Aiden walked on his toes across the linoleum. The frost on the lakeside window had begun to recede. The moonlight concentrated on the white, stiff floor and on his crisp, white undershirt, as if lighting the path to the stove and illuminating the traveler, but his eyes were indifferent to the help. Only his boxers shielded the cold from his lower half. If underdressing failed to make him shiver, he would incur no loss, but if it did, he could add getting up at night to his list of sacrifices, the list that got him up each morning. Aiden never tried to hurt himself, but if he was doing something nice for his wife and it happened, he wouldn’t mind. Actually, the flame that burns in Aiden’s chest, the one fueled by purpose, burns brighter as a task becomes tougher. Since he had met his wife, his queen, parts of Aiden died, but consequently, the rest of him lived fully. All people have their means of survival, and Aiden’s, though backwards, should not be called more virtuous than another’s, and neither should desperation more describe his life than it describes any other.

            Careful not to disrupt his wife and son, asleep in the still frozen bedroom, Aiden opened the hatch to the stove. As expected, the logs had burned down to embers. With his left hand holding the hatch’s handle, his right hand felt for a sufficient grip around the splintered edges of a piece of birch. Aiden placed this first piece atop the reddest of the coals. Squinting at his selection, he chose a long piece of oak to add to the birch, which had already begun to burn. Thinking he could place it perfectly, he lowered the piece of oak deep into the fire chamber. With the log’s far end in the coals, he continued to lower the other side, now just inches above the top of the rediscovered flame. The tips of his fingers suddenly felt hot, and having dropped the wood, his clenched hand shot all the way back to his chest. The oak clanged against the steel side of the rusty stove. Aiden’s eyes and ears focused on the bedroom. No one stirred. He checked his hand; it was all right.

            Under a faded quilt, his wife held their baby boy to her chest. Spouts of breath fogged the air above their noses. Her eyes were open, and they watched Aiden as he quietly approached the bed. In the air as cold and as still as death, the skin on Aiden’s arm tightened and the tiny hairs stood on end.

            “Come on—come under,” his wife whispered. “Is everything all right?”

            Lying behind her, Aiden rolled his head over his wife’s shoulder, during which he took a deep breath of her smells. With that breath, he whispered “everything’s good,” and then kissed her right below her ear. As he positioned his head on the pillow for the second time that night, he said, “It’s much warmer already. I bet the cabin will be toasty by morning.”

            She spoke softly over the baby’s head. “Aiden, let the fire go for the night, and sleep. We can just wear jackets in the morning.”

            “Yeah, right—you’ll eat breakfast in your winter jacket.”

            “I will.”

            Aiden wrapped his left arm around his family and whispered, “Fall back asleep, sweets. Goodnight.”

            He listened to the stove creak and crack as the new fuel raised its temperature, and the sound counted him to sleep.

            Aiden woke up often, would tuck the blankets around his wife’s back while he inched out of bed, would put more wood on the fire, and would inch back in bed. On each instance, he took his sweet time so that his wife wouldn’t wake; the little guy slept so deeply that Aiden didn’t need to worry about him.

            Before dawn, Aiden had burned all of wood that he had brought inside, but the cabin still lacked sufficient heat. He found his boots and his down jacket by the door. The inside air was no longer so cold for him to be in his boxers and undershirt, but he could see the wind hurling off the lake and into the silhouettes of trees surrounding the cabin. After slipping into the boots and jacket, he quietly opened the door, snuck outside, and closed the door enough to keep the heat in, but not so much that it latched. The wind bit his bare knees. Taking in one breath, his nose began to drool, and as he walked—in his old steps—across the snowdrifts, his freezing ears turned hot. At the woodpile, Aiden grabbed an armful of birch cuts. He scampered back to the door, nudged it open, and clamored inside; for the first time in the twelve hours that they had been there, the cabin offered relative warmth. He kept his boots on as he walked over to the stove; where at its base, he laid down the wood.

            As he entered the bedroom, his wife said, “Aiden, what’s up?”

            “Nothing—we’re good.”

            Aiden got into the burrow and reclaimed the nook behind his wife. Drowsily, she said, “Let’s sleep a little more, okay? Warm up by us.” Her body felt as good at his front as soup would feel in his stomach. Soon, he fell asleep.

            When he woke, the morning light spread through the cabin. He saw his wife’s chestnut hair, the pastel pattern of the quilt, and on the chair across the room, his son’s matching cap and snowsuit. Last summer, he spent all his savings acquired in the three years after med school on buying the cabin, as he called it—though most would call it a shack—the cabin would be their single getaway that winter. Regardless, Aiden knew his wife deserved a nice holiday vacation. For Aiden, it was simply a matter of providing this with the cabin.

            Before he made breakfast, or did anything, he thought he would prepare for his wife some warm water to wash her hands and face, in hope that it could soak the cold out from her saintly skin. He kissed her, sleeping, on the shoulder, stood up from the bed, and put on clothes. After feeding a log to the stove, Aiden tossed on his jacket, hat, and boots and found the axe and a plastic pail by the door, where he had left them yesterday.

            Outdoors, the wind set fire to his cheeks, the sun flamed his eyes, and the cold burned his nose. With the axe resting in the pail, and the pail’s handle resting in Aiden’s hand, he walked down to the lake. Winter smelled how snow tasted: refreshing, but aged. He knew it was chilly, but he would be quick.

            A branch sticking out from the snow marked where he had drilled a hole in the ice the night before. Aiden positioned the axe above his shoulder, saying, “Please don’t be thick,” and he swung, the metal head splintering the ice. He swung three more times; the ice surrendered a wedge. Aiden sucked the cold air and swung again. He swung enough times to break a sweat beneath his jacket, but the water had not yet found a way to seep through the cracks. The auger leaned against the boathouse. He would use it. As he carried the auger out to the site, he thought that it was best to hold the freezing metal with his hands inside the sleeve of his jacket. With the auger, he would reach water in no time, and then he could warm up inside the cabin.

            Hiding his face from the wind, he set the blade in the hole and began to drill. His grip on the U-shaped handle needed to be tight, so although his jacket served as a layer of protection, his hands quickly grew numb. He stopped after about a minute to look at his progress and to warm his fingers and nose. With at least another few inches of ice to go, he returned to the auger. It seemed the metal handle would never warm up. His fingers were rapidly losing sensation; he considered loosening his grip, or taking a break, but his wife had probably gotten up by now. He would be done soon. His cheeks blazed in pain and snot had frozen in the opening to his nostrils. Every exposed area of his body pleaded for him to get out of the wind, whipping razors of tiny snow against his skin. His burning hands felt more like arms. Running in place as he drilled, Aiden glared at the hole, begging for a sign of seepage.

            When water came, the hole filled with slush. Aiden shook his arms to try to revive his hands, but they didn’t respond, so he used them, primitively, to hold the pail and to bail out the slush. By the second scoop, Aiden got mostly water, and so, leaving the axe and auger behind, he dodged up the hill, the water sloshing all over his pant and boots and the snow. Soon, he would put the pail down in the cabin and be finished.

            His entire arm shook as he tried to turn the doorknob. Without strength in his fingers, the knob wouldn’t turn. He relocated the pail’s handle down around his elbow. Holding his breath and flexing every muscle in his body that he could mentally control, he used both of his lifeless hands, though mainly his palms, to twist the doorknob clockwise. The door swung open, and he fell inside.

            Moans dribbled out of Aiden’s mouth.

            His wife called from the bedroom, “Aiden, what’s wrong?” In only a moment, she was out of bed with the baby and held Aiden’s red hands.

            Aiden struggled with his words. “We can heat the water up, with the teapot, the stove should be—”

            “Baby, your hands are frozen!”

            His fingers screamed in high-pitched pain, and his hand pulsed with his heart. Looking away from his flesh, Aiden saw the baby was awake. Aiden’s eyes met his wife’s frown. “Why did you do this?” she asked. Aiden knew that he might never regain full feeling in his fingertips, and he told her that he would be all right. But neither praise him, nor pity him, since Aiden felt not praise or pity for himself. Even if Aiden lost some of the life in his fingers, instances like this fuel Aiden’s heart, or in his own wintry words, sacrifice is Aiden’s means of survival.