The Charm Bracelet (24 page)

“Isn't it beautiful?” Lolly asked, a big smile etched on her face. “Everything looks so fresh and new. And it makes me feel like a kid again.”

Lolly hopped up and down. “Let's get ready to have some fun!” she said, pulling Arden by the hand back into the cabin. “How about some pancakes first, and then we'll build a snowman … and then a snow fort … and then make snow ice cream … and…”

“Mother!” Arden interrupted. “It's only snow. And I don't really like snow. I only like the days off school.”

Lolly stopped and stooped in front of her daughter. “What a silly thing to say. Who doesn't like snow? It's magical.”

“It's cold and wet,” Arden said. “How's it magical?”

“Let's have some breakfast, and then I'll show you!”

*   *   *

“The secret to a great snowman,” Lolly said to Arden, her words coming out as big puffs of smoke into the frigid air, “is its pack-ability. See?”

“The what?” Arden asked, folding her arms around herself, her glasses fogged over from the cold.

Lolly smiled at her daughter. At first glance, the ten-year-old looked as if she was seemingly trying to ward off the cold, but Lolly knew it was more than that: She was trying to ward off the frigidity of the world.

Arden had always been that way.

Lolly bent down and picked up two huge handfuls of snow, recalling all of the comments Arden's teachers made on her report cards:
Arden is smart and a great writer but is very sensitive, shy, and unaware of her beauty, talents, and dimensions that make her unique. She seeks to please others too easily. She doesn't stand up for herself.

“See?” Lolly said, pushing her hands together to make a ball. “Lake-effect snow is too dry, so you have to put some extra heat into it to make it melt a little. Then it's perfect. Your turn,” Lolly said.

Arden gathered a tiny ball of snow, which disintegrated in her hands.

Lolly again smiled at her daughter, and trudged through the snow. She kissed her daughter's stocking-capped head. An inch of newly fallen snow toppled off the top of Arden's head as if her mother had just knocked it off with a broom.

“Follow my lead,” Lolly said, turning in a wide circle to gather the base for the snowman, pushing snow into a large mound.

Mother and daughter worked silently in tandem as the snow hissed around them, their grunts and pats echoing in the quiet, white world. When they were finished, a nearly four-foot round, plump sentinel stood quietly on the hill as if to protect their little log cabin and the frozen lake below.

“Is it time for hot chocolate?” Arden asked. “I'm getting cold and wet.”

“Oh, we're not done yet, my dear,” Lolly said. “We still have to give her a little personality to bring her to life, just like Frosty. Wait here!”

Her?
Arden thought.

Lolly trudged through the snow, now hip deep on her, leaving a meandering trail behind her. She returned a minute later carrying a plastic bag.

“First things first,” Lolly laughed, setting the bag atop the snow and plucking out a feather boa. “To keep our snow woman warm and stylish.”

“Frosty is a
boy
, Mom!” Arden protested. “
He
can't wear that!”

“Ours is a snow
woman
! And snow women can be even more magical, my dear,” Lolly said. “She just needs a piece of us—our history—a little extra dimension to make her shine in this world.”

Lolly pulled out a pair of large blue buttons and stuck them on the snow woman's face followed by a pair of fake eyelashes as big as butterflies. Next came a carrot for a nose and smaller red buttons for lips. Pink buttons trailed down the snow woman's front.

“Over there,” Lolly said to Arden, motioning to a pine tree. “Get us a couple of those fallen branches.”

When Arden returned, Lolly attached them as arms, placing an old purse in her piney hands.

“And now? The finishing touch!” Lolly said, yanking out a straw hat—drenched in spring flowers—and placing it on the snow woman's head with a flourish. “Voilà!”

Lolly and Arden took a step back to admire their work.

“What do you see when you look at our snow woman?” Lolly asked.

Arden's face still registered confusion.

“I thought snowmen were
men
,” Arden asked. “That they couldn't be women.”

Lolly let out a deep sigh that lingered, frozen, in front of her face. She grabbed her daughter's hand. “You can create and be anything in this world that you want to be,” she said, shaking her mitten, her bracelet jangling in the silence. “Your imagination should be limitless.”

Lolly continued. “Didn't you know that people are just like snowflakes? No two are alike.”

“Really?” Arden asked.

Lolly lifted her face to the sky and let the snowflakes gather on her eyelashes. When she blinked, they caught in the wind and went flying.

“You bet,” Lolly said. “As snowflakes fall from the sky, they each take a different path to reach the earth. They float and flicker through clouds and cold, taking shape in a unique way, just like us. Every snowflake takes a different journey to the ground that makes it unique. Sometimes it's hard for them to make it all the way here to us, but they do, still holding on to all those wonderful dimensions that make them different from every other snowflake in the world.”

Arden held out her hand and waited for a snowflake to land in her palm. “You mean this one is different from every other one out here?”

Lolly stopped and stooped, her knees slowly sinking in the snow until she was at eye level with her young daughter. “Yes! Isn't that amazing? But what we try to do is to fit in and conform, so we're like everyone else. We lose all of our unique angles…”

Lolly grabbed her daughter's hand and held it in the air, snowflakes gathering in Arden's mitten. “… that make us special, just like these snowflakes. It's up to us to remember how multifaceted we are and to celebrate all those odd little angles we have which make us who we are.”

Arden smiled and nodded.

“What a dumb snowman!”

The words cracked through the air, breaking the frozen silence and making nearby cardinals take flight. Lolly stood and turned, her arms protectively in front of Arden.

Two boys were standing a few feet away, one dragging a sled and the other a toboggan.

“You boys know better than that,” Lolly said, turning. “Watch your tone.”

Arden remained behind her mother. That's when the wind-burned faces of these two boys registered in Lolly's mind: Arden had pointed them out to her once after she got off the bus, saying how they always teased her at school.

“Sorry,” one said without any remorse. “Let's go, Ted.”

The two boys trudged off into the snow, until they disappeared into the fog.

Arden was still standing behind her mother, when Lolly suddenly dropped like a dead weight onto the ground.

“Snow angels!” she yelled, trying to distract her daughter's mind from the boys. “Let's see yours!”

Arden fell into the snow with a soft whoosh, and began sliding her arms and legs through the snow, giggling as the powder flew into the air.

Lolly stood and carefully helped Arden step from the silhouette she had created.

“Two angels,” Arden said. “A big one and a little one.”

“Both unique,” Lolly said, hugging her daughter. “Both perfect, right?”

“Right!”

“Want some hot chocolate? With extra marshmallows?”

“Yeah!” Arden yelled.

The two trekked inside and shed their wet winter gear, pulling on robes and warming themselves in front of the lake stone fireplace with their hot chocolate. They sipped, while the snow still fell heavily, making the windows appear as if they had white curtains hanging outside.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

As the two sipped, they suddenly heard a barrage of rapid shots hit the cabin, as if a hunter had missed his target and sent errant buckshot flying.

Lolly and Arden ran to the window and looked out. Two figures in hooded coats were trying to run, but the depth of the snow and the drag from their sled and toboggan held them back.

“Stop! Stop! Right now!” Lolly yelled as she threw open the door to the screened porch, her shouts making snow slide from the roof.

Lolly quickly yanked on her mukluks, coat, and gloves and sprinted off the porch. “I mean it,” she yelled. “I see you. Come back here!”

As she heard the boys' laughter echo across the lake, Lolly turned to see that the snow woman she and Arden had just built was on its side, as if it had gotten tired and wanted to lie down for a long winter's nap. Its head had rolled off to one side, its hat had already blown against the house in the wind, and its face was now expressionless and blank, the carrot and buttons now deep in the drift.

Arden stood as frozen as the snow woman on the screened porch. She watched her mother turn her face toward the heavens—snowflakes gathering on her youthful face—and then suddenly take off in a flash, her anger seeming to make her fly across the top of the snow.

As if on cue, the sun peaked out through the thick layers of lake-effect clouds that rolled by in the sky, illuminating Lolly as she bent down, hurriedly made a snowball as hard as a baseball, and whipped it at the two boys, where it smashed against the back of one's coat, shattering on impact.

“What the…?!” the boy yelled.

The two bullies turned, their faces growing even redder, their surprise turning into anger. “You shouldn't have done that, lady!”

“You shouldn't have ruined our snow woman!”

“Snow woman?” they mocked. “Ha! She didn't really stand up for herself!”

The boys quickly began to make snowballs, and Lolly now stood as helpless as their snow woman had been. They picked up snowballs in each hand, and Lolly turned to brace herself for the attack.

Whap! Whap! Whap!

I don't feel anything,
Lolly thought.
Am I too cold to feel the sting?

Whap! Whap! Whap!

That's when Lolly turned, and her mouth fell open. Arden was standing—back straight, chest puffed—a series of snowballs stacked in front of her, like cannonballs on a battleship. She was firing them rapidly and accurately, each snowball making direct contact to the boys' chests and, now, backs.

“Never touch my snow woman again!” Arden yelled. “And don't you dare ever hurt my mother!”

The boys dropped their snowballs and took off running.

Tears of love and pride ran down Lolly's face, before stopping, frozen, in midtrack.

Lolly hugged her daughter, and then the two made their snow woman come alive yet again before heading inside to finish their hot chocolate.

“I'm so proud of you for what you just did,” Lolly said, as they sat again in front of the fire. “That took a lot of courage, and it showed another dimension of who you are as a person. I want to show you something,” Lolly continued, returning a minute later with two pieces of white paper and pairs of scissors. “I thought we'd make some paper snowflakes to hang in the window, since the holidays are coming up soon and we're getting our tree this weekend with your dad.”

Lolly handed Arden a pair of scissors and a sheet of paper. “Doesn't look like much right now, does it? Just a plain ol' piece of paper. But we're going to make magic, just like we did with our snow woman.”

Lolly took a sheet of paper and folded it three times until it formed a tiny triangle. “Now, take your scissors and lop off the tip, and then begin cutting little designs into the edges. The lines can be curvy or straight, whatever you feel like. Your turn.”

Arden slowly followed her mother's directions, using the tip of her scissors to make intricate patterns.

“It still doesn't really look like anything,” Arden said, scrunching her face and looking at the tiny piece of folded paper, chock full of cuts.

“Not yet,” Lolly smiled. “Now we have to unfold it, very carefully.”

Arden gasped when she was finished. “It's … beautiful!”

“Just like you,” Lolly smiled. “Let's hang them in the window. They will welcome your dad when he comes home, just like our snow woman.”

Lolly taped the snowflakes in the window, and they danced, the peekaboo sun illuminating their intricateness.

“See how different the two are?” Lolly asked, putting her arm around Arden. “Wholly unique, just like us. And see all the different angles and curves, patterns and designs? We all have that inside of us. But it's up to us to make sure the world sees all of our beauty. We have to learn it's okay not to conform, to be our true selves.”

Arden ducked her head. “It's hard to be different sometimes.”

“I know it is, Arden, I know,” Lolly said, pulling her daughter tightly into her body. “But without showing the world all of our dimensions, we're just a flat piece of paper.”

Arden smiled and hugged her mother.

“Want to make some more?” Lolly asked.

“Yeah!”

Lolly returned a moment later and set a stack of paper on the coffee table in front of the fire. On top, one piece was already folded and cut.

“What's this?” Arden asked.

“It's a special snowflake for you,” Lolly said. “Open it carefully.”

Arden unfolded the paper, and, as she did, a charm came tumbling out.

“It's a charm of a snowflake,” Lolly said. “For your bracelet. My mom gave it to me a long time ago on my birthday. She used to tell me on my birthday that the world was celebrating my uniqueness. I still believe that. And I want you to celebrate yours, too. This charm is a reminder to live a life in which you become a person of many dimensions. Only that way will you become a whole, happy person.”