The morning air is chilly, puckering the skin below the sleeves of my oversize tee shirt.  Stripes of fresh snow run up the driveway.  The lawn, so recently thawed, is hidden beneath a new paralyzing layer of wedding white.  The sigh passes through my lips, involuntary as sneezing.  Winter is tireless, and I tire easy.  A person can only take so much of darkness and cold…

…movement in the snow.

A small spider makes its way towards the street, its black legs standing out against the snow in stark opposition.  I wonder if he’ll survive winter’s last stand.  If he’ll make it another month until true Spring.  I skip over him, running to the garbage and tossing a dirty diaper at its gaping mouth.

When I return the spider has made little progress.  I’ve seen many people wander into the snow.  Like him, they are tempted from their shells by a false Spring, only to find themselves lost and cold.  Helpless to stop it, I watch them go.

I always hope they’ll come back changed as little as possible, but the journey always changes us. Will this error make the spider stronger, tolerant and able in the cold?  Or leave him weak and stumbling in the Spring?

My shoe sinks into the snow where there used to be a spider.  I lift my shoe, examining my footprint.  There is a brown dot on the inside edge of my arch.  I brush the bottom of my shoe on the snow, leaving a streak of brown behind.  I sprint up the steps and into my warm house, rubbing the goosbumps from my arms.

It was just a spider.

Yellow light reflects from the kitchen window, making the dark beyond the glass panes even darker. Out there frost is curling its way over the blades of grass. It sprinkles flecks of white to match the narrowing strip of snow left by the fence.

The first appearance of green has persuaded a premature spring fever in me. The papers plotting out this year’s garden are tucked away for now, bidding my return on the next bout of fever. One is a scaled map of the irregular garden patch, the others are lists I’ve compiled of vegetables in order of when to plant and what to companion them with. The shopping list includes all the things that would take me out of the maintenance equation. I am the common link to my garden failures.

Water streams over my fingers, its warmth addictive. The house is asleep. The only noise, me. Sleep. Sometimes I hate it. It comes when I finally feel productive. It lulls when I most need to work. It teases me with relaxation when it knows as well as I that my nights are riddled with interruptions. Last night there were four.

Hana is easy.  I hear her coming.  Cadence is sneakier, only discovered when I roll into her unexpected form.  She’s learned she gets to stay longer if I don’t wake up.

As if wakened by my thoughts. Cadence moans, and Hana cries in answer. The dishes are as done as they’ll get tonight.

My ears are filled with sounds: the kitchen faucet pouring hot water on my rag, Lady Gaga crooning Paparrazi over my stereo, Hana uttering baby gibberish and playful squeals, and angelic strains coinciding with the music.  I follow the last  sound, watching Cadence’s mouth synchronize with Lady Gaga.  She catches me peeking at her, breaks into a sheepish smile, and turns away.

Hana picks up Cadence’s disgarded toys: a half chewed barbie (from when dogs still terrorized the house), and a new Ariel bath toy.  She swings them in the air.  Her bed head mohawk sways in the toy engineered air.  She talks to the Ariel doll, smoothing its hair away from its face.  Her big sister’s trash has proved to be her treasure.

“Hey!”  Cadence has noticed the special attention paid to her toys.  She wrenches them from Hana’s hands.  Hana falls backward, crying, screaming.  I diffuse the situation, each child cradling one doll.  They stare at me and each other with matching expressions, lowered brows, and pouting lips.

So much for angelic.

The table begins to shine under my rag.  I work around the center piece: a glass vase filled with red hybrid roses.  Out in the distance something is missing.  The mountains lurk, half finished, half painted.  The stripe of cloud/smog erasing their base from the painting.  It would be pretty otherwise.

I touch one of the rose petals, recalling to mind Cadence’s warning the afternoon Jake and the girls gave them to me.  You can’t touch them, she’d said, or they’ll die.  Funny to hear her say it.  I’d taught either her or Jake (or both) about how the oils on our fingers will kill the petals, leftover knowledge from high school Horticulture.  I drop my fingers.  It’s hard to resist touching beautiful things.

My left temple throbs, shoots of pain coursing behind my eye and along the left side of my skull. I grind my teeth against the ache, an old habit that I stop as soon as I notice.

Hana’s cries build in her throat as she arches her back, sliding down my lap. Baby melt down. There’s still an hour to bedtime, but her body clock doesn’t seem to notice. Her tantrum runs its course, ending with her across the room, deciding whether she wants to cry again or come back to my lap.

The only light in the room comes from Project Runway on the big screen. It lands softly on her features. She’s thinned a lot since last Halloween’s pictures. She had been 7-8 months old, her chubby cheeks filling out her bunny hood. Adorable and tiny.

She has hair now. An eventuality that I’m not ashamed to be excited about. Her cheeks are slimmer, the fullness shifting higher to her cheekbones. People say she looks like me, but I see a lot of her dad in her. When she smiles a generous row of teeth appear.

She’s not smiling now. She points at the t.v. The visible side of her mouth curves comically down, like the face of a sad clown. She begins to cry, the sound low and pathetic. It’s good to be thankful for small blessings. I’m just glad she isn’t screaming again. I gather her back into my lap, adding Cadence to my empty hip when she wanders near.

Cadence takes dress-up very seriously. Her pink fairy get up is cute, with streams of sequins, matching wings, and a short skirt that flares like a bell. Cadence pretends to fall onto my shoulder, receiving a stream of giggles from Hana. Cadence repeats it to an encore of excitement from her sister. They shift, they slap each other, they cry, they hug….

The clock in the corner of the t.v. says it’s just a few minutes to bed time. Again, small blessings.

“Okay, ladies, let’s go kiss Daddy.”

Hana is good with cues. She slides from my lap, her lips protruded in an exaggerated pre-pucker that extends beyond her button nose. Cadence is soon to follow, gearing up for a race destined in her favor. I brush the recliner with a promise to return soon with a couple of pain relievers dissolving in my stomach. Perhaps there’ll be time and room on my lap for editing later.

One can only hope.

Hana’s persistent cries grow hoarse from her bedroom.  They quiet and die.  The juice must not be worth the squeeze with a soar throat.  Soon I’ll creep back in, retrieve the blankets she’s thrown outside the crib, and tuck her butt-protruding form in their warmth.

We play this game twice every day: nap time and bedtime.  It doesn’t change much.  Every so often, I’ll find one surviving blanket wrapped around her.  It’s her favorite, the patchwork, cuddle quilt that my sister sent the Christmas before she was born.  So far, it’s bearing its abuse well, the seams still crisp and whole.

She’s been tucking her little fist just under the front lip of her diapers, for comfort or warmth.  If there’s no waistband in her way, she discards the obstacle entirely.  I’ve avoided putting her in nightgowns since the three nights I found her bare bummed, her diapers topping the pile of blankets beside her bed.  Then, there was the smear incident, but that taught me a different lesson entirely.

My jaw clicks as I attempt to yawn away the mute button on my left ear.  No dice.  With the fevers, congestion, and soar throats abundant in our family this week, this little ailment doesn’t feel so threatening.  Hana’s poor button nose is red and chapped around the nostrils.  Cadence limits her playful personality to a reclined position, laughing when her voice sounds funny, and crying when her throat hurts.

Winter has come with sickness.  They do go hand in hand at our house.  Frost tipped the taller blades of grass this morning with snow blowing onto the deck the day before.  My favorite new tree, the precocious midget nectarine I fondly call Amelia, is turning a pleasing shade of gold.  Her fellow trees are still debating whether to drop leaf forever or follow her example.

The fresh chill brings a sadness with it.  I can’t wait for Spring.

Rain clings to the screen window, warping the view of the street around its shaded bubbles, like polka dots hanging in the air.  When it rains the waiting water on the ground will dance.  This is not a dancing rain.  The drops are many, but so minuscule the glittering film awaiting below doesn’t acknowledge the impacts.  An occasional porch light glares through the gray.  It’s Saturday, but the windows are dark, like the sky.  The street looks freshly deserted.

“Mama.”  Hana’s imitations of Cadence are getting better.  Sometimes I hesitate, trying to figure out which child is calling me.

She’s secured in her high chair, plucking generic honeycomb cereal from the tray, another hand resting on her bottle of milk.  She sees me peeking from the corner, trying to observe her unseen.  Her expressions ping pong between happiness and irritation.  The latter wins, her eyebrows drooping in straight Oscar the Grouch mode.  Her chin presses into her neck.  I laugh.  She’s gotten that look down.  Her head and eyebrows lift.  She smiles, proud of her little trick.

The house has become her jungle gym this last month.  She’s climbed to the top of every couch, bed, and table, and fallen from half of them.  Her latest battle wound is a scabby, swollen top lip.  I think hard to remember which fall caused it.

The playdate of course.  The friends’ floor had been wet from children running from the wading pool to the kitchen.  Hana had been its victim.  Poor girl, wasn’t even climbing then.  I remember being mesmerized by the scent of white chocolate fondant frosting, a smell that lingered in my memory all day, when I heard the all too familiar thunk.

At first the wound was lost in the mess of red liquorice spit and blood.  Was she hurt?  Was it just liquorice?  But some of the liquid was too red, the wrong kind of red.

She doesn’t seem to notice it now.  I pull the lever on her tray until it slides away from her.  As soon as her feet touch the floor, she’s running.  She stops at the top of the stairs listening to the sounds of Mulan from downstairs, and staring confused at the gray background behind the window.

I guess postponing the river rafting was a good idea.

The garage door wheels squeal in their tracks as one panel after another rounds the edge.  Light pours through the growing gap.  Juice sloshes inside the Ziploc bag I slap onto the barbecue tray.  I lift the opposite tray, lugging the monster towards the light.  My head pivots from the barbecue to the drive outside, and the girl standing three feet away on the other side.  My heart flips, calming with recognition.  Just the neighbor girl.  Her eyes are wide, her face long and serious.

“The ice cream man fell out of his van,” she blurts.  “His head hit the road and something yellow came out.”

My brows draw together.  I pat my left pocket.  My phone is still there.  I hear sirens.  Are they headed here?

“Has anyone called…?”

Her eyes relax.  “Yeah, my dad’s with him.”

I relax too, relieved that a man’s life isn’t dependant on my lack of emergency medicine.  “Is he moving?”

“I don’t know,” she says with a nonchalant turn down the drive, no doubt in search of another ignorant ear to fill.

I’d heard the ice cream truck music earlier,  the plinkety, plunk of children’s tunes.  Even groaned, hoping Cadence wouldn’t hear it.  How long ago had that been?  Twenty minutes?  A half hour?  I follow the direction of the street’s staring eyes.  The van is two houses up.  The man is on his back, in the road.  A neighbor kneels on the far side of him.

I join a huddle of my neighbors, their mouths filling in some of the holes of the story.  Seizure is a theory.  Heart attack another.

I can’t remember his face, but the light shining through his halo of gray hair reminds me.

My finger fans over the pictures on the side of the ice cream van.

“Okay, Cadence, pick one.”

She ponders over the pictures, her eyes fixing on one in a sno cone cup.

“That one.”

I glance at the coins in my palm.  They’re all there.  “Can we get the ‘Two Ball Screw Ball?’”

The ice cream man has gray hair, punctuated with persistent strands of his youth.  His nose is prominent, his frame scrawny.

“What a name, huh?”  He hands me the blue paper cone, heavy with its frozen reward.

I smile with half my mouth.  “Yeah.”

I pour the change into his hand, uttering a thank you, and making a quick retreat.

His head is moving, his right hand grabbing just below his left shoulder.  The neighbor presses him gently down.  The sirens are near.  A red ambulance turns onto the street.  Those who were in their houses earlier, have filtered onto the street, like me.  I feel guilty for staring, for turning the man who sells our children ice cream into a spectacle.  But we have to know that the ice cream van won’t stay here, its door gaping open where the children play, and no one to sell them ice cream.

The paramedics take over for my neighbor.  I turn away, back to the abandoned barbecue, and tonight’s dinner.  The meal finished, a faint strain of Pop Goes the Weasel brings me back outside.  I walk to the end of the driveway.  The street is empty.  The van is gone.

The small features on Hana’s face smooth as I rock her.  Her eyes drift open and shut with the undulations.  There’s something unspeakable and sacred connected with these calm moments.  They are so rare anymore.  Her arms burrow between her body and mine.  Her knees fold under her round little belly.  She shifts her head from one side of my neck to the other, taking brief seconds to glance over my face before she rests her own against my shoulder.  My kisses patter across her forehead before I push us from the chair on the last rock forward.

She pulls away from my shoulder, puffy eyes curious about where we’ll go.  I lean over her bed.  She leans too, towards the bed.  I roll my arm over her belly and lower her in.  Her hand clamps over the cloth leg of her baby Belle doll, dragging it under her as she lands.  She releases the leg, posing her hands primly under her face, using the doll as her pillow.

Her eyes stare past the mesh border of her bed, pensive.  I tuck a Sesame Street quilt around her bundled shape, wondering what a baby has to mull over.  The quality of apple sauce?  The number of nightlights lining the walls?  What mischief she can unfurl tomorrow?

At the door, I blow a kiss at the back of her head.  There’s a smile in my thoughts.  Mommy needed this.  It’s not hard for me to cherish an easy night.

Light bounces from an endless layer of impeccable snow.  Fresh shoots of spring are hidden beneath it.  Our new trees line the fence, scrawny and barren.  I miss the green patches, the newborn blades of crocuses, daffodils, and tulips.  The first snow of winter brings a calm after a hot and chirpy summer, but this snow is different, lonely.

Hana screams from the living room, the scream that says, “I’m hurt.”  It’s loud, but not a desperate cry, just one that begs for attention.  It nears, her feet tapping down the hallway with a bowlegged, penguin gait.  I wait for her to come to me.  Her eyelids are narrowed in rounded hills of baby agony, her nose flattening into her anguished wrinkles, and her mouth pulling into a wide gaping frown.  I launch her into my arms.   Her cries taper into sniffs, her pain forgotten in Mommy’s arms.

A telltale aroma reaches my less than sensitive nose.  I lay her onto the changing table, taking care of business as usual.   Cadence yells from the electric piano, a clatter of plastic accentuating her distaste.

“I hate when headphones don’t work!”  The clatter of plastic is presumably the headphones slamming into the music holder.

I wiggle Hana’s chubby legs back into her jeans and send her back on her way.  Snowflakes fall in persistent patterns.  I debate postponing my already postponed grocery trip, but I just used Hana’s last diaper.  I guess when it rains, it pours.  Or in this case, it snows.

Hana swings the door shut, looks around, and opens it again.  She smiles at me before crawling through.  Her eye, so swollen and pink yesterday, is perfect today.  Naked apart from a diaper, she crawls back into my room, swinging the door open and shut.

Downstairs the music to Cadence’s movie is blaring.  Hana coughs.  I look over my shoulder to make sure she isn’t choking.  She looks at me smiling, mouth empty.

“Are you okay?” I ask, though it’s clear that she is, and though she can’t answer back.

“Yeah,” says a small voice from the hallway.  “Mommy, I pooped.”

I scoot away from the card table I’ve been using as a desk and pry my butt from the folding chair I’ve been using as a desk chair.  The vinyl upholstery probably has permanent dents where I sit, but they’re hidden beneath a green comforter that serves as extra padding.

My brows sink, my mouth is set in a stern Mommy-means-business grimace.  Cadence waits on the other side of the baby gate, her hair in her eyes.  A blue renaissance, princess dress puckers at her waist, where the seam is unravelling.

“What?”

“Mommy, I pooped,” she repeats quietly.  She backs away from the gate with a guilty smile.  I coax her back, before hurdling the gate and dragging her back with me.  Potty training would a thing of the past if my head wasn’t always in the clouds, or wherever it is.

I fasten a diaper on her.  No more panties today.  And urge her to use the potty now, everytime, and forever.  She agrees.  We’ll see how long that lasts.

Hana waits in the hallway, wailing.  Her eyes scrunch up, her mouth parted and spread in a wide half circle.  Her eyes swell with the tears, making today’s recovery undetectable.  I scoop her to my shoulder.  She clings.  Babbles replace her cries, and she kicks of my stomach to play with her older sister.

My chair is angled towards me.  The comforter warm and inviting.  I sit back down, staring at the blinking cursor and a nearly completed page.