I remember the first day of snow, how it fell to the ground, light and soft like the feathers of a newly hatched chick. In the beginning it was fun. We hurried outside, sticking out our tongues letting the ice crystals land on our tongues. It stuck to our hair and eyelashes and clung to the dead grass in the orange evening light, like stars.
In the beginning, I welcomed it, a mark of the beginning of winter. We hadn’t gotten snow in so long. David who was only four at the time had never seen it, not in person at least. Both of the children were excited. Michaela started drawing pictures of snowmen as soon as the first flakes fell. One snowball on top of another on top of another with a large carrot nose and a striped scarf. They knew what snowmen were supposed to look like even if they had never built one.
It was nice for a day, but once night fell the wind howled like a grieving mother and the magic of the snowflakes transformed into something sinister. They fell fast and steady for hours. I was relieved when it finally stopped. In the morning the children sat on stools looking out the bay window in the living room at a world transformed.
“It’s like clouds,” Michaela said. I bundled them in layers to protect them from the cold before taking them outside. The snow was light and soft. He made snow angels and left footprints all around her front yard. When the snow started falling again, we took shelter inside. It didn’t take long for footprints to get wiped away.
We had no way of knowing how long it will last. The snow piled up covering our windows and doors. Soon there was no way out. I imagined other families in the neighborhood huddled in their houses beneath blankets of snow. I pulled food from the pantry that I didn’t even realize I had. Eventually we were all out. I mixed water with cornmeal to make crumbly cakes for the children. They fell apart in their hands yellow crumbs smashed into the tile grout. I didn’t bother to clean it up.
The power went out first. The water wasn’t far behind. A chill settled in the house. I wrapped so many blankets around David that he could hardly move. We huddled together, our breaths like smoke.
During the day, I tried to dig us out. Even in a cold sweat soaked my clothes as I dug a tunnel from the door. I was careful, hoping the heat from my breath would melt the snow around me enough to form an icy wall. I pretended it was a game, but the children didn’t like this game and wanted to play something else. There was nothing else.
When do you know it’s time to give up? My mother always told me that I should never give up. She taught me to be a fighter, but I had nothing to fight for until the day the midwife placed Michaela in my arms. I looked into her large brown eyes and suddenly had a reason for everything.
The same eyes looked at me as I sat in this tunnel snow and ice that could collapse at any moment. We’ve gotten nowhere. We know nothing, not even if it’s still snowing. Hunger twisted my insides as I slid down into the snow. I laughed when I thought of how we anticipated the snow. We expected magic, but this was what we got instead.
Michaela picked up the shovel and started to dig. She wouldn’t last long. “We’ll get out soon,” she said, her once full cheeks sunken. Her eyes appeared even larger than they did before. David lay against me, a ball of jackets and blankets. He was so thin that I wondered if he would disappear.
Michaela chipped away, a little at a time. I closed my eyes and listened to the crunching of the snow beneath her feet in the rhythm of the shovel.