.

I pulled my cap down not being able to see her as close as I wanted to, there was something about her, maybe it was the cold air that day, or the fact that, that morning was filled with chores perhaps the exhaustion of the trip, but it was like I could only see her on that street.

 It was when I watched her look up at the sky just for a second and close her eyes, just to take a deep breath before inhaling the scent of my favourite bakery and smiling when it sunk in that I knew I needed to see her again.

When I did get the privilege to see her again, it was of course the case she wanted little to do with me. She smelt like butter cookies and lily flowers from across the isles, I wanted to drown in her scent. 

Suddenly I found myself waiting for our next interaction, our next fight, argument, small bicker anything just so I could hear her voice. 

But soon I began to see it, what I'd seen in my father, my mother and animals so often around me, Death. I denied it, I denied her falls, the collapses, the coughs hidden in handkerchiefs, and the different doctors coming into town from far and wide. 

She would look so happy and healthy in one moment then be a ghost the next. And once again as always, I couldn't bring her back. Even when someone is not dead or so sick they can't move, you can feel it.

The sickness. I knew because going home every night to my father who no longer lit the fire, sunk into his chair and read those words just as he once had was fading. And she was the only one who ever made me feel any better.

 I was hearing hushed words at school and 'I'm sorry it's not looking like he will make it" from our own doctors over and over and over again, and all I could do was continue with the hope she would be there. And I could be there to catch her. 

But when it was all said and done, and the snow was falling, two things became clear to me.

 Nothing was going to be the same as it once was ever again and I couldn't stand the Winter.