You Are Home [Hwang2Shin]

CH. 17

Snow has always been a nuisance to you.

At your previous foster homes, snow made it more difficult to walk to school and feel your toes, no matter how many socks you wore. Not to mention that every so often it snowed so much that school would get canceled, and you'd have to stay home in a drafty house with a crabby foster parent who had to take time off work to watch you.

But here everything has a tinge of magic to it, and snow is suddenly wonderful.

December has been particularly chilly, but you don't mind. The lake froze over earlier than ever, Ryujin told you on the night before you went skating for the first time in your life.

You learned so much that day, like that Ryujin played hockey in high school, and that Yeji can't stay on her feet on the ice even in sneakers. Yeji let you borrow her white figure skates, which looked barely worn. They were a bit big on you but Ryujin laced them up real tight so your ankles wouldn't wobble.

Yeji broke out into applause when you took your first tentative step onto the ice and you felt exceptionally proud. (There was just something about wearing something of your Ma's while learning something from your Mum that made the world shift, but in a good way. Like it was all slowly clicking into place.)

It was early still and some teenagers were shoveling last night's snowfall to clear off more fresh ice, but Ryujin led you to a smaller area -- already cleared -- where a few younger kids were skating. Some of them were pushing around milk crates to help them keep their balance. Ryujin glanced at the spare crates on the edge of the lake and lifted her eyebrows in question. You shook your head and she smiled. You took another step on the ice and you felt like that baby deer in one of Yeji's movies, teetering as it stood for the first time. You remembered what Ryujin told you and dug the edges of the blades into the ice and leaned forward. Once you were steady Ryujin grabbed your mittened hands in hers.

At first, she skated backwards and just pulled you along, letting you get a feel for the ice gliding underfoot. She took wide laps around the shoveled-off section, steering clear of the little kids, and Yeji cheered every time you passed by her on the bank. (Later Ryujin would show you the photos she took and point out how you and Yeji looked so alike, with your knit hats and rosy cheeks and gummy smiles.)

The first time you tried to skate without holding Ryujin's hands you fell. And you fell a bunch more after that. But each time you took a few more steps before you went down, and then Ryujin taught you how to turn those steps into glides, and at some point, without even realizing it, you went from trying to skate to just skating. When you completed a lap all on your own Yeji tossed two celebratory fistfuls of snow into the air and Ryujin spun in a circle, just like the figure skaters on TV, even though she was in hockey skates. You laughed, and then you fell, and then you laughed some more.

You didn't even realize your knees were bruised until you sunk into a steaming hot bath that night.

Two days before Christmas it snows so much that the city decides to cancel school until after the holiday break. And you're thrilled. It's not that you don't like school. You love it, actually. It's just that it's so hard to concentrate on your worksheets when there's a Christmas tree at home with a pile of presents beneath it that seems to grow larger each day. (Yeji won the tree argument, in the end, and you bought one from the band kids' fundraiser in the high school parking lot. Ryujin made her pinky promise you'd cut down a real one next year and Yeji kissed her pouty bottom lip.)

Your presents for Yeji and Ryujin are all ready to go, though they're not beneath the tree. As soon as you wrapped them you slid them under your bed, right where you hid your shoebox of food all those months ago. Sometimes you sit on the carpet, lift the dust ruffle, and contemplate the neatly wrapped gifts.