When she finally looked up, she found Cyrus watching her, bewildered. “You’ve been truly suffering,” he said. “Why did you say nothing?” She was unable to meet his eyes when she confessed quietly: “I am always suffering. The frost lives with me much like an unwanted limb; it does not diminish. I seldom dwell on it.” “Then the frost is a real, lived experience?” Cyrus seemed to frown as he spoke. “I’ve heard mention of it, of course, but I’d assumed it was meant to be a poetic turn of phrase.”
