The pure frost decorates the window. Delicate white flakes fall from the clouds in the overcast sky. I look out, enraptured by the still beauty of it all. I knew the cold would burn. I knew the chill would bite. I knew my face would go numb from the freeze. Yet none of these prospects lessened my desire to feel the icy crystals gather in my hands, to taste the gossamer flakes melting on my tongue. I could hardly stand to wait until I could soak myself through with the miraculous crystallized rain. Only a little while longer. Just until my brother came home. I sit at my small circular table, my coffee cup warming my hands. I stare out the window, watching birds capture the air along with butterflies and flower seeds. I watch the breeze make the trees and grass dance. I enjoy the silence. It gives me leave to reflect and reminisce. It leaves me alone. It doesn’t ask me questions and it doesn’t blame me for things long passed. A sudden noise pierces the air and cruelly jolts me out of my reverie. I blink a few times, sigh, and slowly stand, leaving my decaffeinated concoction behind. The noise is coming from the telephone, that pesky machine. I didn’t want it but my mother forced me to get one so she could check up on me every once in a while. She wanted me to get a cell phone but I negotiated down to a landline so I could do my shopping and take walks in peace. I look at the caller ID, expecting to see my mother’s name. Instead, a number I’d never seen was causing the unwelcome ringing. I waited for the answering machine to pick up. A short beep sounds. I hear his voice pierce the suddenly thin air. Every cell in my body goes numb. It can’t be him. 10 years of silence. 10 years of waiting. 10 years of agonizing guilt. I want to run. I want to pick up the phone. I want to smash the machine. I want to say hello. I want to tell him I’ve missed him. I want to tell him I’m sorry. But most of all, I want him to stop talking. I want him to go away, and to take all the memories back with him. I don’t know what my brother says or when he stops talking. I don’t know how long I stand in shock. I don’t know how I walk from my kitchen all the way to the beach. I only know that the things I worked so hard to keep away are rushing back and I can’t run fast enough to keep them away. I make it to the edge of the water before the first wave of memory crashes into me. I stare at the emptiness in front of me. The white beauty that once enthralled me now twists my gut with terror. The prospect of touching the deadly water flakes is more frightening than death. They are death. Beauty is a lie. Beauty is treacherous. Beauty is the murderer of everything good and happy. My only consolation is that the glass pane will keep the danger out. The destructive yet seemingly shatterable white wafers won’t be able to shatter what’s left of my irreparably fractured world. I stare out at the water all day. If I’m hungry, I don’t notice. If my mouth becomes dry from thirst, I don’t care. Animals come and go, the breeze picks up and dies down, the ocean rises and falls. At some point I sit down, hugging my knees to my chest. I’m not ready. I can’t face it yet. I left. I said my goodbyes. I was very clear with my intentions. So why had he called? Why would he do that? He knew that I had left, he knew why, and he hadn’t stopped me. He hadn’t said anything then, so why would he say something now? The questions form a hurricane in my mind and I don’t stop them. I let the storm rage and blow while I stare out at the vast blue sea. The light wind brushes through my skirt and t-shirt as if telling me I should get up. But I’m not ready. My home was my peace. My escape. Now it’s infested with the past. The baggage I’d left at home finally found me and I can’t outrun it this time. I suddenly felt like the ocean was covering me, blocking my access to air and light. I try to stand and back away but I’m paralyzed. I gasp for breath, knowing none will come. I rub my eyes in hopes that the deadly waters of panic will give me a small respite. But all I can see is the water, everywhere, spreading, smothering me, drowning me. In my mind I call for help. In my mind someone comes. In my mind, I make it back to my house and find my mug of coffee still on the table and my answering machine empty of voicemails. In my mind, everything is still fine. And then, my mind goes silent, the world goes dark, and consciousness slips away. “Emily, mom said not to go out until she gets home!” “But it’s been hours and hours and she’s not back and I can’t wait anymore!” “It has been one hour, not lots and lots. And she said she’d be gone for at least two so you can wait one more hour.” “No I can’t! If I don’t go now I’ll die from waiting!” “If you go out there, mom is going to be really mad and you won’t get to go sledding for the rest of the week!” “I don’t care! I’m going right now. Are you coming or not?” I open my eyes. My head is pounding and my vision is fuzzy. I lay on the sand for a while, the waves licking my bare feet. I realize I must’ve forgotten shoes in my blind escape from the answering machine. After a few minutes I push myself into a sitting position. The sun is setting, coloring the sky pink and orange. My stomach roars, angry with me for ignoring it all day. Begrudgingly, I stand and begin my long walk back to the house. I walk slowly, prolonging the inevitable for as long as possible. I stand at the door, breathing slowly, telling myself it’s only a voicemail, it can’t keep me out of my house. Surely I’m not that pathetic. And yet it takes all my willpower to move my hand and turn the knob. I don’t know what I expect the house to be like but it’s quiet, dark, and clean. The coffee mug is still on the table by the window and the phone is still blinking with one new voicemail. I stare at it. It stares back. I debate whether I should listen to it or not. I decide against it, not ready for the flood of emotions yet. I don’t even move the mug. I just walk to my room, lie down, and go to sleep. Paramedics, ambulances, blue and red flashing lights. Blood. Ice. Trees. Rocks. A sled. Blood. Rocks. Trees. My brother, flying. My brother, bleeding. My brother, not moving. My brother, dead. I wake up screaming, my pillows thrown around my room and my blanket twisted around my legs. My face and sheets are soaked from my tears. My throat is sore from screaming. I try to slow my breathing and rub my eyes to clear the film coating them. Once I have my bearings a bit, I slide into my slippers and walk to the kitchen. I reheat the mug of coffee that I neglected this morning and stand in front of the telephone. For a while I just stand and watch the blinking number one. Then I pick up the machine and carry it to the table. I sit and stare longer, hoping the number will stop flashing and this can all be some horrid dream. It doesn’t. After an hour of sitting and staring and thinking, I slowly reach forward and press the play button. “One new message,” the machine says. And then there it is again. His voice. I feel the panic roiling in my stomach but I force it to stay there. I listen to the message. And then I listen again. And again. And again. I listen to it at least 7 times. He can’t be serious. He knows what happened. He can’t possibly ask this of me. I play the message one more time. “ Hey Em. I know it’s been a while. If 10 years isn’t too long to call a while. I don’t know if you recognize my voice but this is Noah. Your brother. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you. In person. There’s a few things I need to say to you that I haven’t been able to until now. I know this is a lot to ask and if you say no I’ll understand but...I want to see you. And... Well... I want to go sledding.” I sit at my table, gazing out the window, like I always do. I have decided that yesterday did not happen. My brother did not call for the first time in a decade. I did not spend the entire day at the beach without eating or drinking. And, most of all, my brother did not ask me to do the one thing I have built my life around avoiding. So I sit with my mug of coffee, watching the birds and butterflies and flower seeds capture the air. I listen to them sing. I feel the warm breeze filter through my window. And then I hear a knock on my door. No one has knocked on my door since I moved in. No one lives close enough and I don’t have any friends. I watch the door, waiting for whoever it is to go away. Instead they knock again, louder. I slowly stand, tiptoeing to the door, and peek through the peephole. He’s here. My brother who until yesterday hadn’t acknowledged my existence for an entire decade, is standing at my door. I take a step back, telling myself this isn’t real. He can’t be here. He doesn’t know where I live. He really doesn’t know if I’m alive at all. He knocks again, sounding urgent. I tentatively reach forward and open the door. He looks at me. I look back. His eyes are deep and dark and sad. Mine won’t stop blinking, making sure I am not hallucinating. Finally, he blinks, swallows, opens his mouth. “Hello.” “Hello.” I run, not seeing anything. The wind surrounds me from all sides, trying to hold me back. The snow sucks at my boots. The trees scrape at me. It’s as if nature knows what I’ve done and is doing everything in its power to stop me from fixing it. I scream, not sure what comes out. I’m aiming for ‘help’ or ‘mom’ or ‘Noah’ but I don’t know if that is what I actually say. There are blurry lights in the distance. I don’t know if they’re from a car or a house but I don’t care. I try to run faster, my lungs burning and straining with the effort. I hear someone call my name and run toward the voice. I see my mother coming out of the house. When she sees me, her face whitens and she races toward me. “What happened? Are you alright? When you weren’t in the house I was so worried! Is your brother with you?” I didn’t know if I could speak but, through my sobs, I managed an “Eric, help!” I grabbed my mother’s hand and turned around, racing back to where I’d come from. “Emily you’re scaring me! What happened to your brother? Were you sledding? I told you to wait until I got home. Emily slow down!” But I couldn’t slow down. Eric was hurt. Eric was bleeding. Eric needed my help. Eric could die. I might have killed my brother. “How did you find me?” Noah is standing in my doorway, looking like he doesn’t know how to be around me. I can’t blame him. I don’t know how to be around me either. “Mom told me.” He shifts from one foot to the other nervously. I stare at him for a minute, then turn and lead him into the kitchen. I pour him a cup of coffee and sit at the table. “Of course.” He looks at his coffee, as if he isn’t sure he’s allowed to drink it. Then he looks up and pierces me with his desperate eyes. “I didn’t know if you would listen to my message or not so I just came.” “I listened to it.” “Emily, I know you don’t want me here. I know you didn’t want to hear anything I said yesterday. But I need you to know that I would never do this unless it was really, really important.” “Ok.” “Ok?” “What did you want me to say?” “Don’t you want to know what could be so important that I would come all the way here to tell you? Something so important, I asked you to do something you haven’t even thought about for ten years?” He’s wrong. I’ve thought about it. All the time I’ve thought about it. I haven’t stopped. I can’t. It runs on repeat through my mind and I can’t shut it off. It controls me. “No.” “Why not?” Because I don’t want him to say something I can’t handle hearing. I don’t want him to tell me anything that might endanger the delicate balance of my life. I don’t want him to take away the slim few parts of me that aren’t in pain. I don’t want him to tell me he’s dying. “There’s only one thing that could bring you here.” We look at each other, both knowing the truth, both hoping it isn’t true. He looks away first, staring at the coffee he still hasn’t touched. “I don’t know how long I have. It’s not cancer or anything, don’t worry. Honestly I don’t really know what it is. All that medical stuff doesn’t make sense to me.” I nod, not really paying attention. I can feel the fragile foundations of my being beginning to tremble. My brother never breaks his word. The only reason he would try so hard to contact me in so long would have to be because he doesn’t want to die on bad terms. And the only way he could prevent that so surely would be to know for a fact that he is dying. “Why sledding?” He traces the top of the cup with his finger. Round and round. “We used to love sledding. I know the last memories aren’t...good. But every other one is.” He looks at me then, his face full of so much longing it hurts me to see. “I just want to feel the wind whipping past us. I want to laugh simply for the joy of laughing. I want to feel the inimitable freedom of flying so fast, nothing in the world can stop me. I want that, one last time.” He looks down again, finally taking a sip of his coffee. He twiddles his thumbs nervously. I sit there, staring at his hands. I think for a while, trying to remember a time when the thought of sledding didn’t fill me with utter dread. I try to recall laughing and feeling free. All I remember is the fear, the blood, the tears, and the guilt. All I feel is empty. Then I look into my brother’s eyes again. He is so sad, so desolate. He is marking off the days, not sure which will be his last. And I decide I can do it. I can give this to my brother. I can let him have this one thing. I stole Eric from him. This is the least I can do. Even if it destroys me completely. “Come on Eric! I want to try this hill!” “It’s too dangerous. There’s rocks and trees everywhere! We’d crash in an instant and you might get really hurt.” “I’m not scared. Besides, I’m not going to be able to sled for a whole week. I might as well be injured.” “You’re crazy, you know that?” “Yes, I do.” “Alright, I’ll be in front. I’ll hold the sled while you get in.” “This is why you are my favorite brother!” “Don’t speak so soon. When you’re stuck inside with a broken arm, you’ll hate me for letting you go sledding before mom got home.” “Impossible! What’s the point in a battle if you don’t have any scars to show off?” “If you say so. Okay, ready?” “Ready!” I look out at the white surrounding me. I remind myself to breathe. I remind myself this is for my brother. I remind myself that I only have to do this once and then I can go home and tuck this memory into the far corners of my mind. Noah grabs the sled out of the car’s trunk. It’s not the same one we had, we burned that one, but it looks almost identical. I keep telling myself I’m fine and this is all okay. I keep telling myself I can do this. For Noah. I will do this for him. We walk to the top of the hill. Noah sets the sled down. We both stare down the hill. There are no trees, no rocks, and no one else is around. It is quiet and still. A wind doesn’t even blow through. We stand there for a while, trying not to remember. Trying not to drown. Noah turns to me, waiting. I watch the hill a little longer. Then I turn to my brother. We look into each other’s eyes. He nods. I take a slow breath. He reaches down to hold the sled still. I step on. The sled is going much faster than I’m used to, but I don’t dare admit it to Eric. His shoulders are tense and he works much harder to steer the sled than I expected. I knew the hill was dangerous but I hadn’t realized Eric was this worried. Suddenly I am afraid. “Okay, we can stop now,” I shout to my big brother. He grunts in acknowledgement, then shifts to stop the sled with his feet. The sled jerks to the left suddenly and Eric is jerked sideways. He nearly falls off, but he manages to hold on. Then he turns his head toward me and shouts, “Get off!” I don’t understand what he means so I just shout, “What?” “Roll off of the sled! It isn’t safe! We have to get off! Lean to the right and roll off!” I hesitate for a second, wondering if my brother is being serious or just trying to teach me a lesson. Then I decide he means it and lean to my right, lurching off and rolling in the snow. It takes several rolls before I come to a stop. Immediately I push myself up and look for my brother. Noah makes sure I’m settled onto the sled before he gets on behind me. He gives it a shove with his hands. And then we’re off. At first I think I’m imagining the sight. Nothing real can be so horrible. The sled picks up speed, creating a wind that blows around, carrying my hair behind me in long, frenzied strands. The sled is stuck, nose-down, end-up, between snow and a small boulder. I tell myself the cold is making my eyes water. My brother is sprawled face-up in the snow next to the sled. I tell myself the wind is making my nose run. The snow around him is red, especially around his head. I tell myself my lips are trembling from the cold. He isn’t moving. We near the bottom of the hill. I can’t tell if he’s breathing. The sled begins to slow. I try to shake him awake. The ground has flattened out. He doesn’t respond at all. His eyes don’t even flutter. The sled comes to a stop. My brother can’t be dead. We sit there, silent. “WAKE UP! PLEASE ERIC, WAKE UP!!” Noah turns around slowly. “Please Eric, please! He wipes a few tears from my cheeks. I get mother. She calls 9-1-1. They say it’s too late. He puts a hand on my arm. I wrap my arms around Eric. “NO!” I scream. “NO NO NO!” He wraps both arms around me. “I’m so sorry Eric.” “I’m so sorry Eric.” My brother is dead. I killed my brother. “Thank you Emily.” My mother won’t look at me. “You’re welcome.” Noah swears to never speak to me again. We get out of the sled. I vow never to sled again as long as I live. We make our way back up the hill.