The Frozen River

by Ariel Lawhon

I peer at him, skeptical. “You’ve been reading Shakespeare again.” He shrugs, then yanks the blade free. “I like the way he delivers an insult.”

We are in the twilight years of a long love affair, and it has recently occurred to me that a day will come when one of us buries the other. But, I remind myself, that is the happy ending to a story like ours. It is a vow made and kept. Till death do us part. It is the only acceptable outcome to a long and happy marriage, and I am determined not to fear that day, whenever it arrives. I am equally determined to soak up all the days between.

But if they aren’t, you will have Dr. Page to thank for that. Remember that the next time you panic and call a man to do a woman’s job.”

And then I laugh. If anyone had told me two decades ago, when I was buried in small children and endless chores, that one day I would sit at my desk in a warm, quiet house while the snow fell outside and complain of loneliness, I would have slapped them. That future seemed as far away as Constantinople.

Candle making is hard, sweaty work, and not a task meant to make a woman look pretty. It is, however, one of the necessary parts of running a household.