Winter

Inspired by the short story "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway.

The teakettle began to shriek on the stove, but it Agnes didn’t hear it. She sat in the kitchen, in a hard wooden chair next to the wide bay window, her grey eyes reflecting the winter sky.

Jonathan would be back next week. Tonight he was in Chicago on a business trip with his shiny brown briefcase and his new blue tie, with his professional concerns but nothing more.

"How am I going to tell him?"

Agnes shivered at the phantoms of cold steel pressing against her skin. She drew her knees to her chest and crossed her arms over them. Even as a child, when promises of snow caused other children’s eyes to grow wide with anticipation, she remembered hating winter. The sky seemed to freeze into a solid murky bowl that clamped over the earth, making it harder to breathe.

Even today, well into her thirties, she still could find no purpose for these brittle months of chill and grey. Age had not brought her enlightenment, and the concept of a “winter wonderland” still held no magic.

Spring was a much more pleasant season, Aggie believed, lavishly adorned with flower buds and tiny new leaves shyly emerging from the tips of the tree limbs. April promised new life blossoming, seeds taking sprout, and that, with a nurturing Mother’s hand, a new bloom will lift its head to the sun. The months of spring had an air of hope and excitement to the air

Every light in the house could not chase away the darkness, nor could a fire dispel the cold. The cold was within her bones, her heart, her stomach.

Now she had another reason to hate the winter.

Again, she whispered.

“How am I to tell him?”

There was a tree outside the window that Aggie adored. It had grown considerably since she and Jonathan had first bought the house five years ago. Although they had looked it up once, she could not remember the name or classification of the tree. There were no flowers on it, which was just as well, flowers on trees had always seemed gaudy and fake. She had always loved her tree, treasured it.

She studied it now, dimly illuminated by the milky January sun, trying to find a fault in it, and seeing none. Although quite mature, the bark was smooth and even, more so than many others of the same age. The limbs stretched graceful and strong, angled together elegantly, seductively. The years had not shown their wear, had not dulled the elegant beauty.

In May, how proudly that tree had stood, lush and full and round with it’s blossoming leaves! How vibrant it was, fertile and strong. Those strong limbs had a purpose, to carry the flourishing life upon its branches. To cradle a bird’s nest, three tiny eggs nestled in the center. To be responsible for the new life that was growing within it.

Such an amazing power had emanated from that tree, with its fresh new life about it, fed by the sun and the rain. Visitors had exclaimed over the fullness and vibrancy, remarking on the beauty of new life.

Aggie rested one hand onto her stomach and sipped some tea, longing for a warmth that she knew would never come.

Why?

“How could this happen to me?”

Aggie babysat regularly for young neighborhood children, and they loved that tree. Their tiny hands would grasp onto the limbs with a certainty that had developed with years of trust, and they would climb into that tree’s arms, snuggle against the trunk, thankful for the shade on a muggy summer day, the hours meandering by. It was certainly a climbing tree, meant to hold children, to shelter and comfort them. Not once had a branch snapped in a tiny hand, nor had a foothold proven faulty. This tree was meant to hold children, had years of experience.

As the night poured ink over the sky, however, it was always time to go home. The kids would unfold themselves from the safety of those familiar tree arms to tuck themselves into those of their mothers. It was always a temporary love, a substitution for the real thing.

Every tick of the clock was like a rap to Aggie’s skull, a reminder of passing
time. One more minute was lost, then another.

Now, the tree was grey and sallow. The air of vivacity had been lost, replaced by a barren melancholy. Leaves that had once swelled with chlorophyll, fat and glowing with life, now lay flat and dried on the frozen winter ground. The bare, outstretched bows seemed desperate, grappling towards the sky as if clamoring for a reason. Why?

Why?

Aggie wondered how the tree coped with the loss of life every year. How could it go from being a bright, shiny thing of beauty and life to being a grey, ashy skeleton?

“Is he going to leave me? Will he blame me?”

In mere months, the tree would bloom again. It would have to endure a few months of shame and anguish, standing there all withered and pale and bare, knowing that passers-by were staring at it, comparing its image now to their memory of the triumphant springtime figure that had stood proud not too long ago. Before cold winter fingers, cold as steel forceps, snatched that life away.

But only for a season. Come April, the tree would feel the stirrings of life within it’s body once again. And in May, once again, it will flourish with springtime blossoms and vivacious green sprouts at the tips of its fingers. And again, every year after that.

The tree, Agnes thought, was more of a woman than she was.

She began to cry, finally. She sobbed into cold hands out of envy for the woman that stood outside her kitchen window, beautiful and timeless, out of heartbreak for the leaves that lay torn and scattered on the frozen winter ground, for the both of them. She wept, silently, and then loudly, angrily, demanding a reason for her anguish to an ear that she knew was not listening. Who had forsaken her.

Aggie cried until she felt even more hollow. For a few minutes, she sat in the chair, breathing slowly, concentrating on each breath, until the telephone startled her out of her meditation. She reached for it.

“Aggie! It’s me, honey. I’m sorry I couldn’t call last night, I didn’t get the chance. How are you doing?”

“Jonathan, I have something important to tell you.” Agnes squeezed her eyes shut.

“Sure, sweetheart. Is something wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Honey… What is it?”

She took a deep breath to make sure her voice wouldn’t shake.

“I’ve decided to get rid of that tree in our front yard.”