The Snow Girl

To you, Grandma; although you will never read this, I am sure you can feel it. And to you, Mom; for being the example for everything that I am. Perhaps there is still someone out there who doesn’t want to know that thorns grow fearlessly on even the most beautiful rose. Chapter 1 New York November 26, 1998 You can never sense when the worst is about to happen. Grace turned away from the pomp of the Thanksgiving Day parade for a few moments to look up at her daughter, who was sitting on her father’s shoulders beaming with happiness. She noticed how her legs were swinging playfully and how her husband’s hands held onto her thighs with a firmness she would later remember as insufficient. The Macy’s Santa was approaching, smiling from his enormous throne, and every now and then Kiera would point at the procession of pixies, elves, huge gingerbread men and teddy bears walking ahead of his float and squeal with delight. It was raining. A soft, fine drizzle that dampened waterproofs and umbrellas and, looking back, perhaps those drops had always looked like tears. “There!” shouted the little girl, “Look there!” Aaron and Grace followed the line of Kiera’s finger, which was pointing at a white helium balloon floating away into the clouds, getting smaller as it climbed between the New York skyscrapers. Then she looked down at her mother excitedly and Grace knew immediately that she wouldn’t be able to say no. Grace turned to look at one of the street corners where there was a woman dressed as Mary Poppins, her umbrella open beneath a huge bunch of white balloons which she was giving out to everyone who came near. “Would you like a balloon?” Grace asked, knowing what her daughter’s response would be. Kiera was too excited to reply. She just opened her mouth in a delighted grin and nodded, showing her prominent dimples. “But Santa’s almost here! We can’t miss him!” protested Aaron. Kiera’s dimples faded and revealed the small gap between her front teeth where food sometimes got caught. There was a carrot cake waiting for them at home, ready to celebrate her birthday the next day. At the thought of her birthday, Aaron gave in. “Alright,” he continued, “where do you get those balloons?” “Mary Poppins is giving them out on the corner,” replied Grace nervously. People had started to crowd closer around them and the peace of the previous moments began to melt, just like the butter in the turkey stuffing they were going to eat at dinner that evening. “Kiera, stay with Mommy and you two can keep our spot.” “No! I want Mary Poppins.” Aaron sighed and Grace smiled, aware that he was about to give in once again. “I hope little Michael will be less stubborn,” Aaron added, stroking his wife’s growing bump. Grace was five months pregnant, something that had worried him at first, especially with Kiera still so little, but now he was excited about it. “Kiera’s turned out like her father,” Grace laughed, “and don’t you try and tell me otherwise.” “Alright sweetie. Let’s go and get that balloon!” Aaron scooped Kiera back onto his shoulders and started pushing his way through the swiftly growing crowd towards the corner. He stopped after a few steps and before going any further turned back to Grace, shouting, “Will you be OK?” “Sure! Don’t be long! He’s coming!” Kiera gave her mother another big smile from up on her father’s shoulders, her face radiating happiness in all directions. Years later, Grace drew consolation from this when she tried to convince herself that the void wasn’t so dark, nor the pain so intense or the grief so suffocating: in the last memory she had of Kiera, her daughter was smiling. Once they made it to Mary Poppins, Aaron put Kiera down on the ground: a decision which he would never forgive himself for. He thought she would be closer to Mary Poppins that way, and he might even be able to crouch down next to her and encourage her to ask for the balloon herself. We do things with high hopes, even when they may have the worst possible consequences. The sound of the band mingled with the shouts of the crowd, hundreds of arms and legs squeezed past on all sides and Kiera, a little scared, clung tightly to her father’s hand. Then she reached out her other hand towards the girl dressed as Mary Poppins, who said the words which would forever haunt the memory of a father about to lose everything: “Would this adorable girl like a spoonful of sugar?” Kiera laughed. She also made a sound that Aaron would later remember as a slight snort, somewhere between a laugh and a suppressed giggle. This is the kind of memory that sticks in your mind, the kind we cling onto as hard as we can. That was the last time he heard her laugh. Just as Kiera took hold of the string of the balloon Miss Poppins handed her with fragile fingers there was another explosion of red confetti, the children all shrieked with excitement again, and parents and tourists suddenly got jumpy following a set of jostles that came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And then the inevitable happened. Except that later, Aaron thought of so many things he could have done differently in those two short minutes: perhaps he should have been the one to take the balloon, or insisted that Kiera stay with Grace, or even approached the woman from the right instead of the left. Someone bumped into Aaron. He took a step backwards and stumbled over a foot high barrier that surrounded a tree on the corner of 36th and Broadway. And there, at that exact moment, was the last time he felt the touch of Kiera’s fingers: their temperature, their softness, how her little hand clung to her father’s index, middle and ring fingers. Both