Jan. 25, 2026

January Man - (Episode 4) - "The First Light" A Romance Weekly Paranormal Series

January Man - (Episode 4) - "The First Light" A Romance Weekly Paranormal Series

The polar vortex breaks, and Callum fades—disappearing in the middle of a confession that shakes Vera to her core. She's been the lost soul all along. Frozen for five years at the threshold of a grief she refused to feel.Alone for the first time since they met, Vera finally does what she's been avoiding: she goes to a bridge, and she grieves. Really grieves. The ugly, broken, thawing kind. And in the breaking open, something else breaks free. Callum returns—not as a winter walker, but as something new. His task is complete. The last lost soul has been guided home. And for the first time in 180 years, he's free to live.Together, they step into February. Into a future neither of them expected. Into whatever comes next.

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Calorogu Shark Media. Hello and welcome to Romance Weekly. This

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is the January Man, Episode four, the first light. The

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temperature hovers at thirty one degrees all day, just above freezing,

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just warm enough to kill him. Callum flickers in and

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out like a bad signal. There one moment, transparent, the next.

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He tries to hide it, but I can see the

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effort it takes him to stay present. Every word costs

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him something. Every touch is a small miracle. He might

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not be able to repeat. You should rest, I tell him,

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conserve your energy. Rest where he almost laughs in the

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deep cold with the others watching myself fade. The forecast

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says it might drop tonight after midnight. Might. He says

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the word like it's a curse. I've never had to

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hope for cold before. It was always just there, the

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foundation of everything I am. We're sitting in my apartment waiting.

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There's nothing else to do. The lost souls of the

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polar vortex have been found or frozen. The crisis hotlines

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are handling the aftermath. The world doesn't need a winter

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Walker today, just a woman and a ghost watching the

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thermometer like it holds the secret to everything. Tell me

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about your brother. Callum says, I look up, startled. What THEO.

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You've mentioned him, but you've never really told me. He's

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more transparent now, the afternoon light passing through him like

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he's made of winter fog. If this is my last day,

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I want to know all of you, not just the

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parts you show the world. I don't talk about THEO,

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not really. I talk around him, the loss, the grief,

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the way it shaped my career. But I don't talk

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about him, the person he was, the whole he left.

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He was four years younger than me. I hear myself say, brilliant, funny.

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The kind of person who walked into a room and

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made everyone feel like they mattered. What happened, depression happened.

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The kind that hides, the kind that smiles and makes

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jokes and convinces everyone it's fine until suddenly it isn't.

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I stare at my hands. He was at a New

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Year's party, surrounded by people, and at two am he

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walked out the door in a T shirt and jeans,

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and nobody noticed. Nobody stopped him. Where did he go?

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A bridge over the James River back in Richmond. The

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words feel like glass in my throat. He didn't jump,

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he just stopped, sat down in the snow, and let

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the cold take him. They found him the next morning, frozen, solid,

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looking almost peaceful. Callum is quiet for a long moment.

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When he speaks, his voice is gentle. You blame yourself.

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I was in Chicago, building my career, too busy to

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fly home for New Years, too important to notice that

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his text had gotten shorter, his cause less frequent. I

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finally look at him, and there are tears on my

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face that I don't remember crying. He called me that

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night at one forty seven am. I didn't answer. I

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was asleep, and I thought. I thought i'd call him

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back in the morning. There was no morning for him.

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I wipe my face with the back of my hand.

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So I moved to Minneapolis, into the cold. Because if

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I couldn't save him, at least I could suffer the

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way he suffered. At least I could punish yourself. Yes,

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he reaches for me, and his hand passes through my

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arm on the first try. On the second he catches

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hold barely, the pressure faint as a memory. You've been

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frozen this whole time, he says, softly. Haven't you not

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just grieving, frozen like Delia, like James, like all the

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lost souls. January tries to swallow. I want to deny it,

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want to say I'm fine, I'm functional, I help people

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every day. The truth is sitting in my chest like

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an ice block, and I'm so tired of carrying it.

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I haven't been to his grave, I whisper, in five years.

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I haven't gone back to Richmond, haven't visited the bridge,

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haven't let myself I break off. I'm a grief counselor

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who's never grieved. How's that for? Irony? Callum's form stabilizes slightly,

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like my confession has given him something to hold onto.

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You know why you can see me, he says. Why

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you could always see me even before we met, Because

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I'm a witness, Because you're standing at the threshold yourself

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have been for five years, not dead, not alive, frozen

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in the moment you lost him. He cups my face

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with hands. I can barely feel. That's why you can

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perceive the deep cold you've been living in it all along.

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The words hit me like a physical blow. All this time,

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I thought I was helping the lost ones. I thought

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I was the guide, the rescuer, the one who pulled

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people back from the edge. But I've been one of them,

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lost in my own january, waiting for someone to show

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me the way home. I've been trying to guide you,

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Callum says, since the moment I saw you at that window,

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but I couldn't. You're not like the others. You're not

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someone I can just warm and release. He flickers badly,

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his form scattering like snow in wind, before reforming. You're

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the reason I'm still here vera not just because you

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anchor me, because you're the one soul I was always

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meant to guide, the one I've been waiting for. What

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does that mean? I don't know. He's fading now, the

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afternoon warmth eating away at him, but I know that

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I can't save you. You have to save yourself, You

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have to. He disappears. One moment, he's there holding my face,

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looking at me with those pale eyes, full of love

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and grief and desperate hope. The next he's gone, just

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empty air where a man used to be. Callum. I

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reach for the space he occupied, but there's nothing, no

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cold spot, no presence, nothing. The thermometer outside reads thirty

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three degrees and I'm alone. I spend four hours watching

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the temperature. It drops to thirty two at sunset, thirty

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one by eight pm, holds there like it's taunting me.

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Not cold enough, not quite. At nine pm, I stop watching.

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At nine point fifteen, I grab my coat and walk

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out the door. I don't know where I'm going until

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I'm already there. The bridge over the Mississippi, the one

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I pass every day on my way to work, the

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one I've never let myself reach look at. It's not

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the same bridge that one's in Richmond, one thousand, one

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hundred miles away, but it's close enough. It's January, it's cold,

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It's a bridge over frozen water, and I've been avoiding

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it for five years. I walk to the center and stop.

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The city glitters around me, lights reflected in the ice below.

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The wind cuts through my coat, my sweater, my skin

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minus two now, according to my phone, cold enough to

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kill if you stay too long, cold enough maybe to

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bring him back. But that's not why I'm here. I'm

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here because I've been running from this moment since the

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morning they told me THEO was gone. Running from the bridge,

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the cold, the grief that's been frozen inside me like

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a body in the snow. I'm here because I'm finally

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ready to thaw. I'm sorry, I say to the empty air,

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to THEO, to myself. I'm sorry I didn't answer the phone.

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I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry I've spent five

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years being angry at you for leaving. Instead of my

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voice breaks. The grief surges up, and it's not the

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controlled professional grief I help my clients with. It's the

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ugly kind, the broken kind, the kind that doubles you

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over and tears sounds out of you that don't seem human.

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I grip the railing and I scream. I scream for THEO,

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who deserved better than a frozen bridge and a sister

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who couldn't save him. I scream for my mother, who

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buried her son and then watched her daughter disappear into

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a grief she wouldn't name. I scream for myself for

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the five years I've wasted being frozen, for the life

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I've been too afraid to live because living felt like betrayal.

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And somewhere in the middle of the screaming, something breaks,

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not breaks, thaws the ice around my heart, the glacier

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in my chest, the permafrost that's kept me frozen in

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that moment at one forty seven a m. When I

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didn't answer the phone. It cracks and shifts and starts

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to melt, and the pain is unbearable, and I let

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it come anyway. I let it all come. I don't

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know how long I stand there, crying, grieving, finally feeling

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what I've refused to feel for five years, long enough

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that the cold seeps into my bones, long enough that

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my tears freeze on my cheeks, long enough that I

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start to wonder if this is how THEO felt the

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strange piece of surrender, the letting go. But I'm not surrendering.

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I'm not letting go. I'm walking through, and on the

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other side, in the space where the grief used to be,

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there's something else, not emptiness, not peace exactly, but room

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space for something other than frozen pain, space for living.

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I look up from the railing and THEO is there.

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Not really, I know it's not really him. It's a memory,

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maybe a threshold vision like the one's Callum described, or

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maybe it's just my mind finally letting me see what

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I needed to see. He looks the way he looked

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the last time I saw him alive, Thanksgiving, two years

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before he died, smiling, laughing at something my mother said,

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alive in a way that had nothing to do with breathing.

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It wasn't your fault, he says, or I say, or

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the cold says. It doesn't matter. The words are true

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regardless of who speaks them. I miss you, I whisper.

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I know, but you don't have to miss yourself anymore.

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He smiles, and it's so much like him that my

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heart cracks all over again. Live Vera. That's all I

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ever wanted for you. He fades or I let him go,

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and when I turn around, Callum is standing at the

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end of the bridge. He's solid, more solid than I've

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ever seen him, even during the polar vortex. He's looking

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at me with an expression I can't read, wonder, maybe,

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or fear or hope, so intense it looks like pain.

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How he breathes. I stop being lost. I walk toward him.

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My leg's unsteady, my heart roar and bleeding, and somehow

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still beating. I finally walked through. But the temperature, it's

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only minus two. I don't think it's about the temperature anymore.

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I reach him, reach for him. My hand connects with

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his chest, solid and real and present. I think it's

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about me. He stares at my hand, then at my face.

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What did you do? I grieved. Tears are still streaming

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down my face, but I'm smiling now, really grieved. Not

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the frozen kind, not the kind I've been carrying like

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a stone, the kind that moves through you and changes

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you and leaves room for something else. And that. He

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shakes his head, not understanding that shouldn't affect me. I'm

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bound to the cold, not to you. You're bound to both.

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I step closer, close enough to feel the chill that

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radiates off him, the winter that lives in his bones.

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You said I was the one soul you were always

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meant to guide, that you've been waiting for me. Maybe

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this is why, maybe you couldn't fade, because your job

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wasn't finished. My job was to guide the lost, and

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I was lost, the most lost of anyone, frozen solid

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for five years, standing at the threshold, unable to move

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in either direction. I take his face in my hands,

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and he's cold, so cold, but real. Present. Here You

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found me, Callum, You guided me home, And now now

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what I don't know how to explain what I feel.

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It's like the grief broke something open, and in the breaking,

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something else got free. Not just me, him too, the

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binding between us, the anchor I became when I chose

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to stay. It's different, now, stronger, more real. Now you're

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not a walker anymore, I say, slowly, the understanding coming

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as I speak. You completed your task. The last lost

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soul has been guided home, and that means the deal

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is finished. His voice is barely audible. The bargain. I

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made one hundred eighty years of service, and it's done.

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He stares at me. The wind howls around us, January

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in all its fury, but he doesn't flicker, doesn't fade,

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doesn't disappear. I can still feel the cold, he says,

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almost to himself, still sense the between spaces. But the chain,

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the thing that bound me to the winter. He presses

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his hand to his chest. It's gone. What does that mean?

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Are you? I'm not a winter walker any more? He laughs, disbelieving,

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and the sound is so human it makes my heart ache.

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I'm just I'm just a man, a man who's been

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dead for one hundred eighty years, somehow, standing on a

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bridge in Minneapolis with a woman who sees ghosts. That's

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not nothing. No. He pulls me into his arms, and

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he's solid, fully solid, the way he was in the

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deep cold of the polar vortex. That's everything. We stand

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there on the bridge, holding each other while January rages

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around us. I don't know what happens next. I don't

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know if he'll age now, if he has days or

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years or decades. I don't know what it means to

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love someone who's been dead since eighteen forty seven, who

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watched his daughter grow old, who walked the winters for

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nearly two centuries. But I know he's here. I know

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I'm here, and I know that, for the first time

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in five years, I'm not frozen any more. We should

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get inside. I finally say, it's cold. He laughs again.

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I hadn't noticed. I take his hand, warm now or warming,

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the winter seeping out of him with every passing moment,

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and lead him off the bridge. The city spreads out

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before us, lights glittering against the january dark. What do

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we do now, he asks, I don't know. I look

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at him, this impossible, ancient, newly human man who guided

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me through the longest January of my life. But I

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think that's the point. He smiles, not the sad, grateful

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smile I've come to know, but something new, something that

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looks almost like hope. Then let's find out together. February first,

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The temperature outside is twenty eight degrees cold, but not

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killing cold, normal cold January cold, finally giving way to

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something softer. Callum is in my kitchen trying to figure

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out my coffee maker. He's been human for three days

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and he still hasn't gotten the hang of modern appliances.

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Last night he spent twenty minutes staring at my television,

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convinced it was some kind of scrying mirror. The water

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goes in the back, I call from the bedroom. I

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know where the water goes. It's the a pause. What

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is a cake cup? I laugh? I've been doing that

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a lot lately, laughing, feeling being present in my body

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instead of frozen outside it. I join him in the kitchen,

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show him how to load the pod, press the button.

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He watches the coffee stream into the mug with an

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expression of pure wonder, like it's the most miraculous thing

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he's ever seen one hundred eighty years. He murmurs, And

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this is what humans invented a machine that makes coffee

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in thirty seconds. We also invented nuclear weapons and reality television,

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so don't be too impressed. He looks at me, and

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his eyes are different. Now still that pale blue, still

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that ancient depth, but warmer, somehow more present. I don't

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know how long I have, he says. The rules don't

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apply to me anymore. I could age normally from here,

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or I could. I know, and you're still I'm still here.

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I hand him the coffee. Whatever happens, however long we have,

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I'm still here. He takes the mug, and his fingers

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brush mine. Warm, now human, warm, alive. I love you,

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he says. I know it's fast. I know we barely.

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You guided me through five years of grief in two weeks.

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I'd say we've covered a lot of ground. He smiles

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that new smile, the hopeful one I suppose we have.

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We stand in my kitchen, drinking coffee, watching the winter

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sun rise over Minneapolis. February has arrived, the longest January

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on record for both of us is finally over. What

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do you want to do today? I ask? He thinks

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about it. One hundred eighty years of walking the cold,

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guiding lost souls, watching the world from the outside, and

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now suddenly he's in it, part of it, free to

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do anything. I want. To see Margaret's grave, he says,

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finally she's buried in Wisconsin. I've never been able to

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not properly, not as myself. Then let's go, just like that,

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Just like that, I set down my coffee, take his hand.

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That's what living is, callum, deciding what you want and

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then doing it over and over until the time runs out.

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He looks at me for a long moment. Then he

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raises my hand to his lips and kisses it. Old

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fashioned and tender and absolutely sincere. Thank you, he says,

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for seeing me, for staying, for walking through. Thank you

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for finding me outside. The sun clears the buildings, spilling

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golden light across the snow, first light of February, first

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day of whatever comes next. We finish our coffee, We

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get in the car, and we drive towards something neither

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of us has ever had before, a future. Thank you

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for listening to the January Man. May you find warmth

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in the coldest seasons, and may someone always be there

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to guide you home.