A Winter's Promise of Spring

I fell into a deep sleep that winter, only to awaken in another, seven years later.
Dressed in a hospital gown and a tattered coat borrowed from a nurse, I was wandering the streets like a beggar when I saw him: my husband, giving an interview on a major financial news network.
The reporter asked, "Mr. Holub, looking back on your journey, is there anyone you're most grateful for?"
My husband smiled. "There are many people I have to thankmy parents, the friends who built this company with me. But most of all," he paused, his gaze softening, "I want to thank my wife."
"Aurora Bell."

1
"I'm sorry, Ms. Hayes, but with no family member available to cover the subsequent cryogenic preservation fees, the Institute had no choice but to initiate an early reanimation."
I opened my eyes in a haze, assuming thirty years had passed.
That winter, my battle with brain cancer had left me with a shaved head.
"Leo, don't look. I'm hideous."
At the time, medical science had no cure. To save my life, Leo Holub had placed me in a cryo-chamber, signing a thirty-year preservation agreement. He arranged for monthly payments to be made from his account.
He'd said paying monthly would be a way to remember me every month. He signed for thirty years, promising that if he were gone before then, he'd leave his entire estate to continue the payments, enough to keep me preserved until a cure was found. If he was still alive after thirty years, he'd renew for another thirty, and another, until the day they could finally heal me.
"What are you afraid of? You're not hideous," he'd said, gently caressing my cheek. "You always said a shaved head is the ultimate test of beauty. You're just as beautiful now as you've always been."
"Besides," he'd added with a soft smile, "by the time I get to wake you up, I'll probably be a wrinkled old man. You'd better not find me too repulsive then, Winter."
"How long was I in the chamber?"
On the front desk, I saw a business journal. On the cover was Leo, dressed in a tailored black suit, his tie knotted perfectly, leaning casually in an armchair. My Leo. Still so young, so handsome.
"Ms. Hayes, the current date is December 1st, 2027. You entered cryo-sleep on December 25th, 2020. Because the payment for November was not received from the designated account, we chose to reanimate you this month."
"Also," the receptionist added, "we'll need you to settle the outstanding balance for November. The total is fifteen thousand dollars."
Fifteen thousand. That same cursed number. Once, for fifteen thousand dollars, my own father had nearly sold me to an old man. Now, for that same amount, I had lost my only hope for a future.
"Did you try calling my husband?" I asked, confused. "He would have paid."
I used the Institute's public phone and dialed Leo's number from memory.
It connected.
"Leo, it's me. It's Winter," I said, my voice catching in my throat. Seven years, Leo. Though for me it was merely the blink of an eye, for him it had been thousands of real, waking days. My heart ached for him.
"Winter? Summer? I don't know anyone by that name. You got the wrong number, lady!" a gruff, unfamiliar voice with a thick accent grumbled back, laced with irritation.
Did I dial it wrong? I tried again, and again. The same man answered, his voice growing angrier with each call, until he was shouting. "I said you got the wrong number! Are you deaf?"
On my last attempt, the call wouldn't go through. "We're sorry, the number you have dialed has been disconnected." That's when I finally understood.
Leo had changed his number.

2
Leo never changed his number. He had promised me he wouldn't, seven years ago. It was the autumn of 2020. The illness made me perpetually cold, and my vision was failing.
I was walking to the hospital for a check-up, alone. At first, I could still make out the shapes of the sweet autumn blossoms lining the road, the hurried pedestrians, the children with their backpacks. Then, the world went dark, leaving only the lingering fragrance of the flowers.
A kind stranger helped me to a bench. I didn't dare move. The stranger tried calling Leo for me, dialing over a dozen times. No answer.
"You can go," I told them. "Thank you. My husband is probably busy. He'll see the missed calls and come find me. I'll just wait here."
After they left, I sat on that bench from morning until nightfall, terrified that if I moved, Leo would never find me. I just kept waiting.
"Winter!" I turned my head toward the sound, my eyes vacant. The moment he saw them, he knew. I was blind.
"Have you been waiting long?" He covered my eyes with his hands. "I was in meetings all day, I didn't check my phone. It won't happen again." He took my hand, wrapped an arm around my shoulder, and guided me home.
"It won't happen again," he'd repeated. "I've set your number to a priority contact, and I've set my number as the emergency contact on your phone. If you can't see and can't use the screen, just hit the emergency call button." He guided my finger to the button on my phone, and his own phone began to ring. "My number will never change. I'll always be the first person you can reach."
Nothing is forever.
I picked up a discarded walking stick from the Institute's lost and found, borrowed a winter coat from the receptionist, and left.
Walking the streets, the city felt both familiar and alien. The roads were the same, but the storefronts were all different. Then I looked up and saw his face on a massive screen.
Leo. He was still so young. Seven years had barely left a trace on him. In fact, like a fine wine, he had only grown more distinguished with time.
The host was asking him, "Mr. Holub, who are you most grateful to for your incredible success?"
"I have so many people to thank," he said. "My parents, my friends and partners who struggled alongside me. But the person I am most grateful for is my wife." He paused. "My wife, Aurora Bell."
"She has been my silent, unwavering support through it all." On the screen, Leo's smile was as gentle as it was the day he sent me into the cryo-chamber, as if he truly, deeply loved his wife. This woman named Aurora Bell.
"So romantic," a young woman passing by gushed to her friend. "I want a man like that someday."
I stared at the screen, desperately searching his face for any sign that this wasn't him, but there was none. The faint scar above his eyebrow, the mole at the corner of his eyeevery detail screamed that it was Leo. I pinched my thigh, hard. The pain was real. This wasn't a dream from my long sleep.
It was all real. Seven years later, Leo Holub had a new love in his life.
Only I was still frozen in the past.
I've always been the one left waiting. When I was five, my mother stroked my hair and said, "Mommy's going to work. I'll bring you back your favorite cotton candy." The cotton candy at the street vendor was bigger than my five-year-old head. I waited excitedly all day, but all I got that evening was my father's slap. My mother had run away. She never came back.
The second time, I was seventeen. My bedridden grandmother suddenly found a burst of energy and promised to make me my favorite eggplant buns the next day. I sat on a stool by the stove, watching her knead the dough and prepare the filling. But the next day, the dough was still dough, the filling still filling. My grandmother had passed away in the night.
The third time is now. I waited in a cryo-chamber, only to find Leo had married someone else.
I wait, only to be abandoned.

3
I found my way to Leo's company building. The receptionist was new. She looked me up and down. "Who are you? Who are you here to see? Do you have an appointment?"
"No appointment. I'm here for Leo Holub." I pulled the tattered coat tighter around myself. The December air was frigid. Cancer had wasted me down to skin and bones, and my head was still bare. "I'm his wife."
"His wife?" She scoffed at my appearance. "Ma'am, if you're going to lie, at least come up with a better one." She gestured with her chin toward a sofa. "And at least dress the part. There's no way Mr. Holub's wife would look like... you." Her eyes scanned me from head to toe before she rolled them.
"I really am his wife! We were married ten years ago!"
"Do your homework before you try to scam someone. Mr. Holub has only been married for three years!" She waved over security. "Get her out of here. She's bad for the company's image."
Leo and I got our marriage license ten years ago, right after I turned twenty. It was partly for love, but also because I needed to escape my family. After my mother left, my father took up drinking and gambling. While my grandmother was alive, she could scrape together enough from odd jobs for my tuition, but after she died, the burden fell on me. I went to school during the day and worked as a tutor or at a bubble tea shop at night. My father would often steal my wages from my room. After he cleaned me out one time, I started giving my savings to Leo for safekeeping. We'd been together for three years by then.
One day, while I was at work, my father called and said he'd fallen and hurt his leg. When I got home, I found a strange man in our apartment, his face flushed from drinking. He tried to drag me into the bedroom. My father had sold me for fifteen thousand dollars.
I fought back with a knife, bit the man's hand until I drew blood, and ran all the way to Leo's apartment.
"We should just get married," he said, looking at me. "Then if your father ever tries to sell you again, he'll have to go through me first." He broke off a stem of a gardenia from a plant in the corner, fashioned it into a ring, and slid it onto my finger. "Someday, when I've made it, I'll get you a real one."
He knelt on one knee. "Winter Hayes," he said, his voice thick with emotion, "will you marry the man in front of you? For richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, I will love you always. Not even death can do us part."
"I will," I'd whispered, marrying my love.
"Please, don't throw me out," I begged the security guards now. "Just let me make one phone call to him. Just one."
I smashed a glass display case on the counter and held a shard to my own neck.
Everyone froze. The receptionist, trembling, dialed the CEO's office.
"Hello, who is this?" A woman's voice answered.
"I need to speak to Leo Holub. Tell him it's Winter," I cried, my voice frantic and desperate. "It's Winter!"
"I'm sorry, I don't know you," the woman said, her tone languid and superior. "And I'm sure Leo... he wouldn't know you either."
"Aurora, who is it?" I could faintly hear a man's voice in the background.
"No one important. Probably a wrong number," the woman's voice replied, muffled. "Leo, darling, you get back to work. I won't disturb you."
The glass shard fell from my hand, leaving a thin line of blood on my neck.
Security guards swarmed me, dragging me out of the building and dumping me on the sidewalk. Through a blur, I thought I saw the flash of cameras. How would they write about me online? A fraud claiming to be Leo Holub's wife? A delusional fan?
My vision failed again, the tumor's symptoms flaring up with the extreme stress. I collapsed to the ground, helpless. I couldn't find my way. Leo, I can't find my way home again.

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