She hadn’t meant to say I feel like a ghost in my own house . But she had. And Mark hadn’t denied it. He’d just looked at her with that new, tired expression—the one that said here we go again —and walked away.
They sat with that for a moment. The wind picked up, rattled the bare branches of the oak tree. Emma shivered. Cold Feet
When he finished, he didn’t let go. He held her ankles, his head bowed, and she saw his shoulders shake once, twice. She hadn’t meant to say I feel like
For a second, he didn’t move. Then he shifted onto his knees on the cold porch, took her bare foot in his hands—her feet were freezing, she realized, she hadn’t even noticed—and slowly, carefully, pulled the old wool sock over her toes, her arch, her heel. He did the same with the other foot. His fingers were clumsy. His knuckles were white with cold. He’d just looked at her with that new,
She remembered the night he’d proposed. December, snow falling thick and silent, the two of them ice skating on the frozen pond behind his parents’ farm. He’d pretended to fall, pulled her down with him, and when she’d laughed and pushed at his shoulder, he’d held up the ring—already on his pinky because his fingers were too cold to work the box.
“I’m not letting you go,” he’d said. “Even if I have to freeze out here with you.”