Another scream cut through the air from Katie’s back porch, and time snapped back to normal. Katie scrambled to her feet, her frozen clothes sucked against her skin. She tried to stop her chattering teeth as her mom stumbled the hundred feet down the slope.
Mikey, she remembered. But he was already safe on shore, kneeling to reach out to her. Before Katie could get to him, the old woman gathered Mikey under her coat and hurried him away, muttering words Katie could almost hear, almost understand, as she waded out of the icy water. Ana stomped out of the pond, splashing and fake-cursing, and raced after Mikey.
The ends of Katie’s hair and the canvas of her shoes had frozen stiff by the time her mom had rushed her back up to the house, murmuring a prayer under her breath.
“I’ll be speaking with Ana about this too,” she said, grabbing a towel from the bathroom cupboard. “I can’t believe she’d lure you down to the pond like that.” She sat Katie in front of the fire and draped the towel over her shoulders, then began tugging at her sneakers.
Katie closed her eyes and let the warmth of the fire spread over her for a few seconds before she answered. “I can take my own shoes off, Mom. And she didn’t lure me. I went down to say hi.”
Her mom planted her hands on her hips. “You went down there in antarctic weather, in the dark, without wearing your boots or telling your mother? Just to say hi to a friend you’d spent all day with?” She brushed Katie’s hands aside and yanked at her wet socks, but they only stretched like taffy.
Katie took over the sock situation, hoping to keep this from turning into a fight. But when she looked up, her mom’s eyes filled with tears as she reached to warm Katie’s frozen toes. “What if you’d had a cardiac event? You’re not built for shocks like that, honey. Your heart’s not strong enough.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Katie said. “I won’t do it again.”
Her mom lifted Katie’s chin with her fingertips. “You promise me? No more sneaking around? No more trips to the pond?”
“I promise.” Katie realized this never would have turned into a fight, because she never dared stand up to her mom anyway.
After hot cider and a hotter bath, Katie’s mom sent her straight to bed. But Katie’s dad snuck in after she’d burrowed safe and dry under the covers.
“You know,” he said with a smile, “a wise woman once said, ‘If you know too much, you’ll grow old too soon.’” He pulled up a chair next to the bed and eased down into it.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“But you know what I always say? If you don’t know enough, you end up with ice water in your britches.”
Katie laughed. “You always say that?”
Her dad smoothed the hair from her face. “I’ll talk to her.”
“About what?”
“The kids. The pond. The things you think you’re ready to know.”
Katie squeezed her dad’s hand. The things I think I’m ready to know. She imagined the box in the attic and thought of each of the beautiful things she’d held only a few hours ago.
“But for tonight,” her dad said, “we have a tradition to keep.”
Every year, on the night of the first snowfall, Katie’s dad brought out his old brown journal and read her the story he’d scrawled on its small, lined pages. Katie settled deeper under the covers and closed her eyes as her dad’s voice, somehow both scratchy and smooth, told the tale.
“The Snow Child,” he began, and they shared a smile.
“Once there was a couple who could not have children of their own. Year after year, they hoped for a baby, and the husband ached as he watched his wife suffer. He yearned to hear her laugh again, and to hear the sound echoed by the sweet laughter of a son or daughter.
“One winter morning, the man stood at the kitchen window and thought this very thing. Although his gaze seemed to rest on the forest outside, he barely noticed the snow bending the branches and blanketing the ground. Then a single flake, weaving its way through the air before him, caught his attention. Suddenly, the snow was all he could see. Suddenly, he knew exactly what to do.
“The old man bundled into his woolen mittens and work-roughened boots. He rushed outside and gathered the snow in great armfuls, then packed it carefully into a tight mound. He shaped and brushed and pushed until his fingers were stiff with cold and use. But even then, he removed his mittens and began carving the details with his fingers.”
Katie watched her own father’s fingers turn the pages. These were the hands that helped me learn to write my name, she thought. The hands that held mine the first time I danced.
Then her father’s voice pulled her back into the story.
“The snow hid the sound of the old woman’s slow, careful footsteps as she came to where her husband worked.
“‘Oh,’ she whispered. ‘There you are.’
“But she wasn’t looking at the old man. She was looking at the child he had formed.
“The girl stood before them in a flowing dress—white, of course—with hair made from strands of silk grass, sparkling with frost.”
Katie thought of the frozen ends of her own hair earlier tonight as her father turned the page.
“The old woman’s eyes filled with tears as her one great wish almost seemed possible again. She reached out and cradled the curve of the girl’s cheek in her wrinkled hand. ‘If only you were real.’ With a tight grip on her husband’s arm to keep her old bones steady, the woman leaned forward and kissed the snow child’s other cheek.
“They were all connected then, and the warmth of the old woman’s hand and lips seeped between the packed flakes and spread through the snow child. Deep inside the child, a single snowflake shifted, and it was enough.
“The child’s heart began to beat.
“Tuc-tuc, tuc-tuc.”
Katie’s dad reached over and patted the quilt in a gentle rhythm, and Katie’s own pulse quickened.
“With each beat, a little warmth and color spread from her chest.
“Tuc-tuc, tuc-tuc.
“The kind old couple held each other and watched and waited and prayed. It couldn’t be happening. And yet . . .
“Tuc-tuc, tuc-tuc.
“The color spread to the girl’s fingers and feet, to her chin and cheeks. Her eyes blinked once, and again. She looked from the old man to the old woman and drew a deep breath, and with that first breath, she spoke.
“‘Oh,’ she whispered. ‘There you are.’
“The little family rushed together and collapsed, laughing and crying all at once, right there in the snow. The old couple marveled at their daughter, and she marveled at all the world around her. And just like that, they were a family.”
When the story ended, Katie found her mom standing in the doorway with a smile on her face that told Katie all was forgiven, if not forgotten. She came and sat on the foot of Katie’s bed, and it felt right to have them all together in her small room while the snow landed, flake upon flake, blanketing the world outside.
“I love that story,” she said. “Did your dad tell you it’s an old, old story, but he made it new for you?”
Katie nodded.
“And has he ever told you about the first time he told it to you?”
This time, Katie shook her head. The story felt so familiar that she hadn’t ever thought about the first time, even though there must have been one.
“We were all together in a room smaller than this.” A happy shiver snuck through Katie as her mom continued. “But we were in an orphanage, halfway around the world. As soon as we saw you, we knew.”
Knew what? Katie wondered. But the story was already moving on.
“You were fast asleep,” her mom said. “And we were so tired too, after flying through the night to get to you. But I took you in my arms and rocked you, in and out of a patch of light from the one little window in the room.”
Katie’s mom held out her hand, and her dad passed the little journal to her. “Your dad knelt right in front of us and turned to these very
same pages. ‘You hold her so she gets to know you,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell her a story, so she gets to know me.’ His glasses kept sliding down his nose, and every time, he’d peek down at you before he slid them back up.”
Katie’s parents smiled at each other, and Katie could hear the catch in her mom’s voice when she spoke again.
“Right when he finished, the sun broke through the clouds for a moment, and you squinted in the light. You turned your little face up to me and said, ‘Mama?’”
Katie had never heard that part of the story. Thanks to her dad, she knew exactly the right way to end it.
“And just like that,” she said, “we were a family.”
Later that night, Katie heard thin patches of her parents’ conversation through her bedroom wall.
“I think she’s ready to know more than we’re telling her. She’s growing up, you know.”
Her dad was keeping his promise.
“Oh, I know.” Her mom’s voice found its way through the wall much more clearly than her dad’s. “But you’re still reading her the same story you did the day we met her. You don’t even dare tell her how a fairy tale ends!”
That’s not the end? Katie felt a little sick. What happened to the snow child that her parents wouldn’t want her to know about? And what else had they been keeping from her? She thought of the news story—how they’d muted it and talked around it without actually explaining anything. How their final answer had been to just change the channel.
After that, Katie’s parents went into the bathroom, and she couldn’t hear the conversation at all over the splashing of water in the sink and the buzz of electric toothbrushes. But the sounds of their routine eased her worry a little, and her eyelids had grown heavy by the time they ambled back into their bedroom.
Her dad’s voice drifted through the wall once more, low and unsure. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s too much.” He paused, and Katie heard his footsteps pacing on the other side of the wall. “Shouldn’t I at least tell her the rest of the story?”
Then her mom’s voice came, final but not unkind. “Not yet. When it’s time.”
When will it be time? Katie wondered. But she had grown too tired to follow that one last question as it floated across her mind to the soft rhythm of her heart.
Katie
Chapter 6
THE NEXT MORNING, Katie woke to the sound of voices. Her mom again . . . and someone else.
Ana. In Katie’s kitchen before she was even awake.
Katie wiggled her feet into her slippers and padded downstairs toward the voices, but also toward whatever her mom was baking that smelled so good. Hopefully there was something she could at least taste test before Thanksgiving.
Katie snuck up and wrapped an arm around her mom’s waist. But instead of pulling her close, her mom stiffened. “Oh! You’re awake. Did you see how much snow we got last night?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Katie caught her mom hiding a small piece of paper in her apron pocket. She’d seen Ana use the old “Look over there!” trick on Mikey plenty of times, but she’d never realized her mom used it on her.
“Hey!” Ana said. “I’ve got something for you.” She held out a pair of scratchy-looking red socks. “Knitted them myself to say sorry. They’re nice and warm.” Katie was ready for Ana’s play-along wink that time. Ana had never knitted a stitch in her life.
Katie’s mom frowned at the socks like she almost approved. “They’re very nice. But no socks are warm when they’re wet, young lady. You and Katie stay off that pond.”
Sometimes Katie wondered if her mom had saved up all her mothering all those years, and now it came out in every direction.
But Ana didn’t seem to mind. “Yes, Mrs. Burton. Will do.”
“Is your brother okay?”
“Yes, ma’am. He’s all dried out and warmed up, back to his usual pesky self.”
“Glad to hear it.” She held up her flour-coated hands. “Could you girls grab the cloves from the cupboard? And the nutmeg? I’m a mess.”
Katie opened the spice cupboard and scanned the shelves. She found the nutmeg pretty quickly in the neat rows of plastic canisters and passed it to Ana. Eventually she found the cloves too, buried in a little glass bottle with a handwritten label.
“Got it!” she called. She turned around to find Ana with her nose hovering over the nutmeg.
“Mmm. Don’t you love it?”
Katie inhaled and agreed—the nutmeg did smell nice. It reminded her of making pumpkin-chocolate cookies back in the Salt Lake kitchen. She was still savoring it when Ana popped the cork out of the little clove bottle. “Let’s try that one.”
But before Ana had even finished speaking, the smell of the cloves had found its way inside Katie, all by itself for the first time in forever. She closed her eyes and inhaled again, and a picture formed of being carried inside a small, warm house after being pulled on a sled. And she knew—this was the smell of her birth mother, whom she hadn’t remembered this clearly in so, so long.
She almost didn’t trust herself. How could she know so surely and so suddenly? But she did. It was almost like that time last spring when they’d woken up to snow in May. There was certainly no arguing about it or pretending it wasn’t there when it lay before you so clearly.
Her mom wiped off her hands and held them open before the girls. “If you’re finished sticking your noses in my spices, ladies, cut yourselves a piece of gingerbread and scoot.”
Katie let her mom take the little bottle of cloves from her hands, but she soaked in the look of it, in case she wanted to find it later. She cut two squares of gingerbread and set them on two small plates. As she finished smoothing the whipped cream on top, Ana started pulling her away.
“Come on,” she said. She nodded at Katie’s mom like they shared a secret. “Your mom has important baking to do. Let’s eat in your room.”
Ana nodded at the Thankful Chains on her way up the stairs. “Hey, Mikey made one of those at school. What are you guys counting down to?”
Katie nearly tripped on the bottom step. She’d forgotten about the dangerous thing she’d written, for a few hours anyway.
“Until my family might fall apart.”
Ana stopped. “What?”
Katie hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “Never mind.” She trudged up the steps. “It’s just counting down until Christmas. That’s all.” She remembered what she’d been wanting to ask Ana.
“Who was that old lady at the pond last night?”
Ana turned at the top of the steps. “You mean your mom?”
“My mom’s not that old,” Katie said, even though that wasn’t totally true. “The one with you and Mikey.”
“Hmm, didn’t notice her,” Ana said as she led the way to Katie’s room. But there was something shifty about the way she said it. She sat at Katie’s desk and turned to her plate. “Mmm, gingerbread. You really do live in a fairy tale over here, huh?”
Something like that, Katie thought. But she let Ana get away with changing the subject.
The girls ate their gingerbread together, then spent the rest of the day doing things that were guaranteed not to get them into trouble. Ana showed Katie how to make paper snowflakes the right way, with six sides instead of eight. Katie showed Ana how to fold paper stars, wanting to feel as close and comfortable with Ana as she had with Grace. She thought of the words Grace wrote on the bottom of every letter.
Remember this truth: you are not alone.
Katie had friends in Boston now, and of course she had her parents too, but she did feel so alone here sometimes. There had to be a way to feel connected again. Maybe if she just talked about Grace with Ana.
“One time,” she said, “my friend Grace and I told our secrets and wrote them inside the paper stars.”
Ana thought for a second. “Okay,” she said. “You go first.”
Katie shrank back into her chair. “I didn’t mean we had to do it. And I don’t have any secrets. No
t really.”
Ana gave her a look. “Everybody has secrets. Okay, fine. I’ll go first.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, like she was about to swim wall to wall underwater. “I used to be a hockey player like my dad. Now that the season’s started, it kills me to think about everybody else on the ice while I’m just sitting around here doing nothing after school.”
Like me. Katie tried not to seem wounded, but it stung to know that’s how Ana thought of their afternoons together. She swallowed and tried to focus on her friend. Even though she’d never been able to play sports, Katie knew plenty about leaving behind something you loved.
“Couldn’t you start playing again?”
Ana flopped back on Katie’s bed and stared at the ceiling. “It’s too late for this season, and my mom couldn’t handle it anyway. She’s a mess. It feels like my dad was the only reason she cared about anything.”
Was that what happened to my birth parents? Katie wondered. Did she stop caring about me when he stopped caring about her? How many different ways do families fall apart?
Ana sighed. “I mean, I know my mom loved us. Loves us. If I could just figure out how to pull her back from wherever she’s gone, we’d be okay. Then maybe he’d come back too. We’re not the kind of kids you give up on.”
Katie lost her breath for a second. Ana didn’t know about her adoption. She didn’t mean anything by it. Did she?
Ana propped up on one elbow to face Katie. “So there you go: my biggest secret is my messed-up family. Not much of a secret, huh?” She sat up. “Okay, your turn. Tell me all your darkest secrets. You owe me at least two for that.”
Katie didn’t want to tell Ana about her heart because it made her weak.
She didn’t want to tell Ana about her adoption because it made her whole family seem wrong today, even when it had seemed perfectly right last night.
But she’d have to say something. With every second that ticked by, she knew Ana would be expecting something bigger, but the real secrets seemed to burrow deeper inside her.
Paper Chains Page 4
