But Tobias Gamble was something I put in the back of my mind in a way I wasn’t going to sort it out later.

He was my sister’s fiancé’s brother.

He had become a friend.

Due to the way the Gamble men were, as well as nearly everyone in Matlock, Kentucky, most especially after what had happened with Brooks, he felt it was his duty to look out for me.

And seeing as I’d be family by marriage come next August, for the Gamble men as they were, I just came with the territory.

Yep.

That would be nope.

Not thinking about Toby.

Push him right to the back of my mind.

I did that, got out and started the drill.

Get my son out of his seat in the back of the car and get us inside the house.

Let Dapper Dan out after giving him a few pets and letting Brooklyn squeal at him.

Hit the thermostat and jack it up from the fifty-eight I set it to during the day to save on utilities, to sixty-nine (the temperature I picked because I thought it was funny, but it still wouldn’t give me high heating bills) so my kid and I didn’t freeze.

Put Brooks in his playpen and dump my purse so I could go back out and grab the five bags of groceries I’d got from work before picking up my kid.

Cart those in, put away frozen stuff and perishables, go back to the front door to Izzy’s metal mailbox at its side, the box with the hummingbird and flowers stamped in it, to get the mail.

Thank the town of Matlock for having a postal service, which even outside the city limits had postal workers who drove up to your house, walked up to your porch, and delivered your mail so I didn’t have to walk the thirty yards to the road to get my mail when my kid was alone in the house in a playpen, or drag him out there with me in the cold.

Call Dapper Dan, who, after doing his business and checking out the dusting of snow, rushed inside to be with his people.

Close the door, lock up, throw the post on the little bench at the side of the hall with its blue and white striped padded seat and take off my coat and hat to hang the coat on one of the hooks and shove my hat in one of the cubbies of the shelf above it.

Give Dapper Dan a proper “hey boy, missed you” rubdown.

Go into the living room and get my kid out of his coat, hat and gloves so he didn’t roast now that the furnace was heating up the house.

Put Brooks’s stuff away then take him with me to the kitchen to put him in his highchair, with enough toys he had plenty of choice of what to bang on the tray and toss on the ground.

Give Dapper Dan his evening kibble and freshen up his water.

Retrieve toys from the floor and give them back to my son.

Put groceries away.

Retrieve toys from the floor again and give them to my son.

Put a bib on Brooks, leave him with some crackers and start on his dinner.

Monitor him eating while making myself a sandwich, consuming said sandwich, going back to the hall to get the mail, opening the mail, then setting it aside and deciding to put the amounts owed on the utility bills into the back of my mind until I was ready to deal with them.

Clean up my kid’s face, hands and the tray on the highchair, unsnap the bib and take him out of his chair to put him on the floor to motor around, with Dapper Dan keeping an eye on him while I took the bib to the laundry room.

Come back to the kitchen and clean up after my sandwich while keeping track of my son and my dog so they didn’t get each other into trouble, as they’d become apt to do.

Notice through the window over the kitchen sink that it had started snowing again.

And then taking a detour of the night’s planned activities. Thus not giving my boy some time with his dog and going to the laundry room to fold the load I’d put in the dryer that morning and put a load into the washer for that evening before giving my baby a bath and getting him ready for bed.

Instead, I again trussed myself and my son in our jackets, gloves and hats and walked out the front door with Dapper Dan dancing around us.

Then I stood in the front drive with my son held to my chest in both my arms.

“Snow,” I told him as it drifted light all around us.

Brooklyn stared in my face, put a hand to my cheek and giggled.

I smiled at my beautiful bundle, held him tight and tipped my head back to the heavens.

The clouds obscured the stars, diffused the moonlight, but the soft fall of flakes was crazy amazing.

They touched my forehead, my cheeks, my chin, a barely-there trace of cold before it disappeared.

That was life.

That was each and every experience.

That was what I had of my son before he’d be driving, dating, off to college or to live his life.

Every instant was a trace.

And then it was gone.

So when it snowed, instead of going through the motions to get him settled down and ready for bed, I had to take him out, hold him tight, and even though he’d never remember this, I would. And I’d treasure standing there and holding my baby close in the gently falling snow.

That was something my mom would do.

That was something my mom had done.

Countless times, she’d taken me and Eliza out in the snow, or the rain, and we’d accept God’s offering, His simple gifts of pure beauty just as they were meant to be.

I opened my mouth.

Brooks giggled.

I felt a flake melt on my tongue, and having taken my offering, I closed my mouth and looked at my boy.

“Mama,” he said.

I hoped I never forgot that.

I had hoped it every time I got it from the first time.

That trace.

My thirteen-month-old baby boy saying my name.

“Yes, baby, isn’t the snow gorgeous?” I let him go with one arm and pointed up to the sky. “Look, Brooks. There’s nothing like snow in the moonlight.”

He didn’t look.

He pitched down, reached his arms out and called, “Dada.”

He wanted to play with Dapper Dan.

Okay.

If that’s what Brooklyn wanted, that was what he was going to get.

So I took him inside, unwrapped him, put him on the floor in the family room, went back to the hall, unwrapped myself, locked the door and went back to the family room to hang with my kid and my dog for a few minutes before bath time.

 

“We’ll be there, what do you want us to bring?” Deanna asked.

It was an hour and a half later.

Brooklyn was asleep in his crib upstairs.

I was in the little laundry room downstairs, moving laundry from washer to dryer, with Dapper Dan doing his bit by snoozing flat out on his side with his head hidden under the open dryer door.

Since it was the week after Thanksgiving, earlier I’d texted the group string, that group being the Usual Suspects, with an invite for Sunday to come over and decorate for Christmas.

The Usual Suspects, by the way, included my sister Eliza (or Izzy), her man Johnny, her friends who were my friends too, Deanna and her husband Charlie, Johnny’s people (the man and woman who helped raise him and his brother Toby when their mom took off), Margot and Dave . . .

And Toby.

Even if I wanted to (and I wanted to), I could not let pride stand in the way of Deanna’s offering, or the ones that had also come via text from Margot and Izzy.

I could not put on a spread for my peeps after I invited them over to start the year’s holiday cheer.

I couldn’t afford it.

I was living in Izzy’s house and paying her mortgage now that she was moved in with Johnny at the mill.