Chapter 2

I need to move around before I turn into an ice sculpture, so I jump off the back porch, and look into the sky. The air is full of huge, light snowflakes twirling leisurely all around me before landing softly on the frost-coated trees and shrubbery in the garden. It’s not enough to actually be considered a snowfall; it’s more like a reminder that today isDecember twenty-fifth after all, and we shouldn’t think we’re spared the snow even though there’s barely enough to cover the ground. It’s as though the weather is keeping us on our toes, teaching us not to take anything for granted.

I start walking; my feet find the path leading from the garden, through the woods, and down to the clearing by the creek half a mile or so from the house. I haven’t been this way for years—not even since I moved back to Idaho in March. The only times I’ve been home the last decade since I left for college is for Christmas, and usually, it’s too cold and snowy this time of year to go for a walk.

It looks more or less the same; some trees are taller than they were when I was eighteen, but other than that it’s exactly like I remember.

I’m in no hurry; I’m eager to refamiliarize myself with the trees and bushes and everything. When I was around twelve, a family of rabbits used to live not far from the house, and I sat against the trunk of a tree for hours, trying to catch a glimpse of them so I could sketch them. I wonder if their descendants are still living here in the forest?

Now that I can admit it to myself, I missed this place so much living all those years in a concrete jungle.

It was last Christmas when I finally acknowledged what I’d been refusing to let myself think for the last couple of years; I wasn’t happy in New York anymore, if I’d ever been. I didn’t want to leave and go back to my lonely, shitty apartment far away from the people I love, where I spent too much time working a boring job so I could afford the rent, and notime pursuing my dreams. It’s not like I expected to graduate college and immediately succeed as an artist or a children’s’ book illustrator—not even “Auden with his head in the clouds” isthatdeluded—but I also didn’t expect to not have time to ever work toward my dreams.

And last year, surrounded by my loud, crazy family, I wondered why I was even doing it anymore. I wouldn’t have to work the awful long hours just to survive if I moved back home—a definite upside of living in a small town. Here, I would still have to get a job, but I’d also have time to work on my art.

On top of that, in October last year, Emily gave birth to a lovely little girl, Merry, named after my Disney-crazy sister’s favorite Sleeping Beautyfairy godmother Merryweather. Merry spent most of last Christmas in my arms, lulled to sleep by the beat of my heart. I held her close, inhaled the sweet baby scent from the black tuft of hair on her head—teasing Emily that she should have given her daughter a more punk-y name, like Patti or Debbie, to go with the hair—and gazed in awe on her little heart-shaped mouth, mesmerized by how her limbs moved and jerked in sleep and how she made sucking motions with her mouth. Whenever she clenched a tiny fist around my little finger, my heart filled with love for this wondrous creature.

The thought of leaving my darling Merry, and not seeing her for an entire year—or maybe fourth of July if I could save up enough money for a plane ticket—made my stomach twist and ache. So when I stepped off the plane back in New York on December twenty-eighth, I made a decision. And in March, I moved back to Idaho, to my family’s unbridled joy. Not to Pine Valley where I grew up and where my parents and siblings still live; instead I found a job in Riverwoods, thirty minutes away by car. Close to my family, but not tooclose.

So here I am. Back in a place I thought I’d left behind forever when I was young and idealistic—and thought I couldn’t be an artist anywhere else but in a big city—but completely satisfied with my decision. Even if it means having to sneak out during family gatherings to get a few minutes of alone time.

It feels…right.

As I step into the clearing, I lean back my head and draw a deep breath. I love the crisp smell of the air in winter just before a heavy snowfall, and how I can almost taste the freshness and the looming snow on my tongue. I shiver again and burrow deeper into my scarf as a gust of wind chases between the trees and makes ripples on the otherwise-calm creek.