Where I live it never snows. Hardly ever rains. Winter starts and finishes with fog huddling close to the ground like a damp layer of dust coating a glass tabletop. The one day it did snow, I was stuck inside.
“You have to stay in the house, Carlota,” said Mama, tucking the blanket around me in my wheelchair. She was always so careful with me. “The ramp to the yard is icy and dangerous.”
Usually I liked Mama’s special attention, but sometimes it got in the way. Like now. I wanted to feel that snow, ball it up in my hands to see if it stuck. It would be fun to make a snowman. I thought about how I’d carve the cheekbones and eyebrows on the head. Javier, my little brother, would help find bark and sticks for the eyes, nose, and happy mouth. I’d wrap my red scarf around its neck.
I pressed my face against the window, the glass feeling like a jar of chilis just taken from the refrigerator. The yard was all white, the trees draped with snow lace doilies. I watched Arnoldo, my older brother, Maria, my sister, and Javier playing in the yard. They were lying back in the snow, swooshing their arms up and down to make angels.
Mama carried baby Jessie to his bedroom. As soon as she was down the hall, I wheeled myself over to the door, opened it, and rolled out onto the patio. The air gripped me like the draft from the freezer, chilling and exciting.
“Carlota, what are you doing out here?” Maria asked. “Mama told you to stay inside.”
“I’m just coming out for a little while, to see what it’s like. Mama won’t mind.” I turned to the ramp and stopped at the top. The cement looked slick and glossy like a mirror, reflecting the snaking branches of the mulberry tree.
With my hands gripping the rims of the wheels, I inched down the ramp, braking, almost going nowhere.
“Careful, Carlota. It’s really slippery there,” Arnoldo said. He dropped a fistful of snow. Javier gawked at me. Maria’s mouth opened. I couldn’t tell if their faces showed fear or admiration.
The chair twisted on the ice, and I lost hold of the other wheel. The chair slid across the glassy surface, crashing into the rail, thrusting my chest and head over the side like I a floppy, rag doll. My rib muscles throbbed.
Maria, screeching, ran to me, grabbed my collar, and folded me back into the chair. Arnoldo gripped the wheelchair’s handles, braced himself against the opposite rail, and pushed me back up to the patio.
“Are you all right?” Maria asked, hunching down and peering into my face.
“My chest hurts . . . where I hit the rail,” I said, breathing hard. I rubbed where the wood had stopped me, feeling to see if my ribs were broken. “I’m O.K.”
“You almost killed yourself, you fool!” Maria said. “Does Mama know you’re out here?”
I didn’t answer. I looked down at my legs and noticed that my shoes were jammed behind the footpads. Javier lifted my feet and placed them on the pads.
“Let’s cart you back in there before Mama finds out what you did,” Maria said. Javier held open the screen door as Arnoldo drove me back into the house. Long before Mama came out of baby Jessie’s bedroom, I was back, looking out the window.
I leaned my arms on the sill and breathed mouthfuls of fog onto the glass. Arnoldo was shaking his head as Maria squawked at him and flapped her arms.
After a while when she calmed down, Maria walked out into the yard under the naked walnut trees with Arnoldo and Javier following behind. As I looked at the sky through the craggy branches of those trees, a tear drizzled down my cheek onto my lips.
Stupid wheelchair! I wanted to be outside. I wanted to play in the snow with everyone else. It wasn’t fun being cooped up in here with nothing to do.
I was surprised Maria didn’t tell Mama what I’d done. Instead, she told Arnoldo to get the red wagon from the patio and pull it out under the trees where the snow was smooth and thick.
My brothers and sister filled the wagon with a mountain of snow. I watched as they packed it in, patting it with the palms of their mittens, building it higher than even the wooden slats on the wagon’s sides. Arnoldo dragged the wagon up the yard to the side of the house out of my view, everyone trailing behind him.
I sighed, turned my chair away from the window, and rolled over to the desk where I laid my head on my folded arms. I had nothing to do, and, now, couldn’t even watch Maria and the others playing. Was Maria still mad at me for scaring her? Is that why they went to play where I couldn’t see them?
“Carlota, go to the garage. Maria is asking for you,” Mama said from the kitchen. I could hear the chopping of her knife on the cutting board.
As I turned my chair around towards the garage door, I felt a flutter in my chest, a lump in my throat. Would Maria tell Mama what I had done?
I opened the door and rolled down the ramp. Maria, Arnoldo, and Javier stood in the middle of the garage floor, next to the snow-filled wagon. They were all smiling with big, toothy grins. Arnoldo patted the snow like it was a big belly. Javier laughed so big that I could see the spaces where his two teeth were missing.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Something good was about to happen. Something warm and comfortable and happy just the way I liked it. Like when I woke up in the morning and smelled fresh tortillas. Like when Mama gave me her ribbons and sewing kit to decorate my doll clothes, or when Daddy wrote poems to me on the back of my birthday cards. This something would be like that.
“Now you can have snow, too,” Maria said.
I wheeled over and braked abruptly in front of the wagon. “Help me build a snowman!” I shouted as I dug a hand into the cold, white mound.
Outside the garage window, sunshine peeked through a gray cloud. The snow would be melting soon. Daffodils would poke their heads through the dirt liked it hadn’t been cold at all.
It never snows where I live. It hardly ever even rains.
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