“I swear I like them for their personalities,” I deadpan.
She cracks a smile. It’s the most warmth I’ve gotten from her since Christmas Eve.
Small wins.
The air is bitingly cold, but the kids don’t seem to notice.
I hurl Thomas down the hill, and he squeals like he’s just been launched into space. Anika follows on her sled with a mock battle cry.
They’re magic, these kids.
We’ve gone up and down several times when I hear Thomas shout. “Auntie Ember! Auntie Ember, come sled!”
I see her at the edge of the hill, bundled in a caramel-colored coat and her cute hat with pom-poms, her cheeks pink with the cold. Her hair spills down her shoulders.
“Em,” I breathe out.
“I’m gonna go see a man about some skis,” Freja announces and leaves us.
Is the family thawing? Unlike the snow and Ember?
I get an indication they are when Ember complains, “Latika said I’d get cocoa if I came here and helped you. She said you’re making amends, and I had to watch your redemption arc.”
Oh yes! I am in with the Rousseau’s. Now, the hard part. Ember.
“I’m just trying to earn my soul back,” I admit, remembering how Tanya warned me to bereal. “Sledding seemed like the place to start.”
“We’re racing, Auntie Ember,” Anika informs her.
“A race,” Thomas cries out.
Ember stands there for a beat. Then, as if having made a decision, she climbs in behind her niece on her sled.
Anika whoops, grabbing the rope at the front of the wooden sled. “Let’s go, go, go!”
“You’re supposed to wait until we say one, two,three,” Thomas argues, huffing like a little general. “That’s the rule.”
“What rule?” Ember asks, raising an eyebrow.
“The one I just made up!” he shouts.
Anika shrieks in delight. “We’re gonna beat you!”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.” I crouch behind Thomas, steering us toward the drop-off.
The hill is lined by tall pines, heavy with snow, and right now it looks like something out of a landscape painting, hopefully one that does not come with bruised tailbones.
“Let’s go, Uncle Ransom!” Thomas yells, his voice high with glee.
I push off, the sled jerking forward, our momentum carrying us straight into a race that feels bigger than it is.
The cold air slices at my face, my hands burn from the wind, and Thomas is howling like a wolf.
The girls are slightly ahead, Ember’s laughter drifting back to us like smoke.
We hit a bump and go airborne for a second, landing hard. Thomas cheers like he’s won a medal.
At the bottom of the hill, we crash into a snowbank with apoofof powder. I fall backward into the snow, dazed and breathless. Thomas throws both arms in the air like a victorious gladiator.
