Chapter Seven

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Snow kept falling and falling. Conn stood at his window trying not to think so he wouldn't feel. Snow and ice had whirled down so rapidly that it obscured buildings. Wind drove blinding clouds of it around street corners and made the snow stick to the buildings, frosting everything.

He didn't know how long he stood there. He'd watched the storm whip up even stronger, and at the height of it you could hardly see out the windows. Sometime ago night had fallen and with it the slowing of the storm.

But to him, time meant nothing now. He wasn't used to losing, especially something that meant so much to him. He wanted her in his life. He wanted to grow old with her and have babies and laugh and cry and love her.

And he'd made such a mess of things.

He wondered if he had taken one too many punches. There had to be a reason he would do something that stupid. He shouldn't have rushed her. He'd frightened her off.

The whole thing was so damn silly. It didn't matter what their ages were. He paced his flat, and then heard the patter of her feet above him.

He stood there staring up at the ceiling. He heard her crying. At first he thought it was one of those cats, but the longer he listened the louder she was.

His jaw tightened, and his hands clenched at his sides. Everything was out of his reach. After a few more minutes he crossed over to the window and pulled it open. A blast of icy air and snowflakes hit him. He didn't care. He stepped out onto the fire escape, and quietly walked up to the fourth level.

There was a dim light coming from the bedroom. He squatted down and looked inside the frosty glass.

She sat in the middle of her convenient bed, surrounded by mangy cats with the bright Christmas bows. Her face was buried in her hands, and her shoulders were shaking with her sobs. It liked to break his heart in two.

If he hadn't been certain she cared before, he was certain now.

She loved him. He could tell, especially when she wasn't very good at hiding her feelings. She sat there looking like nothing but one big heartache. He knew, because that was how he felt. Aching and empty.

But now watching her sitting there with her heart broken, crying so pitifully was almost more than he could take. It was so stupid. She was too stubborn to see how very wrong she was.

A gust of freezing wind hit him and ruffled his hair. Inside she was huddled in a blanket and had tear streaks running down her face. He stood and turned, then went quietly down the metal stairs. He went back inside his window, not caring that snow was all over the floor. He didn't think he could feel anything, even the cold. It couldn't affect him. He was already frozen inside.

He lay down on the bed, and soon he was crying, too. Tears just ran down his temples and into his hair. His chest was tight, and it hurt.

He closed his eyes and lay there until it passed, his arm slung over his eyes. When he opened them, only hard reality stared back at him. For the rest of his nights, he would have to lie to himself. He had no choice but to pretend that he didn't know she was just one floor above him.

December seventeenth, the evening of Sally Waverly's Christmas wedding, came all too quickly for Eleanor. It was one of those evenings when the air turned blue with cold, and breathing it was sharp and painful and made you long for the lush feeling of a warm summer night.

She dressed in a deep green silk dress with a fitted jacket trimmed in jet that was the same color as her hair. She piled that thick wad of hair up on top of her head in a loose knot, stuck in some hairpins, then walked across the room, her heels tap tap tapping. She got her kid gloves, her woolen coat and scarf, threw them on, and moved toward the door.

She plucked her velvet hat off a peg near the door and stood before the oval wall mirror. Raising her chin, she held the hat just so—one hand on the back and one holding the brim, then set it on her head at a perfect angle. She took the hat pin from between her teeth and jabbed it through her topknot as she ran down the stairs.

And right into Conn.

" Hey there, Nellibelle. Slow down. " His huge hands grabbed her shoulders, and she stared up at the same face she dreamed about. The man she had watched through the hole in the floor.

She grew as stiff as a street pole. " I'm sorry. "

He leaned against the wall and gave her a look that started at her head and stopped at her toes. " You're all gussied up. "

" I have somewhere I have to be in" —she paused and looked down at her watch pendant pinned to her lapel—" in fifteen minutes. "

" Where? "

" United Methodist Church. " She paused, then added, " For a wedding. "

He just watched her, as if she hadn't said that word. As if he hadn't ever asked her to marry him. No emotion showed on his face. He just turned and started down the stairs. " I'll get you a cab. "

" That's not necessary. I'll take a cable car. "

" You'll never make it across town in fifteen minutes. "

" But—" She raised her hand to stop him. The front door closed.

She crossed the entry and opened the doors, then stepped outside, intending to tell him not to do her any more favors.

He stood there all tall and gallant, holding the door open to a shiny black cab.

She looked from him to the carriage driver, then decided to avoid an argument and went ahead and got inside.

She leaned toward the window to the driver's seat. " How much is it to go to—"

Conn leaned inside the door. " Put your purse away. " His loud deep voice blocked out hers.

" Mr. Donoughue—"

Conn handed the driver a gold coin. " Get the lady to United Methodist Church in fifteen minutes. "

" You got it! " the cabdriver said, and he snapped the whip before Eleanor could protest.

She sat there inside the warm, roomy coach, half annoyed and half grateful. Something made her turn and look out the oval window in the back.

Conn Donoughue began to shrink, smaller and smaller the farther away they went, until he was only a black dot no bigger than her thumbnail.

She turned around, then leaned back and closed her eyes, telling herself that he was just a dream, one that with time would finally fade away.

It was cold when she left the wedding reception, a bouquet of Christmas lilies held loosely in her hand. So very cold that the twilight had turned a frozen blue. Above the sidewalks, the telephone lines crackled in the cold.

The air was different; it seemed to be alive. Her breathing was labored, and she could have sworn there was ice inside her chest.

She kept walking, listening to the crunch of her boots in the icy snow. She stopped for a second and looked down at the bridal bouquet. She didn't coddle to superstitions. She'd even tried to give the flowers away, but everyone laughed at her.

She tossed the bouquet in a dumpster, then wrapped her arms around herself and just stood there for a long time. She would not be marrying anyone. She had lost her opportunity.

For the first time tonight, she understood what Conn had meant. Sally was twenty, youthful and pretty and full of life. The man she married was forty. But no one could have doubted their love. It was on their faces every time they looked at each other.

No one seemed appalled at the age difference. Old men frequently married younger women. So why did it bother her so that Conn was younger? She looked deep inside herself and knew that she was scared. It was her. Not anyone else. She had lived without love for so long that she had made herself into what she thought she was—an old maid.

But she hadn't been old with Conn. She'd felt alive and young and so very happy. What a foolish woman she was.

She tilted her face upward and took in the night sky, which was filled with so many stars it seemed impossible for the streets to be dark. She wondered what it was like out there where the stars sparkled and the moon glowed silver or orange.

If she were the moon, would she be able to watch the world below? Could she spend her life watching everyone else live and love? If she went somewhere else, would she feel as she felt here—a loneliness that made life sometimes seem almost insurmountable?

It would be so marvelous to just go soaring off into the sky until you were nothing but a tiny bright dot. Away. Far far away from everything. Far away from Conn Donoughue.

By the time she had walked another cold and icy block she was crying, sobbing hard painful tears that froze on her cheeks and chin and made her nose feel like an icicle. And when she got home and climbed up those stairs, she stopped on the third floor, wishing for something that could never be.

Half an hour later she climbed into her cold bed. What had she done? She had given up what she wanted. She gave up her future.

It seemed as if she had lived her whole life between cold sheets and dreams. She wanted so badly to take back the years. She wanted to take back the moment she looked into Conn's strong face and said no. She wanted the chance to live part of her life over again. The part she had wasted, and the part she had thrown away.

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