When Winter Blooms

been a lig

night, listening for the particular sound of him getting up for water, or having a

ourself aft

y half-open even when

3 am, I was already sitting

't a bi

ream, the way

ind that comes from a child who's been c

t it for a while

the hall

ling and she was sitting up in bed with Gerald crushed against her chest, face wet, breathin

her face just crumpled. Fresh tears,

aid, cross

bed and pulled her into

here. I've

and just cried. I held her and rubbed her back in slow circles and didn't s

knows you just have to be the still thin

e the shakin

I asked, agai

say what it was abo

e now," I

llow you out. Di

, skeptical like she wanted to belie

o you

ad dreams," I said. "And non

t that. "What do

s my mum,

ther. So sometimes I dream

quiet for

ry softly, "Like

aid. "Just

ay kids look at you when they're decidi

inst my shoulder, and I felt her

until I fall as

urse I

ticular, just something soft my mother used to h

ly. Gerald was wedged between us, his

ing went deep and even

e longer anyway.

hen I no

shed it open when I came in but hadn't closed it behind me, and

't in a

uit. But he was in a grey t-s

be, or just

lding the doorframe with one hand li

tching Li

y, maybe because I could see from wher

bviou

's been trying very hard not to and mostly succeeded. A

he looked at his daughter,

looked

just a secon

oom and I don't know what either o

could manage. Something that s

at Lily on

ped back fro

pillow, tucked the blanket up around

tting on

out and I looked down at him, and for a moment I thought he might say something, explain him

't say

n't e

nough of a gap for the nightlight to spill through, and I

out there, not mo

morning the hallway was empty and he was already in his suit at the kitchen counter with his co

" he said, wit

ng," I

ffee. He lef

fine mood, already over it the way kids are, res

at was

I understood instinctively that this was how things worked here, things happened,

ht about it

t, standing in a strip of

o in, not abl

e and taught Lily how to make shadow animals on the wall, and she laughed so ha

w

ay. Somewhere at the back of my

way of do