I Left to Make Him Follow, and He Let Me Go for Three Years novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: First Snow

The first snow came in the second week of December.

It started in the afternoon, fine and dry, and by evening it lay an inch deep on the skylights of the glassworks annex.

We had taken the floor above the cutting rooms the week before.

It was one long room under the roof, with a stove, a wall of tall windows, and a bed in the corner.

The old quilt with the broken stars lay folded at the foot.

Marta's room was a floor below, aired and open.

The lilac was gone, and we had left her drawings on the wall.

I lay on the bed in the dark, in the lamp's small circle, and listened to the snow settle on the glass above my head.

It was our anniversary.

He had not said so.

He had come in from the shop at six with snow on his shoulders and a paper bag from the bakery on Polish Hill.

Inside were two paczki, still warm, and a card in Magda's round handwriting.

*For the two of you. Don't let them go stale.*

We had eaten them in bed, with sugar on the sheets.

Now he stood at the foot of it in his shirtsleeves, with the lamp on one side of his face.

"Come here," I said.

"You are smiling," said Ansel.

"I'm planning," I said.

"That is worse."

I pointed at his chest. "Take your shirt off."

He did, slowly, and let it fall.

I sat up and looked at him.

I knew the scar on his forearm and the nick through his eyebrow and the pale line of an old cut across his ribs.

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