The old man asked her to sleep in her house. This is what he did in the middle of the night. The weather outside was inclement, and sitting by the window, Amelia looked at the large snowflakes dancing and whirling in the gusts of strong wind.
The young couple got married. Life together cooled their hearts, previously heated by passion. Since it was hard to find work in the small town, Amelia got a job as a store assistant in a roadside shop where the owner immediately took a liking to the young beauty, Jim.
Heather was a married man in his forties who had long been assigned the title of shameless womanizer. Of course, Amelia made it clear right off the bat that she didn’t like what the store owner was hinting, but it seemed to have no effect whatsoever.
Jim harassed the woman, getting even more persistent every time she pushed him away. “Why are you fighting this? I will get what I want anyway. None of the workers have ever managed to make a fool out of me,” said Jim, pestering the girl in a dark stuffy back room.
“Mr. Heather, you may have forgotten, but I’m a married woman. And even if I was not, I do not believe in getting involved at some of the work,” Amelia exclaimed angrily and pushed the annoying boss away. Of course, this rejection caused a lot of hard feelings. Jim was very angry with the woman, and he reminded her of it every chance he got.
Amelia knew she needed to quit this job a while ago, but she didn’t want to be a burden to her husband, Aram, who worked as a manager for a small company selling construction materials. This salary wasn’t that big, so Amelia couldn’t really afford to become a housewife.
Meanwhile, Aram always stayed late at work, coming home well after midnight. Amelia repeatedly noticed that her husband smelled of women’s perfume, but the man always came up with a logical explanation, repeatedly claiming an absurd accident.
Being a naive young woman, Amelia sincerely believed her husband at first. However, when she noticed traces of lipstick on the collar of Aram’s shirt, she realized that her husband was cheating on her, and the man himself had actually changed a lot, gradually turning into an unbearable tyrant.
Two days earlier, Aram came home drunk and said right from the doorway, “That’s it, I’m leaving you for Becky. We love each other and we want to live together.” Tears welled up in Amelia’s eyes, but her callous husband didn’t seem to care when her eyes became all red and swollen from crying so much.
Now, sitting by the window, the woman was trying to figure out what she should do next. Amelia knew that Aram’s new lover was the head of the department in which her husband worked. Amelia looked at the passers-by, shivering in the piercing winter wind, busying with her own thoughts.
Suddenly, a strange old man caught the woman’s attention. He was dressed in a light jacket, trampled boots, and battered trousers. There was a shabby cap on the stranger’s head, which didn’t seem to be of much use given the weather. The old man kept stomping his feet, obviously trying to keep himself warm. This way, the poor fellow looked like a homeless man who ended up on the street at the most inopportune moment.
“Oh my, he’s freezing. His lips have turned blue, and his beard is covered with frost,” thought Amelia anxiously, feeling very worried for the weak old man. The woman thought for a minute and then threw her jacket over her shoulder and ran out onto the street where a snowstorm was raging with all its might.
“Hello, sir. Forgive me for asking, but what are you doing out here alone in this weather?” Amelia asked as she came closer to the old man.
“Hello, ma’am. I’m actually waiting for my son, but he’s late for some reason,” the old man murmured, shivering in the piercing wind.
“What son? Who will come and get him in such weather? He’s probably just out of his mind,” Amelia thought, trying desperately not to let her realization show on her face. Taking the stranger by the hand, the woman almost forced him to go inside the house, where she immediately seated him in the armchair in front of the bright burning fireplace.
Then, Amelia brought the old man a change of her husband’s clothes so that he could dry out his wet ones. “Thank you, ma’am. I’m very grateful. At least two dozen people passed by me today, and you are the only one who offered to help,” the old man said with tears in his eyes.
And when Rebecca poured out the hot tea for the stranger, a huge smile appeared on his face. Taking a sip of the tart burning drink, the old man said his name was Charles Harrison. “My son will certainly come pick me up as soon as the blizzard subsides a little. We’re going to New York together,” the stranger added, stretching out his wrinkled hand towards the fireplace.
Mr. Harrison no longer seemed crazy to Amelia. As it turned out, he was an ordinary old man who was tired of loneliness and illness and decided to move to live with his son in the big city. Mr. Harrison stayed at Amelia’s house until noon, and after thanking the girl heartily, started getting ready, afraid to miss his son’s arrival.
“Be careful, Mr. Harrison, and feel free to come back if you need to,” the woman said in parting. Amelia was very doubtful that his son would come for him in such a blizzard, but as soon as the old man went out into the street covered in snow, a car slowed down next to him. There were two more cars behind, which apparently had bodyguards in them.
Opening the passenger door, Mr. Harrison turned around and took one last look at the house where he was treated with so much warmth and respect. Then he smiled and got into the huge car. Amelia smiled back and waved at the departing car. The woman was very happy that she has to do something nice. She helped the old man out, and she was feeling good about it.
Amelia felt tears welling up in her eyes as she realized that the old man wasn’t crazy at all and was, in fact, waiting for his son’s arrival. The woman was about to close the front door when she saw a rapidly approaching car. The Chevrolet roared its engine, straining, pushing its way through the snow drifts that were blocking its path.
To Amelia’s great amazement, the car pulled up in front of her house. “Who could it be, especially in this weather?” As she zipped up her jacket, but when the driver’s door of the Chevrolet opened, Amelia saw a woman sitting behind the wheel. Her face seemed very familiar.
“So are you just going to stand there and stare at me, or will you invite me to come in eventually?” the stranger dressed in a fur coat, smiling. “Diana, isn’t it really you?”
“So, I suggest you pack your things right now and go back to New York. I have a small business there now. You can stay with me until you get your own place. I’m renting a beautiful house downtown. You’ll fall in love with it immediately.
It cost me a lot, but that’s life. You have to pay for everything,” Amelia looked gratefully into her friend’s eyes and then began packing her things.
Diana simply said out loud what the woman had been thinking about for several days but didn’t dare do it on her own. And now that she had her best friend’s support, Amelia felt a surge of strength and energy that gave her confidence in the future. The woman no longer had to endure the boss’s harassment and put up with their cheating husband, who seemed to have become completely indifferent to Amelia’s feelings.
It only took Amelia half an hour to get all of her stuff packed, and soon she was already sitting in her friend’s cozy new Chevrolet. Diana smiled encouragingly and started the engine. Amelia leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. For the first time in days, the woman felt completely calm and relaxed.
Amelia felt that she was starting a new life, which would have no place for a womanizer boss and an unfaithful husband. Soon, the woman fell asleep, lulled by the measured noise of a running engine. She woke up only when the lights of New York were already visible ahead.
Amelia was an orphan and spent her childhood at an orphanage, but nevertheless, the woman was very fond of her hometown, which she knew like the back of her hand. And when the friend showed Amelia her rent at home, she couldn’t help but scream in surprise.
“Oh my, it’s so beautiful and cozy here. It’s an amazing place,” the girl said with the light in her voice. “I’ll get the amount I need,” said Diana, admiring the beautiful view outside the window. Amelia only sighed in response, a shame that she would be living with her friend for free, but Diana didn’t even want to hear anything about it and insisted that Amelia should stop worrying.
“Don’t worry, settle in, relax, come to your senses, and only then start looking for a job,” advised her friend, giving Amelia a pat on the shoulder as a show of support. But despite all Diana’s exhortations, Amelia started looking for a job the very next day. She began calling firms and offices, asking if they were hiring.
Unfortunately, finding a good job was not very easy, and her search took Amelia a lot of time and effort. One day, when she was talking on the phone with yet another potential employer, someone knocked loudly and persistently on the door. Wondering who it could be, Amelia opened the door and saw a delivery man with a letter in his hand.
Having signed for the delivery, the woman saw that it was addressed to her. Amelia carefully opened the envelope and then pulled out a sheet of stamps and typescript. Quickly running her eyes through it, the woman exclaimed in surprise, “Oh my, this could not actually be happening!”
Then, when Amelia calmed down a little, she read the bank notice, and again it said that a bank account had been opened in her name, but the most surprising part was that the account had an amount with six zeros in it. At first, Amelia thought it was some kind of a mistake, and so she went to the bank, and they confirmed it.
But the woman was even more shocked when she found out who opened the bank account in her name and deposited the huge amount in it. The mysterious benefactor of the astonished woman was Andre Harrison, who turned out to be none other than the son of Charles Harrison, the man she helped out a few days earlier in a terrible snowstorm.
Upon learning who made the deposit, Amelia couldn’t contain her emotions and burst into tears right in the bank lobby. The woman couldn’t believe that there were still people in the world with kindness. Amelia didn’t know that Andre Harrison was a millionaire for whom the health of his father meant so much more than any amount of money.
He didn’t even know that his elderly father went out of his house in a blizzard and that he couldn’t give back. However, he was very much impressed by what Amelia did to help the old man when everyone else passed him indifferently.
Soon, Amelia used the money she got to buy the house Diana was renting. She wanted to repay her friend for her kindness.
