Snow

The little flakes of snow twinkle down around me, blissfully falling on my face. Leaning back, I stick out my tongue, playing a game of chance with the unique rainfall. The wind is calm as the light flurry dances around my head. The soft but bitter cold nips at my bare neck. In just a moment, I’m able to watch a single lucky snowflake sway down to my tongue, where it disappears into nothing. After the first, more start to follow, painting a frigid layer of water in my mouth. 

Douf. A dense object hits the back of my jacket. The vibration reaches my cold toes. I turn around to see Brother laughing. His face is flush from the weather, owing to his outfit. He saunters giddily in the snow. Brother and I have very different ideas of bundling up. Despite the cold, he wears a white sweatshirt and loose black sweatpants, with nothing to cover his frosted black locks. Mother always says he looks like an Oreo when he wears that outfit. Every time she does, Brother runs to the nearby convenience store and picks up two packs of Oreos: a double stuffed and a mint pack. Mint is my favourite. That night he would bring me to his room and we would have an oreo movie night. Mother calls him an Oreo a lot. I love movie nights.

I wear more suitable clothing for the winter seasons: a big bubble coat, my favourite pink snow pants, and the pompom hat and gloves set Mother knitted for me as a Christmas gift.

Brother says he can barely feel the cold. I love how he gets me.

I scoop up a handful of snow and mash it into an icy ball. The chilly feel makes my fingers tingle. Brother is still laughing, but slows when he sees my weapon.

He moves his hands in defense. “Hey, look, can’t we talk about this?”

I know he’s being foolish. 

I throw my snowball at him. I’m expecting it to miss Brother by feet, like normal, but am surprised when it hits him square in the nose. 

Brother stands there as the dispersed snowball melts and slips off his face. He wipes off the cold water and stares at me blankly. We are at a standstill in the snow.

I can’t help myself, I begin to smile. 

Brother takes that as his lead and bursts into a full blown grin. “You’re gonna pay for that!” He motions and starts running towards me.

I turn my heel and take off. I squeal and giggle as I try to escape. The thick snow slows my pace as I push my big boots forward. The bitter cold burns my nose. I look behind me and see Brother gaining. He is using my dug out path to catch up. I turn back and keep going. The wind kisses my cheeks with its bitter taste and twirls my hair behind my ears.

The park is vast, stretching over half the neighborhood. Across the way is the strip mall Mother and I visit often. There’s a grocer, a convenience store, a hearing clinic, a drug mart, a doctor’s office, a dry cleaner’s, and a pet store. The pet store’s my favourite. They have two cats living there – Elli and Wisp. Wisp is an old Siamese that doesn’t like anyone. I don’t know why they still keep him in the store. He was supposed to die years ago, but he’s still here. They still keep him well fed, anyway. I like Elli more than Wisp. Elli doesn’t have any fur, so she likes to lay in her bed at the front window to warm her body from the sun. Elli was supposed to have fur. Most customers are scared of Elli or think she’s some sort of rodent. They avoid her, but Elli doesn’t seem to care. I typically stay with Elli in the pet store while Mother goes to run some errands at the grocer.

I look back again to see how close Brother is, but am curious to see he has disappeared. 

A flake of snow blows into my eye and I squint to wash it away. I rub my eyes and look back to where Brother was. From where he’d stood there was a second path, trailing to the right of mine. I follow it with my gloved finger. Brother’s path circles my shadow, creating an imperfect oval around me.

Two textured arms wrap around me and pull me to the ground. I laugh as Brother rolls me into the snow. We come to a stop in the fluffy bed. Brother lays next to me. He sighs and a cloud of steam rises from his mouth like a dragon. I sigh too, watching my own fiery breath mingle in the frigid air.

His scent flourishes in a fluorescent cloud. He smells like the firewood he brings back with Father. I can smell the warmth it brings to our home. The memory brings a familiar tingle to my body. I smile.

I turn to look at Brother. There’s pine, too. Brother used to keep one of those pine air fresheners in the shape of a tree dangling from the mirror in his truck. Brother doesn’t drive the truck anymore. Father made him give it away. I asked Brother why and he told me it was because there wasn’t enough space on the driveway. 

I didn’t understand. The truck was always parked on the road.

Now Brother keeps the pine scent in his room. He calls it his memento, so he’ll never forget the truck. I liked the truck. Brother would always take us out to the woods behind our house and into the small clearing where he and Father used to cut down trees. They changed spots every month because Brother said it's the animals’ home, too; we just borrow the trees. When Brother takes us out back we bring saplings to replant. Brother says it's so no one has to be without a home. Then, when the sky falls dark, we would lay in the trunk with the cozy blankets Mother knits us and count the stars. Brother says there are more than a trillion stars. We still try to count them, anyway.

If we get lucky we see a shooting star. Brother says if I make a wish, it’ll come true. We always make our wishes. We close our eyes for a while, and when I open mine I sometimes see Brother crying. He never tells me why.

Brother spreads out his legs and arms and flaps them in the snow. His arms soar above his head and down to his thighs as he creates the gigantic wings of his snow angel. His bare fingers rake the snow. They’re red at their tips, and the nails are bitten to the stub. Brother’s been biting his nails for a while now. Every time Father walks in with the mail now Brother starts to chew. No one ever looks excited for the mail. I don’t know why. It’s always the same envelope every week. When he does, Brother and Mother straighten. Father always seems reluctant to open the letter. Every time he reads the envelope’s letter he lets out a heavy sigh and wipes his face with his palm. Then he leaves the living room to go to the fridge to get a beer before sitting at the kitchen table and pulling out a magazine to read. Mother would always glance at me with a look of despair. Then Brother would take me to go play outside.

I want to make a snow angel, too. I beat my limbs in the snow, my boots meeting with a painless tap. I giggle as Brother’s fluttering sends a flurry of snow into my face. Out of the corner of my eye I see Brother laughing, too.

Suddenly, Brother stops and his head snaps up. He’s looking in the other direction at something. A few seconds later he hops up. “Mom’s calling us for supper, let’s get going.” He holds out his hands. 

I nod and take his hand. He pulls me up and swings me over his shoulder. I squeal and squirm as Brother starts running home. His heat emanates from his body, and I can feel the rumble from his back as he chuckles. 

I stomp my boots when we get inside. It creates a little moat of snow.

Mother is placing a small pot on the table when we walk in. Father is just settling in his chair. The scent of warm food dances around the kitchen. I get undressed as Brother joins Father. I skip over to the bathroom to go wash up, leaving the kitchen and passing the living room. When I skip by the coffee table the wind from my speed blows a sheet of paper to the floor. I stop to pick it up. It’s the paper from the mail.

The paper is still warm from the fire that burned this morning. It has a lot of words covering the page. It has Father’s name at the top. There are a lot of big words that I don’t know, as well as long sequences of numbers sprinkled into the text. The numbers are underlined. “$24,000 for your property,” and, “$10,000 in medical fees,” are what stand out. At the bottom of the page there are bold words that say “60 days overdue.”

Someone walks into the room. I look up to see it’s Mother. She’s about to say something but pauses when she sees the paper in my hand. 

I put the paper down to free my hands. “Mother, what’s this? Is Father in trouble?”

Mother holds up her hands, but they’re hesitant. “No, he’s okay.” Her hands move gingerly, like she’s trying to pick and choose her words. “Come on, let’s go have dinner. I made your favourite again.” She smiles.

I smile back at her. I love tomato soup. Mother makes it often now. 

I take Mother’s hand and look up at her. She meets my eyes and holds up her free hand, pulling her ring and middle finger down. “I love you.” She says.

I hold up my free hand and pull my ring and middle finger down. “I love you, too.”