They could hear the dog bothering the baby-sitter before she let it out. The door slammed and they watched the dog trot into the cold, nose to the thin layer of snow. It, too, made no sound, swinging into the neighbor’s yard, its paw prints showing dark where it crossed the driveway. It stood unmoving with the snow coming down around it, its head to the side and raised, sniffing.
His sister sat back, away from the window. “I’m going to get a sled,” she said. Even she was quiet, beside him in the darkness. “If we had a sled we could go sledding.”
“There’s not enough snow.”
“Tomorrow there’ll be,” she said.
They watched the dog, its nose edging along the base of a tree.
“You were crying last night,” she said.
He looked at her, then returned his attention to the darkness outside.
“What were you sad about?”
He put his palm almost to the glass, feeling the cool air especially on his fingertips. He had the sensation of dipping his hand into shallow water. “Lots of things.”
In the other room the baby-sitter turned the TV back on.
“Will they be able to come back from New York?” Kristi asked.
“They went on the train. That still goes even when it snows.”
There was a sound of a police siren on the television, and cars screeched back and forth. She got up. “If Lisa can’t come over tomorrow, you want to make a snow fort?”
“If there’s enough snow. If there’s enough snow and Lisa can’t come over, we’ll build two snow forts and have a battle.” He got up as well, and turned from the window, following her into the den. The ordered light and noise of the television were warm and welcome after the living room. He stood watching for a few moments before remembering the dog and going back into the kitchen to let it in.
The next morning, his parents were up early and his father was ruining eggs.
“How was the play?” Biddy said. He sat at the table and rubbed his eyes.
“Good,” his father said. “Very good. I recommend it highly.”
“You want some coffee?” His mother had an orange Sanka jar in her hand. He nodded.
“Your sister’s outside.” His father flipped an egg with élan, yolk breaking in midair with a flash of yellow. “She said to come out when you got up.”
“Have some breakfast first,” his mother said.
He got up and went to the window on the back porch. Kristi was hunched in the snow, piling up a mound. “How much is it?” he asked without turning around. “How much did we get?”
“Six inches.” His father’s attention remained largely on the eggs. “How’s that? You kids wanted more snow, you got more snow.”
He ate two of the eggs his father had made, drank some Sanka, and went upstairs and scooped everything out of his winter drawer. He pulled off his pajamas and pulled on a pair of thin cotton socks, and long underwear over them. Over that he slipped heavy woolen socks, choosing carefully from the pile and checking for holes, and then some dungarees. He found his lumberjack shirt and one of his heavy sweaters. He buckled his boots over his pants as a final touch and stood feeling secure and able to roll in the snow without any icy leaks. He grabbed his down mittens and hat and trooped downstairs.
“You need a scarf?” his mother asked as he went by.
“Nope.” He let Stupid out, adjusted his hat, and followed. It felt wonderful in the winter air and he realized he’d been hot and uncomfortable inside with everything on.
“Get your fort ready,” Kristi called. “Mine’s almost done.”
Stupid loped around, tracking rolling areas of white that Kristi had left untouched. Biddy chose a spot away from the house, at the back of the yard, and started to sweep the snow into a kind of wall with his down mittens.
“That’s too far,” Kristi said.
“Not for me.”
She made a face and he finished a short wall he could crouch behind, and then helped with hers. Their breath puffed around them and his feet were cold, though his hands sweated in the mittens. He curled his toes around in his boots. The air seemed to slip down his throat like water and leave him breathless.
“That’s good,” she said.
“You don’t want any more?”
“No. That’s good. Let’s go.” She knelt and started scooping snow together and as he ran back to his fort a snowball thumped against his jacket.
He called her a cheater, packed a ball together, and whizzed it at her. It sailed. It was hard to throw with down mittens. He kept trying but he had no control; nothing came close. One hit the house. He stayed low pulling another one together, and when he rose to throw, a snowball hit him dead center on the forehead, like a wet, easy slap. He teetered for a moment, the snow rolling off his face, and then flopped backward, arms outstretched, with Kristi laughing. He lay in the snow dead, a tribute to her aim, and then made angel wings.
Abruptly he got up, piling snow into a long line of snowballs behind the wall while Kristi’s throws landed around him. When he was ready he set himself, pulled off his gloves, and stood up, grasping a cold snowball in his bare hand, pivoting at a snowy second base and firing at his sister. He kept her pinned like that, flinging them in rapid succession, and then waited, wanting her to think he’d run out of ammunition. She raised her head and he caught the top of her hat and knocked it off.
“I give!” she called. “I give!” But he had a double line of balls left, and he pelted her fort, laughing; the balls, hardened in his hand before he threw, were starting to break down her protecting wall. He used an exaggerated overhand motion, discovering he could throw down into the fort that way, the snowballs disappearing behind it and his sister shouting with every hit. “I give!” she repeated, and finally, in blind frustration, she scrambled over the wall, rushing at him, head down, scarf twirling behind her in the wind like a tail. Laughing his aim was no better than it had been with the mittens, she stormed his wall shouting “I said I give” and drove her wet blonde head into his jacket front, toppling them both into a drift, laughing and wrestling, with snow leaking in everywhere and neither of them caring.
“Don’t think you’re going to get everything you see, because we’re only going to look,” his mother said. “Sit on the seat, Kristi. I slam on the brakes and you’ll go through the windshield.”
They were going Christmas shopping. Biddy and Kristi had changed out of their snowy clothes, Biddy finding a triangular lump of snow in his boot. They were coming along so they could point out a few things at the toy store. Their mother had little patience trying to decipher Christmas lists. Kristi had lost one of her mittens in the vicinity of the snow fort, and was kneeling on the seat, her hands on the dashboard.
“Where we going?” she asked after a turn. “This isn’t the way to Korvette’s.” They referred to the huge shopping mall in Trumbull simply as “Korvette’s,” the name of one of the larger stores, which had moved away.
“We’re picking up Cindy,” his mother said.
Cindy climbed into the back, smiling at Biddy and flipping her hair out from beneath her collar.
“You can get in front,” his mother said. “Kristi can get in back.”
“No, it’s all right.” Her coat was long and white and her hair shone against it. “I’ll sit back here with Biddy. Biddy’s my date.” He smiled, embarrassed, and Cindy scratched the top of his sister’s head in greeting.
“Where’s Ronnie?” his mother said.
“I told him not to come. I’m going to try and get his present today.”
“Does he still want that jacket?”
“What he wants and I can afford are two different things.” She edged a middle finger along the outline of her lower lip, checking her lip gloss. “He also wants Atari. Imagine that? This is a grown man we’re talking about. Biddy’s already outgrown it.”