Autumn in Quebec – Part 2: First Snow

By the first snow, the Sunday walks had become a habit. Marguerite brought a flask of tea and a tin of shortbread. Henri brought his fox-headed stick and a radio he refused to turn on, because, he said, the birds deserved some peace.

They walked through the empty streets of the old city, past the shuttered cafés and the iron lamps, talking about everything and nothing. He told her about his years as a railway engineer, the bridges he had helped build over the St. Lawrence, the storms that had nearly swept his team into the river. She told him about teaching French literature to bored teenagers for thirty years, and the one boy who had written her a poem that still made her smile.

"You never told me about Louis," said Henri, one morning in December.

Marguerite stopped walking. The snow crunched under her boots.

"You didn't ask," she said. "And I didn't want to tell you the sad parts."

"Tell me the happy parts first."

So she did. How Louis had proposed on a sled in a snowstorm, grinning and frozen and entirely unable to kneel without falling over. How he had sung her to sleep every night for forty years, badly, and never once let her forget it. How he had burnt the Christmas turkey every year and insisted it was a family tradition.

By the end, she was laughing and crying at once.

"And the sad parts?" asked Henri gently.

"I miss him every single morning," said Marguerite. "And I'm afraid that one day I'll stop missing him, and that will feel like a betrayal."

Henri took her gloved hand, and held it, quietly, in the falling snow.

"Then miss him," he said. "Every morning. And let yourself have Sundays too. Both can be true."

They walked back to her flat that afternoon, slowly, the streetlights glowing gold through the snow. At her door, she turned to face him, her breath clouding in the cold air.

"Henri," she said. "Would you like to come in for dinner tonight? My soup is very good, and I've been practising my cooking for a year because Louis always did it."

"Yes," said Henri, and smiled. "But I'd like to ask you something first."

"Ask."

"Would you like me to stay for dinner, and then, if you want, to sit with you by the fire and talk until it's late? Not for anything else. Just company."

"Yes," said Marguerite, and her voice was steady. "But I'd like to ask you something too."

"Ask."

"Can I kiss you, Henri? On my doorstep, in the snow, before my neighbours start talking?"

He laughed, low and warm. "Yes. And if you want me to stop, I'll stop, and then we'll eat your soup."

"Good," said Marguerite. "Green?"

"Green," said Henri. "Very green."

She leaned in, and he met her halfway, careful and tender, his cold hand coming up to rest against her cheek. The kiss was soft and slow, tasting of tea and snow, and when they parted, her cheeks were pink and her heart was full in a way she had nearly forgotten.

"Louis would have approved," she whispered.

"Louis would have made a terrible joke about it," said Henri.

"Yes," said Marguerite, laughing softly. "He would. And I'd have loved him for it."

Behind them, the first real snowfall of the winter continued to drift down over Quebec City, covering the old stones and the bare trees and two people walking slowly into the warm light of a small kitchen, at exactly the speed they both chose.