Elinor Montoya watched with rapt attention as the snow fell outside the wavery pane of glass. It showed no signs of letting up, not for hours—if ever. It fell steadily, silently and gently. Whiteness on a mission to cover the world. Her world, at any rate.

She saw the accumulating flakes, and a glow of satisfaction filled her. Perfect. A real, old-fashioned snowstorm. Just like the ones we used to get when I was a child.

The furnace rumbled to life, sending small tremors through the floorboards. Elinor smiled as the warm air whooshed out of the register near her feet. Pushing her slipper-encased toes closer to the heat, she sighed. Small comforts, that’s all I have left.

“My old bones thank you for the heat, Booker.” Her voice didn’t creak or scratch; it was strong and sure, as steady and dependable as the snow or the furnace. She didn’t worry about bothering anyone when she spoke aloud. Her words were a secret she shared only with the house. There was no one to hear, no one to disturb. She was alone. “You’ve never failed me, old buddy. Kept me warm all these long years, and I’m grateful.” Her fingers tightened, wrapping a faded green flannel quilt more securely around her thin shoulders.

It seemed that no matter how high she turned the dial on the furnace, Elinor was still constantly chilled—but from the inside. It seemed as if she had no internal fire left in her, no way to heat herself up save for the warmth generated by her heart and mind, and the memories she kept locked away. And Booker, always Booker.

Chilled to the bones, Aunt Millie used to say. Elinor didn’t know about any bone-chilling, but knew the freeze that came from deep within her was now a constant companion. But no sense dwelling on what couldn’t be changed, she’d always felt. Besides, did it really matter why she was cold? As long as she had Booker to keep her company she’d never be fully frozen—she hoped. Shifting her feet yet again, Elinor chuckled. Bad circulation, probably.

The big furnace soldiered on and on. The man who had installed it, Crane Booker, had long passed. He had spent one whole summer five decades earlier building the furnace from little more than a pile of scrap metal. He had had a brainstorm, and it had been a good one. Crane’s vision had done its job well.

The old oak rocker squeaked as she rocked. The chair had made the noise for so long that Elinor didn’t take any notice of it. The screech had become as natural to her as the beating of her own heart. She was barely conscious of the motion of the old chair, if the truth be known. Elinor had spent so many years rocking, beating and squeaking in the spot near the window, that the entire process now took place without any thought or effort on her part.

At ninety-seven, she had spent her entire life in her tidy home in the hills, surrounded by trees, birds and all the joys that came with living in a small town. This life, so closely connected to the seasons and the people nearby, was the only one she knew. The only one she suspected she’d ever know. After all, how much more of it—this life—could be left to her at this point?

It hadn’t ever seemed necessary to venture further than the state capitol, just a bit over one hundred miles away. Never feeling she had missed any of the big world she knew was out there somewhere, Elinor had been content to spend her days in the family home. She considered the familiar walls, treasured sights and sounds outside her window, and the memories she held close to be one of her last blessings. Yes, they were a comfort to her in what must surely be her final days.

Elinor began her life in this house, in an upstairs bedroom she still thought of as Father’s Room. Even though Father was long gone, she had only to poke her head into the room to feel his warmth, hear his words and bridge the gap that time and circumstances had forged. One whiff of the still air in Father’s Room closed the distance between this world and the next. There were times Elinor imagined she could catch a trace of Father’s pipe tobacco in that room if she tried hard.

Some of her most precious bits of personal history came from Father’s Room. They had the distinction of being housed in a special, out-of-the-way piece of her heart. Those treasures were kept in the area reserved for memories, however fleeting, of the woman who had given her life. Elinor had known her mother for but a few brief hours in that quiet room upstairs.

Elinor’s birth had been especially difficult and the midwife had not been able to save her young mother. On that long-ago snowy night, Elinor’s father had lost his wife and been left to raise their baby on his own. He was ill-equipped for such a daunting task, and he had been profoundly shocked that Elinor’s mother, Doris, had left them to fend for themselves.

In a way, they had raised each other, Elinor and Harold.

She could still hear Father’s voice.

“Ellie, I’m just glad your Aunt Millie lived right next door. Glad, too, that she already had a house full of little ones. You fit right in with your cousins. I never felt like you missed much. My sister loved you like one of her own, God bless her soul. I don’t rightly know what I would’ve done without her help. Lord knows I didn’t know doodly-squat about raising babies. I still don’t. Heck, I was scared out of my mind when your sainted mother went off to Heaven and left us here. I came close to giving up that night, the night you came to me. I wanted to give up—don’t think for one minute I didn’t. But I looked into your face, saw your fat, rosy little cheeks and bright, shining eyes and knew. I knew Doris had asked one last favor from me, and I had to do her proud. Yes, come Hell or high water, I had to do right by her.”

Harold was an engine repairman at the local train station by day but a scholar by night. In the evenings, he became Elinor’s teacher. With a huge collection of books and unwavering patience, he instilled in Elinor a love for the written word. She was an avid reader and the two bibliophiles spent hours each evening reading by the light of a wavering candle flame. The quiet evenings had been special; a time shared only by the two of them. Elinor and Harold loved those hours, but they had raised some ruckus in the family for a while.

Shaking her head at the memory of the frequent discussions between Father and Aunt Millie, Elinor smiled. Her aunt regularly gave her opinion regarding their reading sessions. The practical words matched her sturdy, no-nonsense countenance, and were no surprise to anyone. Though she was gone, the words of their exchanges came clearly to mind.

* * * *

“I don’t see why you’re teaching her the way you are. She’s just a girl, Harold. She doesn’t need to know so much. She’ll be having her head filled with all sorts of ridiculous things, leaving no room for learning what she really ought to know. Important things, not book learning.”

“Such as?”

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Sewing, cooking, gardening…the real skills every woman needs to be aware of. She should be having lessons in things that’ll make her a good wife someday! No man is going to come ’round and poke his face inside her brain, for goodness sake…no, he’s going to look at what manner of wife she’s going to be to him. He’ll want to know what sort of things she can cook, how many different types of pie she can bake, whether or not she can keep a tidy house—that sort of thing. These are the important details for a woman to know, Harold. Not all that other-other gobbledygook!”

“Millie, I have every confidence you’ll do a good job of showing my little Ellie the important womanly skills she needs to learn. I know I could never find a better teacher for my darling girl. So with that in mind, I’ll leave all of those items to you. You supervise the essential portions of her education, and I’ll instruct her in a few of the less vital areas of knowledge. To boot, I give you my word I won’t pack her head so full with unnecessary facts and figures that she won’t have any room left for the points you deem necessary. How’s that for a deal?”

* * * *

The bargain satisfied everyone involved. For Elinor, it was the most perfect solution possible, as she had the best anyone could offer. Aunt Millie taught Ellie how to cook, sew and bake a mouth-watering apple pie. She could plant a kitchen garden that would feed a family for an entire year and could can vegetables as well as make jams and jellies that would, and had, win blue ribbons at county fairs. Under her aunt’s tutelage, Elinor honed her embroidery skills until they were legendary in the church’s sewing circles.

For Harold’s part, he filled his daughter’s endlessly wondering mind with the skills he considered appropriate. She could speak Latin, German and French with ease. She knew more about botany and ornithology than many considered to be specialists in those particular fields. And she was so comfortable with complicated sums of numbers that she often lulled herself to sleep at night by doing long division in her head.

Yes, the two adults who had loved her with an intensity designed to somehow compensate her for the loss of her mother had educated Elinor well. They managed to teach her more than most people could learn in two lifetimes of study, and all without letting on that she was, in fact, doing anything more than simply enjoying an average, ordinary childhood.

Elinor watched the steam drift away from her nose as she sipped her cup of Earl Grey. The snow fell outside the window in large, fat flakes.

She leaned forward in the rocker, halting the familiar creaking for a second as she craned her neck to see the mailbox. Not as easy to stretch as it used to be. The green metal box had at least three inches of fluffy white snow on top of its curved dome.

The creaking of the rocker began again as she settled back with a small grunt of satisfaction.

Yes, it’s really starting to come down. The weather channel might have it right this time. I hope they do. We just don’t get as many snowstorms as we did when I was a girl, and that’s a shame. A crying shame. Why, I remember that Sara and I would make the most perfect snow angels.
Goodness, but I miss Sara and those angels.

Her gaze drifted toward the stream that wound its way through the property. The water was quiet and still now, hidden by the falling snow. A scattering of large rocks stuck up through the new covering, with a few even larger ones near the center of the stream.

The flat, smooth stones had made excellent spots for the endless games she and Sara had played so many years ago. Sara, her cousin, had been her closest playmate. Separated in age by a mere five months, they had always felt a bond akin to sisterhood.

Goodness, I miss Sara—never mind the angels.