A Year Without Snow

-5-

Monday,16th August 2004

"Now you pour the sugar here...There you go. Very good!" My grandmother instructed me as I spilled sugar into a pink bowl that had a yellow cream inside.

I was sitting next to her on a yellow stool in front of the kitchen counter, helping her make a cake.

"Now we add the milk." She told me passing me a jar with a with liquid.

It had passed a week since we arrived at Oak Hollow. A week since my grandmother had welcomed us with opened arms and installed me and my mum in two of the many rooms that composed the house. I was set in my dad's old room, a blue painted division with a metal twin bed and packed with trophies and medals. My grandmother had assured me that we would paint it pink and buy some new furniture for it.

"Pour a little more, honey." She instructed me, placing her hand next to my small one on the milk jar helping me support the weight.

My mum wasn't at home as me and my grandmother stood on the kitchen's counter. She had spent this last week looking for jobs all around town, but every time she would come home shaking her head, a desperate look on her face. However, every day she would get up early and go out again, which meant that we didn't speak much. When I woke up she would've already left, then she would come back for lunch, eat a bowl of soup, and then go back out of the door and only come back when my grandmother had already put me in my pajamas and settled me in my dad's old blue sheets.

My dad became only an empty spot in my small heart, and every so often I would cry in my grandmother's lap because of it. But as she caressed my brown hair, while I cried, and as we watched 80's movies together, made cakes and even went downtown to buy me clothes, she became my new found safe haven. I let down my so well built walls for her.

"Can I eat it now?" I eagerly asked, looking at the bowl.

"No, honey, not yet. Now, we put in the flour." She informed me as she raised herself from the stool.

As she turned around I dug my finger into the yellow cream and took it into my mouth. As the taste hit my mouth, I shot my tongue out of it, a disgusted expression spread across my face.

"Ew!" I yelled cleaning my tongue with a napkin.

"I told you," My grandmother stated laughing while searching the cupboard for the flour, "Oh, silly me. We don't have flour."

"Oh, no! What now!" I asked in a horrified tone, I wanted to eat cake.

"Now we go out and buy it." She answered and picked me up from the stool, "Let's get you dressed."

We ascended to the first floor and into my room. As she was searching the wardrobe for something for me to wear I entertained myself by looking at my dad's old clothes.

"How did dad fit into this," I asked raising a very small pair of pants up to my small face, this could have easily fit me.

"He was once your size, you know?" She responded while taking a pair of pink jeans out of the wardrobe.

I then picked up a black shirt that had two guys in it, one with a red vest and the other with crazy white hair.

"Grandma, aren't they from the movie we saw yesterday? Isn't this Marty?" I asked excitedly turning the shirt around for her to see.

"Yes, it's from Back to the Future. Your father used to love that movie." She responded looking at a picture of my dad that laid on the wall.

"Really!? Oh, I liked the movie too! Can I use the shirt? Can I? Please!" I asked her running to her and hugging her knees.