It's been a year, and it's the middle of winter. And by the looks of this Wednesday morning's three inches of snow and counting, I highly doubt Anna is going to school today.
"Snow day! Snow day!" Anna cries repeatedly in an elated sing-song voice as she rushes downstairs.
I haven't even woken her up, yet here she comes, careening into the kitchen, Marshmallow tagging playfully at her heels, only stopping when she reaches the window. And I am just about to tell her that no one knows for sure if school is cancelled, when I get the alert on my phone—no school.
A snow day it will be.
I show her the message and she jumps up and down, causing our already wound-up husky to go the slightest bit more insane.
"Can I go outside and play?" Anna asks, already bounding towards the door. In nothing but her pajamas.
Guess she takes after me.
"Only after you eat. And change," I say.
I have never seen my daughter eat anything more quickly. And what impresses me the most is that she doesn't even wait for me to get anything for her; instead she flies to the pantry, grabs the only accessible box of cereal (meaning the frosted flakes on the third shelf, since she can reach no higher), stands on her toes to get herself a bowl, and then the cereal is barely in that bowl for a minute before it's finished.
"Now can I go?" she asks.
"Change first," I remind her, shaking my head.
She's so very enthusiastic…
And it reminds me.
Again…
Wonder.
Awe.
Like that of a child, but plastered onto her face.
And she's no child.
But she acts like she is, quite a bit.
While it should really infuriate me sometimes, and annoy me others, it never fails to amuse me.
Never…
I snap out of it immediately. I can't let myself go there again. No. Not happening.
I am suddenly battling with my mind to see what is in front of me, and what my mind thinks I want to see.
What I want to see is not what I need to see.
And what I need to see…I need to see it now.
But thankfully, I don't have to fight with myself for long.
Because here comes Anna, running back into the kitchen, rushing to the closet to pull out her bright purple winter coat. And next are the boots, which I have to help her lace up. I make her wear her scarf and her hat and her gloves, although she protests slightly. Then I see her out the door; I am perfectly content to keep an eye on her from inside. We have a fence, and I send Marshmallow out with her, knowing that he'll be able to keep her company.
And I resent the fact that her father has insisted on going in to work today. He could have gone out there with her. He could have tried. Actually spent time with her. But he thinks that driving an hour to work in the snow is better than staying here. I know it. And a lot of the time, I couldn't agree more.
But I'm not allowed to think like this.
Neither is he, really.
But at this point, the unspoken messages are mutual; this arranged marriage was doomed to fail from the start. And the only reason I do it is for my daughter. She's the only reason this life is manageable.
The only reason I shut away everything that has ever made me happy.
And this is what frustrates me the most—my daughter makes me happy. She does. She really, truly does.
Watching her play and learn and grow is something that is beautiful; but it also reminds me of what I can never have.
I do this all the time—think too much.
She always used to tell me that.
We're sitting in class. And I'm staring at this problem for what feels like an eternity, effectively doing a better job of twirling my pencil through the tip of my single blonde braid than I am of writing with it.
It's calculus.
I'm good at calculus.
But I can't solve the problem—and it frustrates me beyond belief.
'It's simple,' she says, lips curving into a smile as she shows me her answer, but refuses to show me how she got it, 'I can help you with it, if you want.'
Those are my words—the words I say to her whenever she can't solve the problem.
She's teasing me.
Thoroughly enjoying the fact that, while I currently achieve much better grades than she does, she can solve this problem while I can't.
And she brings a hand up to one of her two matching braids.
It's brief, but I catch it; she's unsure that she should be so openly mocking me. Although it's not intended to be mean, she feels as though she's challenging me; overstepping her bounds.
But I'm not mad.
I don't think I could ever be mad at her.
Instead I play along and ask her for help—because, really, what else am I going to do, anyway? I'm a perfectionist. I need to get this answer.
And so she shows me—that I'm going about it all wrong.
'You think too much,' she says, showing me her work, 'All you need to do is rearrange the equation. And once you do that, you can solve the problem.'
'Oh,' I feel slightly embarrassed.
Because it is a simple problem.
Once I can see it differently.
I wish I could do that with life.
Rearrange it.
Take out the places and memories and people I don't want, and replace them with those that I do want, all the while keeping what I like about now, stable.
But people will never be as simple as numbers. Because there's more to the equation.
Emotion.
Something I am terrible at both expressing and hiding, which leaves me feeling a bit stranded sometimes…
In the silence of the house, with only the clock ticking and my own thoughts to infiltrate my mind, I suddenly regret sending Marshmallow out with Anna. If he were in here, he probably would have been at my feet.
No he'd be on your lap.
Because, unlike everyone else in the house, he seems to sense when I'm feeling off. When I'm….not okay, he comforts me. And even though I tell him a million times that I am a cat person and that his massive head and slobbering tongue don't really change anything, I'm fairly positive that a cat would just turn the other way.
Suddenly, though, I hear a door open, and the scrambling of nails against the floor, and am definitely confused as to why my prayer seems to be answered. Although looking at my mess of a husky, soaking wet with snow hanging off of him, it seems as though I have spoken too soon. I watch, unable to do anything but groan as he ducks his head—on the carpet, yet!—and beings shaking himself off, snow and melted water flying in every direction.
It will dry, I tell myself, attempting to remain calm. It will dry.
And then right after Marshmallow comes Anna, not having bothered to take off her boots before running into the room, making just as much of a mess as the dog.
"Had enough of the cold for one day?" I ask, but I am unable to keep myself from smiling at her bright pink cheeks and the radiant smile of her own.
"Actually, I wanted to know if you'd come build a snowman with me."
I freeze.
Her words are so innocent.
But they're a dagger, and I know it. And it pains me to do it. I don't want to do it. Not anymore…But how can I look my seven year old daughter in the eye and tell her I won't build a snowman with her?
It's simple.
I can't.
"Sure," I say.
And just like that, I'm being dragged outside, Marshmallow once again tagging along.
And when my hands hit the snow, the iciness that chills me is as sudden and abrupt as the memory that follows.
I can't say no to my daughter.
And I couldn't say no to her.
A snowman is sitting in the middle of the snow-covered campus quad.
At eight in the morning on a Friday, when the rest of the student body is sane and sleeping.
And there are footprints.
Her footprints.
Our footprints.
Tangled together in a million different patterns around that snowman.
Its name is Olaf—very mature of us to be naming a snowman, and building one in the middle of the college campus where we are supposed to be learning how to act like adults, but oh well.
Normally I wouldn't be doing this kind of thing but…with her I feel like I can do just about anything.
And I also feel like I should be cold.
Freezing.
Because I've only got a sweat shirt and sweat pants thrown over my pajamas…
Oh.
And her coat.
That's what it is.
That's why I feel warm.
I'm wearing her coat.
And there's…chocolate.
Chocolate?
There's definitely chocolate; it's in her hand.
She tells me how much she loves it—that it's her favorite food.
Well, that, and sandwiches.
She offers me some, and it's delicious.
She says she brought it with her from home; it's the real deal.
Not the sugar-loaded stuff that's mass produced with brand names.
And we sit there side by side, just the two of us, talking, staring at this snowman, in the middle of the snow, and I notice the way her hair glows in the sun, and I love the way she laughs.
I do.
I love her laugh and I love making her laugh.
Anna laughs when Marshmallow tries to eat the carrot that she has found for the snowman's nose.
"Now he's perfect," she says, stepping back to admire our work.
I must say, for being out of practice all these years, I've done a pretty good job (considering I had to make most of the body, and Anna's primarily done the decorating).
"He looks very nice," I say, "But you've been out here for a while. Why don't we head inside and warm up?"
Anna grins, "Okay. We can play a game. Or watch a movie."
"And I think someone needs to eat lunch first, am I right?"
"Yeah," Anna says.
We go back into the house, and suddenly, I have the urge to do something that I haven't done in a long time: make hot chocolate.
I usually can't bring myself to do it.
Can't bring myself to have any chocolate at all, really.
But Anna is delighted when I mention it, and so I make two mugs, and when it's finished I hand her one.
I stare at the snowman we've made, and take a sip.
And I'm reminded of why I haven't had chocolate.
Commercial brand.
It's too sweet.
Sickeningly sweet.
But I choke it down, and wonder if it just might assault my senses enough to forget about the memory I am desperately trying not to compare it to.
A/n: So, Chapter 2. Longer than the first one….but oh well :) This one was fun to write. I really enjoy tying her memories into the present, and exploring the connection between the two.
Also a quick side note: I was able to get this chapter out a lot sooner than anticipated solely due to the fact that I already had it planned out along with Chapter 1.
Thanks for reading!