He hesitates a second too long. “No.”

“Have you?”

“Well…” He shoves his hands into his coat pockets. “At funerals, obviously sometimes there’s an open casket. So…”

I swallow. “We really have to spend the night here?”

Ethan stares off into the distance. “I guess I could go back down the road on foot. See if I could flag down a car and call for a truck to plow us out.”

“And leave me alone with that dead body?”

He sighs. “We don’t have a lot of options. I still think we should wait for the morning. At the very least, it won’t be so cold.”

At his words, I realize that my feet have gone completely numb. I really am going to get frostbite if I stand here much longer. “Let’s go back inside.”

“That’s a good idea.”

Ethan puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me gently back into the house, even though a wave of nausea hits me as I step into the living room. My socks are completely soaked from the snow, and I still can’t feel my feet. Ethan leads me to the sofa and gently sits me down.

“You need to warm up,” he says firmly.

“Yeah,” I mumble.

I can’t seem to stop shaking. I shiver almost violently as he tugs off my frigid socks. My feet have turned an angry red color. Ethan clucks his tongue. “I’m going to get a bowl of warm water.”

He’s so calm about the whole thing. How can he be so calm? What we saw in that compartment was one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen in my life. It was like something out of a horror movie. Yet Ethan doesn’t seem at all upset about it. Shouldn’t he be upset?

But at the same time, I’m grateful he’s so calm. He’s going to be such a great husband. And a great father. You need somebody like that—somebody who is so level-headed in a time of crisis. That’s Ethan.

I close my eyes, listening to the sound of water running in the kitchen. I take a deep breath, trying to control my shaking. I hear footsteps, and when I open my eyes again, Ethan is standing in front of me, holding a large glass bowl filled with water.

“Put your feet in,” he instructs me.

I oblige. The sensation is slowly returning to my toes, and it feels almost like they’re burning as I submerge them in the lukewarm liquid. Somehow it calms me down though. The shaking is easing up just a bit.

“Better?” he asks.

I nod wordlessly.