Love in the Middle Ages

It was a hard snow, the kind that stings your face on its way to burying everything in sight.

I stood in front of the kitchen window, warm and dry but for my red, swollen eyes. I wrapped my arms around me and held on tightly as I watched him pitch the shovel into the ground, pound it with his foot and dig up another small scoop of frozen soil. His face was knotted in concentration, and his hair grew whiter with each passing minute.

My husband did not know I was watching him. He had no idea I was standing on the other side of that snowstorm thinking, This is what marriage looks like.

I ask y...