Cold Comfort

Maisie had been sick in the night, and again at breakfast. She didn't feel awful, just hollow, not quite real, but Mum said she would have to stay indoors.

Thomas had not been sick, and now he was outside with Mum. Maisie could watch them through the window from where she sat ignoring the TV. Thomas's green all-in-one looked funny against the white, and Mum seemed blocky, like an ambulant shrub. Maisie could see Mum laughing when Thomas threw a snowball at her, and she watched her creep up behind him and push a handful of snow down the back of his neck. Thomas turned cross and tearful and Mum crouched down and said something to him before they performed a symbolic hug, too wadded to really make contact.

Mum vanished from the window then, appearing inside a moment later. "Ok Mais?" Maisie nodded. She badly wanted to play in the snow, but she felt too feeble to say so. Mum went back outside.

Maisie may have fallen asleep, because then Thomas was there, holding the washing up bowl like he was waiting for her to be sick again, except in it there was a snowman, as tall as her big bear, with stick arms and a marble smile. Maisie started to cry, and Thomas looked alarmed. "You can break it, and build it again if you want?" he offered, and she nodded, reaching out a hand and pulling off it's arms, smiling wanly as the cold kissed her fingertips.