1
If there was one thing Penelope Dalton knew for certain, it was that every day offered up at least one magical moment. A taste of sheer happiness that was sweeter than her favorite dark chocolate caramels. Too many moments had slipped through her fingers before she’d known to look for them, but over the past month, she’d made it her mission not to miss any more.
This was today’s—knees-down in the snow, shivering from the cold and wet that soaked her cotton leggings and the hem of her dress, building a snowman while her daughter chatted nonstop about her day at school.
Penelope had thrown on just enough outer layers as she left work to keep her comfortable on the ten-minute walk to and from Malarkey Elementary. But when she and Ella had approached the park in the middle of downtown, all white and winter-wonderlandy, she could practically hear it begging for them to be the first to leave their mark.
And since memories didn’t make themselves, they’d walked hand in hand into the fresh snow, inadequate attire be damned.
“What was the best thing that happened at school today?” Penelope asked. She shoveled an armful of snow into a pile and began molding it around the ball Ella had formed.
“Besides the snow?”
Snow wasn’t unusual in the northwest corner of North Carolina, but this early in the season they rarely got more than a smattering of flakes at a time. The couple inches that had fallen since lunch were a delightful surprise.
“Yes, besides that.”
“At recess I got to play tag with the other kids,” Ella said, her gap-toothed smile taking over her face. She skimmed her fingers over the cat ears sewn into the top of her knit hat, then continued. “At first Mrs. Shutters said she wasn’t sure if I should play because she didn’t want me to get hurt, but then one of the other teachers said it was just tag and running around would probably do me some good after being sick. So Mrs. Shutters said okay. And then, guess what happened? I got to be It, Mama!”
Penelope locked her eyes on her daughter, her smile freezing into place and breath catching in her throat, a vain attempt to hold on to the moment. But not even Ella’s excitement about playing the position in the game no one ever wanted could keep reality from rushing back in at the word “sick.”
Exhaling, Penelope relaxed her face. Ella had gotten to play at recess like a normal third grader. That in itself was a reason to be happy. For now, she would make it be enough. “That’s great, sweetie. Did you get to tag someone?”
“Yep. This girl in my class. Her name is River. She’s really good at tag. She almost never gets caught,” Ella said. She scooped her mittened hands into the snow then dumped it right back out. “Hey, wait! We can’t make our snow family without Grams. Let’s go get her so she can help.”
“It’s going to be a little tough for her to make snowmen while she’s working.”
“She can take a break. She’ll be sad if we make them without her.”
“You know she can’t take a break without closing the shop. Somebody has to help customers when they come in, and since I’m here with you, Grams is there by herself.”
Ella set a hand on Penelope’s to stop her from packing another handful of snow onto the lopsided sphere sitting on the ground between them. “I know. But can’t she just come for an hour? Please? I’ll make a note for the front door so anyone who wants some hot chocolate will know when to come back.”
Penelope hesitated. She had never been one of those moms to give in to her kid’s every demand. But lately the word “no” had abandoned her, and she couldn’t bring herself to go looking for it. Making Ella smile, hearing her laugh with delight—that’s what mattered now. Guilt from all of the no’s over the years—and all of the experiences Ella never had because of Penelope’s decisions—burned at the back of her throat. Giving in to it, she said, “You’re right. Grams wouldn’t want to miss this.”
“Yes! Okay, let’s go.” In her haste to get a move on, Ella chucked the handfuls of snow she had collected into the air, showering Penelope’s face with a flurry of snow as she stood.
Startled by the shock of cold on her cheeks, Penelope lost her balance and went sprawling backward in the snow.
“Sorry, Mama!”
“It’s okay,” she said, still staring up at the gray-blue sky. Maybe, she thought, on days when you really need it, you can steal a second perfect moment. Then she crooked a gloved finger at Ella. “Come here, kid.”
When Ella leaned over her, Penelope wrapped her arms around her daughter’s too-skinny waist and pulled Ella down on top of her. A chorus of giggles burst out of Ella at the sudden shift from standing to being draped across her mom’s torso. Penelope kissed Ella’s temple, where a wisp of light-brown hair had escaped the hat. She twisted to the side, careful to cradle Ella’s head with one of her hands, then laid her daughter next to her.
“Since we’re both down here, we might as well have a little fun,” she said.
Penelope scooted a few feet away and dropped to her back again. Turning her head toward Ella, she matched her daughter’s grin with one of her own. On the count of three, they both spread their arms and legs wide and made angels in the snow.
* * *
They sacrificed a half dozen dark chocolate truffles for the snowmen’s eyes. The truffles—formed by hand in the chocolate cafe Penelope owned with her mom—made for more convenient eyes than lumps of coal, which would have required a separate stop at the market a few blocks away on the opposite side of the park. Since they only had an hour before they needed to reopen the Chocolate Cottage, Penelope agreed to pilfer snowman supplies from the shop’s inventory. In place of carrots, they fashioned noses out of white-chocolate-dipped pretzel sticks as thick as two of Ella’s fingers. The pink, red, and green sprinkles set in the chocolate complemented the colorful aprons Penelope’s mom, Sabina, draped around the snowmen’s rotund waists.
The mouths proved more difficult. Ella had searched the apothecary table tucked into a nook in the back of the kitchen for a serendipitous stash of red licorice or even the whole dried cayenne peppers used to make the spicy hot chocolate she wasn’t allowed to drink. She found neither. In the end, Penelope convinced her daughter that chocolate-covered espresso beans were a good substitute. And the three snowmen smiled at the passing cars with unpainted lips.
“Are you finished yet?” Ella asked.
Penelope drained the last of her hot chocolate, grateful for the extra hit of warmth and the sugar rush it provided. Unlike her snow doppelganger, Penelope’s lips were stained a deep red and left a ring on the plastic lid. She handed the disposable cup to Ella, who was taking her time with her own drink. “What are you going to do with it?”
“You’ll see.”
Which in Ella-speak meant Penelope might have vetoed the idea if Ella had asked permission.
But Penelope was curious enough to let it slide. “Okay, well, we’ve got about ten more minutes before we need to get back. So whatever you’re planning, better make it quick.”
“I will,” Ella said. Then she turned away, tossing a smile over her shoulder, and raced off. Her boots kicked up snow behind her with each step.
A handful of other kids, all around Ella’s age, had made their way to the park and were building their own snowmen and amassing an arsenal of snowballs. None of them had parents with them. None of them would need immediate supervision with Mrs. Lehman in the antique shop across the street and Old Mr. Harvey sitting out in front of Malarkey Hardware on the corner to keep an eye on them.
“You two can stay, honey,” Sabina said, pinching a tangle of flyaway hairs between her fingers and tucking it behind her ear into the mass of dark curls. “Ella’s having so much fun. She shouldn’t have to stop just because I need to leave.”
“Believe me, she’s crammed a lot of fun into the day already,” Penelope said.
They both shifted to watch Ella. At first Penelope thought Ella was trying to overcome her shyness by talking to the other kids, but Ella bypassed them in favor of the line of trees separating the park from Hawthorne Street. Then she crouched beneath the barren limbs of a magnolia tree. Her hat snagged on one of the branches and twisted so the gray cat ears sat sideways on her head. When she crawled out, her smile rivaled the brightness of the snow blanketing the ground.
Penelope turned back to her mom, trying to remember her reasons for why they should pack it in too. It was easier when Ella’s happiness wasn’t her only focus. After a moment, she said, “Ella has homework to do and all this running around is going to catch up to her at some point tonight. I’d rather her crash at the shop than in the snow.”
Sabina tipped her head in Ella’s direction. “Doesn’t look like she’s slowing down anytime soon.”
Ella headed back to them, arms crossed over her chest to keep the long sticks she’d gathered from tangling with her legs and tripping her.
“Not as long as she can help it,” Penelope agreed, ignoring the cold ache deep in her chest that had little to do with the chill in the air. They’d had such a good day. She wouldn’t ruin it by letting the sadness get a stronger hold.
“I’m almost done,” Ella said, bending over to lay the sticks on the ground in front of the snowmen. After a short inspection, she handed two of the sturdier ones to Penelope. “Hold these, please.”
And just like that, Penelope’s smile returned. It was impossible to feel bad when Ella was happy—her good moods were infectious. “Your ears are crooked.” She spun Ella’s hat back to straight with her free hand.
“Thanks.” Ella picked up the remaining sticks and jabbed them into the middle sections of two of the snowmen, creating arms. One stick pointed up and the other reached for the ground. She stepped back, hands on hips as she looked them over. Nodding, she said, “Okay, Mama, I’m ready for those.”
Penelope handed over the sticks. “This one gets special arms, huh?”
“Yep. You’ll see why in a minute,” Ella said.
Penelope and her mom exchanged amused looks over Ella’s head.
Ella placed the sticks in the same position as the others. The forked end overlapped with the arm of the snowman next to it as if they were holding hands. Then Ella picked up Penelope’s empty hot chocolate cup and balanced it on the end of the snowman’s other arm.
“Ta-da! They’re us.”
“They certainly are,” a voice said behind them.
Penelope turned to find Malarkey’s mayor, Henry Jameson, walking toward them. He wasn’t quite six feet but was built like a small fridge. At just shy of fifty, he was in better shape than most people half his age thanks to his commitment to reduce his carbon footprint, which resulted in him tarping his car in the garage and walking everywhere he needed to go in town.
“I can’t tell you how good it is to see the three of you out here together,” he said.
“We couldn’t resist the fresh snow,” Penelope said.
He pointed to the cup in the snowman’s hand and chuckled. “That hot chocolate’s not gonna bring those snowmen to life like Frosty, is it?”
“No, I used the magic-free hot chocolate,” Ella said. She frowned at the cup as if it had let her down. Then she whipped her attention back to the adults, her lips unfurling into a smile again. “The table wouldn’t give me anything when I looked. That would be so cool, though. I’ll try again when we get back to the shop.”
Penelope wrapped her arms over her daughter’s shoulders and pulled her in so Ella’s back pressed into Penelope’s stomach. “I don’t think animating snowmen is the best use of magic.”
Ella tilted her head back to look at Penelope. “Don’t say that, Mama. It would be so much fun.”
“Yes,” Penelope conceded. “It probably would.”
But the recipes and ingredients that mysteriously appeared in the drawers of the antique apothecary table at the Chocolate Cottage came of their own accord. Penelope could ask for a magical fix to a problem, but there was no guarantee it would ever come.
Copyright © 2018 by Susan Bishop Crispell
