“Yes, that would be wonderful,” she replied. “When can you come?”
“Well,” the man replied in the same nervous, almost embarrassed-sounding voice. “I’m actually in the truck now heading over there.”
“You are?” Emily stammered, hardly believing her luck. She peered quickly at the time on her phone. It wasn’t even 8 a.m. yet. Either Eric got to work super early as a matter of course or he’d made the trip especially for her. She wondered whether the man who’d given her a lift last night had gotten in touch with the oil company on her behalf. Either it was him or… Daniel?
She put the thought out of her mind and returned her attention to her telephone conversation. “Will you be able to get here?” she asked. “There’s a lot of snow.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Eric said. “The truck can handle snow. Just make sure a pathway is clear to the pipe.”
Emily wracked her brain, trying to remember whether she’d seen a shovel anywhere in the house. “Okay, I’ll do my best. Thank you.”
The line went dead and Emily sprang into action. She raced back into the kitchen, checking each of the cupboards. There was nothing even close to what she needed, so she tried all the cupboards in the pantry, then on into the utility room. At last, she found a snow shovel propped up against the back door. Emily never thought she’d be so thrilled to see a shovel in all her life, but she grabbed hold of it like a lifeline. She was so excited about the shovel that she almost forgot to put any shoes on. But just as her hand hovered over the latch to open the back door, she saw her running sneakers sticking out of a bag she’d left there. She put them on quickly then yanked the door open, her precious shovel in her grasp.
Immediately, the depth and scale of the snowstorm became apparent to her. Looking out at the snow from her window had been one thing, but seeing it piled up three feet deep ahead of her like a wall of ice was another.
Emily wasted no time. She slammed the shovel into the wall of snow and ice and began to carve a path out of the house. It was hard going; within a matter of minutes she could feel the sweat dripping down her back, her arms ached, and she was certain that she’d have blisters on her palms once she was done.
After getting through three feet of snow, Emily began to find her rhythm. There was something cathartic about the task, about the momentum needed to shovel the snow. Even the physical unpleasantness seemed to matter less when she could begin to see how her efforts were being rewarded. Back in New York her favorite form of exercise was running on the treadmill, but this was more of a workout than any she’d had before.
Emily managed to carve out a ten-foot-long path through the grounds at the back of the house.
But she looked up in despair to see the pipe outlet was a good forty feet away – and she was already spent.
Trying not to despair too much, she decided to rest for a moment to catch her breath. As she did so, she caught sight of the caretaker’s house farther along the garden, hidden beside evergreens. A small plume of smoke rose from the chimney and warm light spilled from the windows. Emily couldn’t help but think of Daniel inside, drinking his tea, staying toasty warm. He would help her, she had no doubt about that, but she wanted to prove herself. He’d mocked her mercilessly the evening before, and had in all likelihood been the one to call Eric in the first place. He must have perceived her to be a damsel in distress, and Emily didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of being proved right.
But her stomach was complaining again and she was exhausted. Far too exhausted to carry on. Emily stood in the river she’d created, suddenly overwhelmed by her predicament, too proud to call for the help she needed, too weak to do what needed to be done herself. Frustration mounted inside of her until it turned to hot tears. Her tears made her even more angry, angry at herself for being useless. In her frustrated mind, she berated herself and, like a petulant and stubborn child, resolved to return home as soon as the snow had melted.
Discarding the shovel, Emily stomped back into the house, her sneakers soaked through. She kicked them off by the door then went back into the living room to warm up by the fire.
She slumped down onto the dusty couch and grabbed her phone, preparing herself to call Amy and tell her the oh-so-expected news that she’d failed her first and only attempt at being self-sufficient. But the phone was out of battery. Stifling a screech, Emily threw her useless cell back onto the couch, then flopped onto her side, utterly defeated.
Through her sobbing, Emily heard a scraping noise coming from outside. She sat up, dried her eyes, then ran to the window and looked out. Right away she saw that Daniel was there, her discarded shovel in his grasp, digging through the snow and continuing what she had failed to complete. She could hardly believe how quickly he was able to clear the snow, how adept he was, how well suited to the task at hand, like he had been born to work the land. But her admiration was short-lived. Instead of feeling grateful toward Daniel or pleased to see that he had managed to clear a path all the way to the outlet pipe, she felt angry with him, directing her own impotence at him instead of inwardly.
Without even thinking about what she was doing, Emily grabbed her soggy sneakers and heaved them back on. Her mind was racing with thoughts; memories of all her useless ex-boyfriends who hadn’t listened to her, who’d stepped in and tried to “save” her. It wasn’t just Ben; before him had been Adrian, who was so overprotective he was stifling, and then there was Mark before him, who treated her like a fragile ornament. Each of them had learned of her past – her father’s mysterious disappearance being just the tip of the iceberg – and had treated her like something that needed protecting. It was all those men in her past who had made her this way and she wasn’t going to stand for it anymore.
She stormed out into the snow.
“Hey!” she cried. “What are you doing?”
Daniel paused only briefly. He didn’t even look back over his shoulder at her, just kept on shoveling, before calmly saying, “I’m clearing a path.”
“I can see that,” Emily shot back. “What I mean is why, when I told you I didn’t need your help?”
“Because otherwise you’d freeze,” Daniel replied simply, still not looking at her. “And so would the water, now that I’ve turned it on.”
“So?” Emily retorted. “What’s it to you if I freeze? It’s my life. I can freeze if I want to.”
Daniel was in no hurry to interact with Emily, or feed into the argument she was so clearly trying to start. He just kept on shoveling, calmly, methodically, as unrattled by her presence as he would have been if she hadn’t been there at all.
“I’m not prepared to sit back and let you die,” Daniel replied.
Emily folded her arms. “I think that’s a little bit melodramatic, don’t you? There’s a big difference between getting a bit cold and dying!”
Finally, Daniel rammed the shovel into the snow and straightened up. He met her eyes, his expression unreadable. “That snow was piled so high it was covering the exhaust. You manage to get that boiler on, it would go right back into the house. You’d be dead of carbon poisoning in about twenty minutes.” He said it so matter-of-factly it took Emily aback. “If you want to die, do it on your own time. But it’s not happening on my watch.” Then he threw the shovel to the ground and headed back to the carriage house.
Emily stood there, watching him going, feeling her anger melt away only to be replaced with shame. She felt terrible for the way she’d spoken to Daniel. He was only trying to help and she’d thrown it all back in his face like a bratty child.
She was tempted to run to him, to apologize, but at that moment the oil truck appeared at the end of the street. Emily felt her heart soar, surprised at how happy she felt by the mere fact that she was getting oil delivered. Being in the house in Maine was about as different from her life in New York as it could be.