Saturday afternoon. You’ve spent all morning watching large snowflakes fall through the window. The drifts pile higher than your head. An idea hatches.

Your mom is occupied, as always, at the kitchen table with a crossword puzzle. She’s solved it hours ago, but she trying to run down her own weird white whale: a crossword puzzle full of alternative answers, synonyms that mysteriously still fit the clues and interlock as cleanly as the intended words. She got almost halfway through one once. Someday it will happen for her. She doesn’t do things without reason.

You sneak into the hall closet and get out your snowsuit and moon boots, mittens and round plastic sled. You’re allowed to go sledding, but you have other ideas today. You carry the items upstairs as slow as possible, hoping to not attract too much attention.

You climb to the top of your dresser and look out of a half window that oversees the top of the garage. From inside, you can hear your Dad and his friend wanking on electric guitars. This is the beginning of your generation hating guitar solos. If your fathers hadn’t played guitar, you might have more respect.

The guitar playing isn’t enough to cover your plan. The ice around the window cracks loudly. Downstairs you hear a chair scrape on the kitchen floor. Your mom calls your name. “Where are you?” she asks. But you can already hear her approaching the steps. You have to rush. Your little arms barely have enough strength to pull yourself up and out into the snow. You flail around to pull the sled through after you. The small window isn’t big enough. You bend it until it nearly breaks to force the fit.

The snow storm rages outside. The snow and ice come with a sandy bitterness on your skin. While it looked soft as cotton from downstairs, it swirls and attacks now. You can barely see past the edge of the house. Scampering on your hands and knees, you position yourself on the ridge of the garage rooftop. Your mom is now at the window, threatening to climb out to get you. She yells to you to not sled down the roof. You turn away from her. The inside of your snowsuit is padded and warm. You listen to your heart beat inside your ears. When you push off, the eave comes quicker than you could have guessed. You vault into the air with a violent bump, and for a long, silent moment, you can only hear the cold breath of the wind rushing against your cheeks.