Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

Vicky stood up beside him. She had her arms wrapped around herself. “I’m getting cold, Gene. And I really need to get back to the office. Could you just let me have the earring? Let’s not get all worked up over what we can’t change.”

Gene had forgotten about the earring. He had forgotten his story. He put his hand in his coat pocket as if the earring might magically be there. Instead, his fingers found the cold metal object, the end to the woman’s cane, and he knew that it was all he had to show Vicky. The woman wasn’t going to come, and his words were futile. This was his last chance.

“I wanted to introduce you to this woman, this old woman I saw yesterday. She reminded me of you.” He had turned to face her. She had her back to the wind, to the pond, and loose strands of her hair were whipping around again. The wind bit at his chafed face. The change came over her face slowly, a hardening of the corners of her mouth that spread up her face, along her cheeks, and to the corners of her eyes, which suddenly glazed over, making him glance at the pond to see if it were now sheeted over with ice, too.

“How could some old woman remind you of me?” she asked in a frigid voice.

“It wasn’t that she was old. That’s not what I meant. It was this combination of things, this joy of life and this dignity.”

“But she was old,” Vicky said, and he knew how hard it was going to be to get her to see. “How old is old? I mean, to qualify as an old woman did she seem to be sixty or seventy or ninety?” She paused and Gene knew just what she was going to say and he was already shaking his head. “Or was she my age?”

“No, no, no. You don’t see. It’s just the opposite of what you think. Just exactly the opposite.” He still had his fingers on the thing. He wondered if he should show her. She was angry and defensive now. Anything might set her off. “She had this dog. I forget his name, but he carried around this Frisbee and she threw it for him and you should have heard her laugh.”

“An old woman with an old dog who reminded you of me.” Now she was shaking her head. “This is why we can’t be together. You claim to be mature but if you were you wouldn’t even mention such things. You wouldn’t go to such pains to point them out. If you’ll just give me my earring, I’ll be going now.”

“I don’t have your earring,” he said, louder than he intended. “I never had your earring. I just wanted to see you, to explain how I felt and somehow it just hasn’t worked out like I planned.”

Now she looked like the ice had totally penetrated her, had even become compressed into something harder and colder than ice, like coal pressed into a diamond. She stood before him like an ice-diamond, beautiful and colder than anything that had ever existed.

“On top of everything else, you lied,” she said and he could barely understand her words, they were so tinny and high and frigid. She turned and started off.

“She had a walking stick, too,” he said, although he knew she wouldn’t hear even if she was listening. “She used it so gracefully, like it was just a part of her. I know that’s how beautiful and graceful you would be and I only wanted to be beside you when it happened.”

She was halfway to those barren cottonwoods along the river when he found that he was moving, too. And he had the end of the walking stick in his hand. He had it in his right hand and his arms were pumping as he took long strides in a jog, coming up on the back of her. When he got close enough, he reached out to stop her, reached out his right hand as if to tap her on the shoulder.

She let out a scream as the edge of the walking stick swished by her head, narrowly missing the whiteness at the back of her neck. He knew what would happen when the pointed object hit her, even as he raised his arm to bring it down again, this time too close to miss. It would not be blood, he knew that, there was no chance for it to be anything as warm and essential as blood. It would be something blue that came out, something blue and frigid that came from a cold heart. Oddly, he missed her again, as she had fallen. He stood over her, the both of them breathing hard, jetting mists of exhausted life into the air.

“You don’t deserve my love,” was all he said. “I met someone yesterday and thought you would be as worthy, but I was wrong.”

He was both kneeling and raising his arm to try again when he saw the dog, the handkerchief around its neck and the Frisbee in its mouth. The old woman was twenty yards back, coming up slowly, a strange grimace on her face. She looked as if she was saying something as she approached, but Gene could hear nothing but his own ragged breathing. He saw her step carefully around a particularly large snow-covered piece of the frozen trail, using the stick, but the bare wooden end of it slipped and he knew he should return the tip, he had it right here in his hand.