Permanently Reserved Space

Both blessing and blight, this Christmas Eve snow that glowed our house like a
Kinkade dream. Donating my breath to his cold sausage fingers, I asked my youngest
if he wanted to stay inside now, with me.

The answer I’d assumed. He cried out the same disappointment that had touched
me, a small girl in my first real snow. Small cheeks nipped, not caressed. Snowballs
hard when they hit. A warm-weather child cannot endure for long. It’s all nothing
like the storybooks.

But, my son. My small son. He wiped his face on me, proclaimed things tolerable, ran
back out for another go. I still have dry space on my shirt, should he need me again.