“I want a giant snowman,” Kade yelled, swinging a purple shovel—one they’d bought to make sandcastles at the beach—around. “The biggest one ever. Bigger than abuilding,” he exclaimed, hopping to reach as high as he could.
“Me, too,” Avery said, her voice not as loud but equally enthusiastic. “Bigger than atree.”
“Buildings are bigger than trees,” Kade argued.
“No, they’re not.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What about you, Kate?” Gage asked, politely breaking them up.
Travis’s attention shifted to Kate, who was slowly gathering up snow into a little yellow bucket. She didn’t answer, so Travis walked down the steps to join them.
“Kate?”
She turned her head, clearly not having realized Travis was there. Her brown eyes glistened with what he knew were tears.
“What’s the matter?”
Kate looked at him, then looked at Gage. “I wanna make a snowmommy.”
Travis’s chest tightened and he had to swallow the knot that formed in his throat. He looked at Gage, saw his eyes were glassy, too.
“Then let’s do that. Let’s make a snowmommy,” Travis told her. “What does she look like?”
There was a hitch in her voice when Kate said, “Like Mommy.”
For a second, he thought he might be having a heart attack, his chest constricted so tight, and it was painful to breathe. But Travis pushed through, wanting to support Kate. The therapist she was still seeing had told them the best thing they could do right now was to be supportive, to show her they were there for her.
“What should I do?” Travis offered, hoping to distract her.
“We need more snow,” she decided.
“Here!” Kade hopped over to him, passing off his purple shovel. “You can use mine.”
“You can use mine, too, Daddy-O!” Avery said, giving him her blue shovel.
With one in each hand, Travis squatted down, scooped snow into a pile. Kade and Avery transferred it over, forming it into a ball.
It took some time, but they managed to scrape enough snow from the grass to build a decent-sized snowmommy. And by decent, it topped out at maybe two feet, not quite the building or the tree they’d been going for. When they were finishing up, Kate took off inside, leaving Travis and Gage to stare after her.
“You think she’s all right?” Gage whispered.
“I hope so.” He looked at Gage. “You want to talk to her? Or me?”
Gage passed Maddox over to Travis. “I’ll do—”
Just then, Kate came racing back outside carrying a handful of things. She stopped at Travis’s feet and stared up at them.
“Can we use these?”
Travis smiled through the tears that formed as he saw the sunglasses Kate was holding. They were Kylie’s favorite pair, the ones they’d bought her for her birthday a few years ago. She was also holding a rainbow-colored scarf. Or what was supposed to be a scarf. It had been Kylie’s attempt at knitting, one she’d done with Kate and Avery. Aside from being long and slender, it didn’t much resemble a scarf, more like a scraggly, skinny attempt at a blanket, but he knew Kylie had worn it on occasion because it made the girls happy.
“Perfect,” Gage said. “You wanna put ’em on?”
The kids worked together to get the glasses and scarf situated. Travis focused on breathing as he held Maddox.
“She needs arms,” Kade decided, wading over to the row of bushes along the back porch.
