The snow was really heavy outside. The biting wind from the north kept blowing into the neck through the gaps in the clothes. Albina’s neck curled up. Her face was red with cold with purple lips and her teeth were chattering.
The soles of her shoes crunched in the snow and Albina’s hands were already chilled to the bone without awareness as she pulled the suitcase.
There was extreme silence all around with no noise of people or cars.
With the snow so heavy, who was going to go out other than her, an abandoned woman who had been thrown out of the house?
The silence reminded Albina of the car accident that had changed her life three years ago, the one that gave her nightmares every time she thought about it at night.
She was not a person born blind.
Three years ago, when she had just graduated from college, her father picked her up. In order to see her mother as soon as possible, they didn’t even bother to eat, let alone drink alcohol.
She could no longer remember the details of the incident, except that her father was slumped over the steering wheel, blood trickling down his forehead. She, passed out, was rescued, but woke up blind.
Her father died. She became blind. Her mother was shattered and became ill. The entire family fortune was stolen by her relatives, who seized even the house and threw her and her gravely ill mother out.
It was on that snowy day when she knelt in the snow with her mother in her arms, calling for help from anyone who passed by.
However, no one stopped.
She hugged her mother from day to night, when the snow was as heavy and the wind as cold as today.
He unbuttoned his clothes and caught his mother in his embrace, trying to warm her with his own body heat even though she was shivering with cold.
She no longer had her father. He couldn’t be without his mother.
At the time, she thought she would be willing to do anything to save her mother.
Despite this, her mother’s body temperature was dropping. It was Umberto who broke into her world and pulled her out of the mire of despair when she was at her most anxious and disappointed.
Albina would never forget the man’s broad palms and warmth.
He broke through the layers of coldness, took her in his arms and said:
-If you will marry me, I will have your mother cured.
Perhaps his voice was too soft. Or perhaps she was too desperate. Albina shook his hand decisively, trusting him wholeheartedly and treating him as a light in her life.
But after only three years, that light disappeared. Albina’s faith crumbled at that moment when she learned the truth about his marriage.
She didn’t hate him. After all, he saved her mother. She was just… a little sad and aggrieved.
Three years didn’t last long, but it made her fall completely in love with him. And in turn, Albina always thought that Umberto loved her too.
But the truth was torn and she realized that love could really be a pretense.
He could love her deeply and walk away without a doubt at the same time, only she simply took the pretense for true love and remained in love in front of him in secret, foolishly giving her former lover transfusion of three years.
Albina cried as she walked with tears flowing freely and heartbreakingly. Three years’ worth of blood. That much blood added up to more than a cow.
As she was thinking about things, she didn’t pay attention to the road and stepped in a snow pit. The whole body fell to the ground with her suitcase.
She was dressed in thick clothes and could not get up for a long time, so she just lay down directly on the snow, letting it cover her body.
Suddenly, there was the deafening sound of a car braking, followed by the sound of the door opening.
Albina looked in the direction of the approaching person. Her first reaction was to apologize:
-I’m sorry. I’m blind. I can’t see the road. I accidentally fell… and caused you trouble. I’m sorry…, could you help me up? I can’t get up…
When she said even the last thing, the bitterness in her heart somehow overflowed. Albina’s eyes reddened and her voice choked:
-I’m sorry, I can’t get up. Please help me.
Michael looked at her delicate and pretty frozen face, her red nose, her reddened eyes, her hair, her eyelashes and her whole body covered with snowflakes, like a wounded snow doll.
-Albina, why are you here?
She was surprised. This voice…