Fuck winter.
This has been my mantra for the last two years. I’ll admit when Mark and I moved up to Minnesota, we were mesmerized by the short summers (a season we had gotten our fair share of in Georgia) and the snow on the trees; it was beautiful! But then, as the days grew shorter and shorter, the seasonal depression sank in, and the realization that life moved on even with a foot of snow on the ground (though now you have a driveway to shovel and traffic to sit in), the honeymoon period ended quite abruptly.
I really shouldn’t say it that way, the best thing to ever happen to us also came our first winter here. Despite all the warnings of how long the process would take, our application was approved and streamlined in the result of us adopting the one ray of sunshine we would have to combat our surrounding snowscape, our eight-year-old son, Wayne.
Wayne is every synonym of amazing and definitely what would have been the resulting offspring if his two fathers were able to procreate. He is bright and witty, like yours truly, but he also has common sense and hand-eye coordination, which he definitely would not have received from me. My biggest concern with us living up here with him is that he will want to play hockey with the other children. Given Wayne was born in Minnesota, I know it’s only a matter of time. Something about the cold seemingly affects all the children up here to learn how to skate before they walk, but Mark and I (despite often refraining from at admitting it) are southerners at heart. Not only that, there isn’t a sliver of athleticism between the two of us. Book worms and writers, by trade; we began bonding on our first date about our own childhood experiences of spending summers at the library.
Now, this isn’t to say there aren’t differences. While I drift more towards fiction and poetry, Mark is a non-fiction bibliophile through and through. I’m not sure how the math actually works, but I’ve pointed out several times this is why he will have to be the one lacing up with Wayne on the ice while I set-up hot chocolate and orange slices on the sidelines, or whatever they eat drink at wherever they would eat and drink it; again, we know nothing about sports.
Even now though, watching Wayne playing out in the snow, I know the real reason I hope he chooses Harry Potter over a hockey puck is that I can’t fathom the idea of our son getting hurt. He’s playing in a pile of snow with a few kids from the neighborhood and I cringe every time a snowball hits his face. When he chucks one at another kid, I cheer and dote on his ability. When he gets hit, it takes almost everything I have (and sometimes Mark’s hands on my shoulders) to stop me from going out there and dragging Wayne back in.
I’m working on it though, I tell myself while I come up with a distraction of guessing who each bundled up kid is. One kid is wearing a jacket with yellow stripes on the inseam that looks a bit worn and out of place; I have to assume this is the Gregor’s kid, Tommy, on the underlying fact that they have six or seven kids and this jacket appears to be a hand-me-down from the nineties. As if Wayne and I are able to communicate telepathically, he hurdles a massive snowball at the kid’s face in a way that makes the receiver have to adjust his scarf to get the snow out of it. It’s revealed that my guess was correct and I silently give myself five points to an incalculable score I’ve been keeping for my whole life.
Despite never being much for sports, unless you count chess (which you surely don’t, nor do I), I do love games. Designer board games, the ones you find at comic book stores, not like Monopoly, are my weakness and our bank account has suffered greatly from it. But it also could be something as simple as a riddle or a guessing game that will keep my mind occupied in the right way for hours. Give me two movies and I’ll give you a list of actors and movies to connect the two films you gave me. Mark is competitive, so I tend to use this angle to get him to play games with me, but he prefers games like Trivia Pursuit or Trivia Night at Maverick’s to one of my dungeon crawlers.
Wayne, our beautiful brilliant son, is a gaming savant (another reason I’m thinking we should see if he in fact has our DNA somehow). Though he’s sometimes a little on the young side for the ages listed on the side of the box, he only needs to play a game one round to figure out how to win it.
“But it’s not all about points, buddy.” I once explained as he continued to count up his points after I had long finished tallying mine, “it’s about the experience. We’re on…”
“How many points did you get?” he asks, not hearing a word I’ve said.
“It’s not about that. We’re on the same team. We beat the Kraken; that’s the point.”
“How many points?”
“Twelve,” I said, looking away from his instant sneer.
I honestly can’t remember now how many points he had.
Another snowball clips Wayne’s head.
“That’s it!” I shout, the kitchen chair shooting out behind me. Without looking up from his book, Mark again rests his hand on my hand in an attempt to calm me. My theatrics no longer get his attention in the way they used to; he knows me too well. The marked-up floor behind my usual spot at the table doesn’t help my case.
“He’s going to get hurt and I won’t stand for it!”
“It’s snow; it’s not going to hurt him.”
“What if there is a rock or a stick in it?” I protest, fairly sure I’ve used this argument before, “Maybe I can tell them to not throw it at each other’s faces, at least?”
Mark marks his place in his book with his thumb and closes it. He stares up at me with his bright blue eyes which I’m fairly sure he knows is cheating.
“Little boys play with snowballs and rocks and sticks and get hurt. That’s life. You can either accept it or…”
Mark looks past me through the window and makes a face like someone is asking him a question. Though unlike his usual expression in this scenario, Mark doesn’t know the answer.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, turning around to see for myself. I can’t find Wayne.
As if it’s across the house, rather than right next to me, I hear the abrupt horn of wood sliding on wood as Mark’s chair glides out to greet mine.
“Mark, where’s Wayne?!”
We’re both running to the front door as I ask this several times.
The neighborhood children are standing in a skewed circle in the snow and I know Wayne must be on the ground in the middle of them; his face covered in his blood and his eyes likely welling with tears. That’s how I picture him at least.
I know the snow is getting into my slippers and dampening my house pants with each step, but the small torture is only a speck on my brain as I am only a few steps behind the children and still unable to see Wayne.
Mark is ahead of me and he pushes Tommy Gregor to the side, which my brain does process as points for later calculation. He stands there like the kids, not bending over to help and I’m unsure what this could mean until I’m there in the next step and I see the hole.
“WAYNE!?” I start yelling at the ground.
The hole isn’t straight down like a well, instead, it’s a slant that immediately goes to the right. At first, my brain thinks “tunnel” but the smooth ice makes me think “slide.”
I call Wayne’s name, again and again, pausing only to listen. I consider jumping in, knowing that it will be a tight fit, but I think I could make it all the same. Mark stops me though, knowing what I’m about to do. Again, blue eyes, and now I know it’s him that’s going to make the jump and I know I’m going to let him.
Before he moves though, there is a sound from the hole like a hundred tiny knives being sharpened slowly and white lines start to string across the entrance to the slide. My mind goes to spiders because that’s exactly what it looks like as the lines form and connect, but Mark’s mind moves faster and when he stomps at the hole, it becomes obvious that this was forming ice.
It shatters instantly, but Mark’s foot stops several inches below where he has broken the ice. He has hit another layer of it. His slipper slides left and right on it as he looks for a weak spot, but this is farther set. Mark falls to his hands and knees and begins to punch at the glass and I find I can’t do anything but watch as his fist become bloody at his attempts.
I’ve stopped calling for Wayne. Both my hands are on my permanently gasping mouth and I have no idea what to do. I want to bloody my fists on the ice with Mark, but there isn’t room for us both. And then the lines start forming again on the top of the hole and Mark punches through them, but they grow back faster each time.
And then I see Mark punch one last time and his hand stops a few inches into the ice and stays there. I don’t know if it’s exhaustion or the blood or what is keeping his hand where it is, but the lines are forming and Mark isn’t punching and I finally fall down to the ground beside him and try to move him and I find I can’t get his arm out either. He’s trying and he stuck.
The lines stick to his wrist and he screams and I scream and we both pull. I hear the ice shattering once more and I think we’ve done it, but then Mark and I are sitting back from where there was once a hole and I stare at the end of Mark’s robe’s sleeve and I see the jagged blue and purple stump where Mark’s left-hand use to be.
One or both of us pass out.
It doesn’t really matter.