Snow-bow

At the time, I was too young to understand why we were carrying all of Dad’s belongings to the driveway.

I staggered down the sidesteps in my coat and dropped a box full of clothes onto the pavement with a thud. Cold air blew up my sleeves. The wind rustled the tulips that had just begun to flower.

My button-nosed brother, Collin, came out the screen door with a recycled blender box. White snowflakes fluttered around him.

“What do I do with it, Candace?”

“Put it on top of this one,” I instructed, my long, strawberry hair whipping around my face.

While he lumbered over, I squinted at the sky. Sunrays pierced the snowfall and warmed my face.

“The weather is so weird today,” I said. “I’ve never seen the sun shine when it’s snowing.”

Collin slid the box onto mine, his breathing shallow. He scanned the Midwestern sky like a sailor staring at the pulse on a radar screen. “Can there be a rainbow if it snows?” he asked.

“What?”

“If it snows and it’s sunny. Like when it rains, and the sun is out it makes a rainbow."

"Oh, I guess I don't know about that."

“Maybe there could be a ‘snow-bow," Collin suggested.

I laughed. “You’re goofy. Snow-bow.”

Hands on my hips, I surveyed the five or so cardboard boxes around us as though we were giants in a miniature city. The melting flakes peppered them with dark spots.

“What do you think she put in all of these?” Collin asked.

We started rummaging through boxes packed with books, combs, even his shampoo. It had started to ooze out of the bottle and run over the book covers like egg yolk.

“Yuck. I wonder if she knows this bottle came open,” Collin said, cringing. “It’s everywhere. Should I take it out?”

I made a face. “Yeah, maybe. Throw it in the trashcan.”

Snooping made me feel a little uneasy; it was as if Dad himself was spread out in the driveway like the Vitruvian Man, being picked and pulled apart.

Another part of me was intensely curious.

The two of us poked through boxes as though we were racoons careening the curb. At the bottom of one, I found a baggie with multicolored guitar picks inside.

I poured three into my palm—clack, clack—and rubbed my thumb over the smooth surfaces. “I didn’t know Dad played guitar,” I said, glowing with wonder.

“Hey, look at this.” Collin pulled out a wrestler action figure, muscular and with an ugly, painted face. And then another so one was in each hand.

“I didn’t know Dad liked wrestling so much,” he said, smirking. He raised the arms on both figures. “Come and get it, butt face!”

I chuckled, squeezing the picks in my hand like lucky charms. “Maybe he can teach me,” I mused. “Do you know if he has a guitar somewhere? Have you ever seen one?"

Collin hugged the wrestlers to his chest. He searched the box for more. “Ask Mom. She’s gone through everything.” He added, "Oh man, I hope they don't have soap on them."

Before we’d even had our cereal, Mom was tearing through the house, filling the boxes with whatever she could find that was not ours or hers. When I came into the living room in my nightclothes, she told me to get dressed and help carry everything outside.

“Are we moving?” I’d asked her, already hoping the new place would have an extra bathroom.

But I’d learned I’d have to keep sharing one with two little brothers. “No, we aren’t.”

Dad had gone to a mid-week conference in Indianapolis; meetings that seemed to recur too soon. Apparently, he was on his way back. The news sent us all in a frenzy. Mine was joyous. Mom's was different.

After collecting our treasures, Collin and I moseyed toward the steps. As we did, we stared at the holes in the cloud coverage.

“Do you think there really such a thing as a snow-bow?” he asked.

“I guess we’ll have to keep watching to find out. Let's stay out awhile longer," I said, pausing on the steps.

My youngest brother, Derek, burst outside with a bloated cardboard box and tear-stained cheeks.

Collin and I pressed against the railing to give him room, but he didn’t come down.

“What’s the matter?” Collin asked.

“I don’t want to sell my stuff!” he cried.

“What do you mean?”

Sniffling, Derek put the box down and wiped his hooded eyes with his sweatshirt sleeve. “I don’t want to have a garage sale!”

Collin snorted. “We’re not getting rid of anything, dummy.”

“So, why is it all out here?”

“This is just a prank,” Collin said.

“A prank?”

“Derek. I heard Mom on the phone. She literally said, ‘I can’t wait to see the look on his face. It’s going to be hilarious!”

Collin and Dad teased each other all the time; when they passed the football, Dad had a habit of catching it and darting off behind the trees to hide. Collin seemed to believe this stunt would let him get back at Dad big time.

Derek’s eyes were glued on me. “Is it really just a prank, Candace?”

My stomach felt cold. I dropped the guitar picks into my breast pocket. I hoped it wasn’t a sale or a prank. Maybe he would be mad and not teach me guitar.

In trying to answer, I realized I didn't have one. “I…don’t know.”

“It is. I promise.”

Derek sighed with relief. He noticed the wrestlers in Collin’s hands. “Hey, what are those?”

“There’s more in that box over there,” Collin said, pointing at a box with the flaps open. “But wait, help us. We’re trying to see if a snow-bow will appear.”

“A what?”

“Like a rainbow but…when it snows,” I explained.

Derek raised his head. Little white flecks stamped our upturned faces like being hit with cool mist. “Is this a prank, too?” he snickered.

“No,” Collin said. “It’s very serious.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s just a snow-bow.”

“Huh.” Derek’s forehead creased. “I’ve never seen one of those before.”

“Me neither. I’ve never seen it snow and be sunny at the same time.”

“Only in Minnesota,” I chimed in.

The three of us watched the sky with vigilance like people in a desert searching for an oasis.

“I wish we could go on trips with Dad,” Derek murmured.

“Why?" Collin asked. "I’m sure it’s boring."

“I miss Dad.”

“Me too, but he comes back.”

“He’s gone all the time.”

“He calls.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

We all jumped when Mom shouted from the other side of the screen door: “There’s more!”

“Okay, take that down,” I told Derek.

Reluctantly, Derek lifted the box he'd brought out and started down the steps past me and Collin on wobbly legs. 

I asked, “Do you think it’ll ever do this again?”

“Probably not. And I’m going to be the first to see it,” Collin teased, using his hand as a visor to help him see through the golden, quickening snowfall.

Derek scoffed, “Nuh uh, I will! I’ll—" He stumbled off the bottom step and landed on the box with a crash. The top burst open.

I hurried to help him up. “Are you alright?”

He checked his body for blood or scratches. When he didn’t see any, he groaned, “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Hurry and pick it all up before Mom sees,” I said anxiously. The three of us scrambled to pick up Dad’s toothbrush, electric trimmer, and all the other personal items that had spilled onto the ground.

“Look,” I heard Collin say. My head snapped toward the sky, but all I saw were gray clouds closing up over the blue.

“I don’t see it.”

“No, that,” Collin pointed to a greeting card, growing wrinkled and wet on the pavement. “Is there money inside?”

Turning over the card, I saw a large heart on the front. “Valentine’s Day.”  When I opened it, I didn't find money. Instead, I noticed a message in pencil, clearly having been erased and rewritten many times, was inside.

You know I miss you everyday.

“Who was it for?” Collin asked, bent over the box. “Did Dad give it to Mom? Or the other way?”

“Mom gave it to Dad I bet,” Derek said.

As I read the card, I teetered between fear and youthful ignorance. I felt as though I’d been hollowed out like a pumpkin.

I know you have kids.

“What does it say, Candace?”

But...

Collin came over to get a glimpse. I closed the card.

“Something corny like they all do.”

“Aw, well looks like we missed our chance!” Collin said, looking woefully at the sky.

I hadn’t noticed the sun disappear.

“It’s not real. I know you guys are making it up,” Derek grumbled.

“Well, you’ll think that until you see one. I’m going to go get something else,” Collin said, jogging up the steps. “I want to make sure it's all out here before he comes."

My heart beat against the guitar picks in my pocket. The card dangled from my fingertips. Staring down the driveway, I wondered which I would confront him with.

“Hey, here’s something of Mom’s,” Derek exclaimed. He held a pair of earrings in his palm. “I knew it was going to be a yard sale! You liars!”

At the time, I just couldn’t get why we were putting Dad’s stuff in the driveway. But even then I was old enough to understand that the jewelry in my brother’s hand was not my mother’s.