Hemingway's Cross Country Snow explores the idea of choices and the realization that people's reaction to experience is rarely the same. Nick experiences the beginning of the end of relationship with a friend because of their choice to have sex. So simple an act changed both his friend and his girlfriend's lives, as now they are charged with managing how to raise a kid together. Just as it is in life sometimes, few sympathies are made by Nick except for the fact that he realizes this shall be their last winter ski together. This was the loss of both a friendship and a person in his life because in raising a child, his friend is losing both his freedom and his home.
The women in this story are mentioned only in passing as Nick states that, "no girls get married around here till they're knocked up." The woman of this tale, Helen, is never appears, but serves as a figure whose the men's return to ushers in the end of their era as friends and brothers.
Nick and his friend's reaction to this event differ, as for Nick, the loss he is facing is far less than the one his friend is, so therefore he feels not nearly as much interest in the matter. His friend however is about to lose this life that he has worked so hard for. Nick's focus on the snow and his friend's focus on the rest of his life is what drives the discussion in this final meeting of theirs in the ski-house.
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