Holidays, Chocolate Cake, and Frozen Lakes

Silence. It was the first thing I seemed to notice when I walked into our home that was usually bustling with excitement.

There wasn’t the usual patter of feet running up and down the stairs from the kitchen to the loft and back again. No sound of music playing softly in the air as my wife hummed along while cleaning up the mess she’d made while cooking dinner. The clinking of pans and dish water splashing was non-existent as I walked through the empty living room and into the kitchen.

My heart ached as I took in the same scene that I had been walking into for the last two days. The table was set for five with a highchair at the end. Dinner had already been cleared and in its place sat a delicate looking chocolate cake. A special treat that my wife only made during the holidays, which only made us appreciate it that much more.

She had told me early on in our relationship that her family had a tradition of making fruit cake the whole month of December and she hated it. She wanted the same tradition but with something better tasting which started our tradition of chocolate cake for the winter holidays.

Sitting down, I looked at all the empty spaces. I thought about what had been going on when they all had been here. My wife had been sitting next to Bella’s highchair smiling adoringly as Bella’s innocent little hands palmed a slice of chocolate cake into her mouth.

The oldest, Brielle, was scarfing down her slice so that she can run out to meet her boyfriend Dave in the old barn. She always thought they were sneaking but my wife and I always knew. She was a smart girl on her way to college soon, so we knew it was time to cut the leash and allow her to make her own choices.

Bentley had been sitting next to Brielle tapping away on his phone until I sat down. Then we had begun a debate about whether or not the climate change will affect his generation or the next. He was always so passionate about the world and what we as people should be doing to care for it. As the only boy of three sisters, he was as strong and caring as he could be to them and to others.

Then there was Bally. My rough, strong willed, young Bally. Out of all the settings her plate was the only one free of cake. There wasn’t even a lick of icing on it. She had been angry with us for not allowing her to dye her hair a ghostly blue color for the winter. Not wanting to ruin the holiday treat, my wife had allowed her out to the frozen lake to go skate off some steam like she normally did when upset. Her special frozen pond as she called it.

Any other day I would have allowed her to calm before going to reason with her. I would have had a talk with my wife to see if there was a solution where we could meet in the middle since we hated to just say no flat out without reasoning.

However, that day, I didn’t continue my conversation with Bentley or dig into the slice of chocolate cake before going out to talk to her like I normally would. A decision that I would think about for the rest of my life.

Looking down at the slice of chocolate cake in front of me I knew that by now it was no longer soft and sweet. Soon I would have to toss them all away and it hurt me to my core. It was as if I would be throwing away life as we knew it and I didn’t want to do that until I knew for sure it would go back to being the same.

Tears fell as shame and defeat filled my chest with such a ferocity that I had to lay my head down on the table for a minute. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that less than three days ago my life had been filled with laughter, warmth, and love. Emotions that were so different compared to what I was feeling now.

The phone rang, flashing the green light then the red. I wanted to ignore it and stay in the safety of the unknown, but I couldn’t allow myself the bliss of temporary ignorance. Rising slowly I went to answer it only to be met with my wife’s crying on the other side as she rambled incoherently. When I finally made out her words, they broke the chains that I had wrapped around my emotions. I couldn’t stop the loud sob that escaped as her cries mixed with the hospital nurses speaking over the intercom.

Hanging up I rushed outside into the cold frigid storm that was blowing about. The needle like pain exploding all over my body from the cold was a welcome escape from the pain in my heart. My foot stepped on something that made a loud crunching noise. Looking down at the brown package I bent to inspect it further. It hadn’t been there when I had entered moments earlier but by the scribbling on the front, I could tell it was sent locally.

The paper had been crushed and ripped revealing the blue hair dye that Bally must have ordered before speaking with her mother and I. The conversation ran through my mind again as fresh tears spilled coldly down my cheeks. I'd let her dye her hair in every color of the rainbow if it meant that I'd have her back in my arms laughing her infectious laugh while taunting her siblings.

I took a moment to breathe and try and calm the feelings that were assaulting me. I didn’t know if I wanted to pray, cry, scream, throw things, or just allow myself to check out mentally as I thought back to my wife’s call.

Tossing the package back towards the door I turned and stared at the path leading towards the lake.

I knew I should have headed back up to the hospital the moment my wife had delivered the news. I should have jumped into my truck and sped up the highway to go be with my family, but I just couldn’t do it. I had to see it one last time before the storm covered it like it never happened. One last time before all we had was a memory and the emotional scars to go with it.

Walking down the snow-covered path towards the lake I counted the 10 pear trees making sure to say their individual names like I always did. One named after each of my kids that made it into the world and one for each child that didn’t.

My wife was always telling me how pear trees symbolized fertility, wisdom, and longevity. She would go on about how no matter what culture or religion you looked it up under it was always connected to rebirth.

She’d had the idea to plant the trees up the path from our house, past the old barn, and to the old lake at the edge of our property. A path that we would use everyday whether walking or driving. A path that would allow us to appreciate the lives that we had and the lives that we’d lost.

Just as the pear trees stopped, the path was illuminated by the marigold flowers that were being covered in the white snow. While they usually survived winter, I knew they wouldn’t survive the frost that was coming, and we would have to replant.

My stomach tightened and my heart leaped to my throat as the frozen lake came into view with the gaping hole standing out like a beacon of death. The hole looked furious and ominous as the water sloshed over the jagged edges. Looking down at my arm that was wrapped in the gauze I tried to remember the sharp ice cutting me to the bone, but I couldn’t. The only thing that had been on my mind was keeping hold of her to prevent the current from whisking her beneath the ice where I wouldn’t be able to save her.

I had followed her out that night when she’d stormed off. I had watched her stomping along the path looking up at the pear trees as she passed by. I had wanted to turn back to grab my beanie and gloves since I had forgotten them, but something told me to stay with her.

I remembered looking back to see everyone else trailing behind me up the path and even though I had a thought to stop and wait, the urge to keep walking to her was stronger. Parental intuition was warning me that something wasnt right but I couldnt figure out what.

Then, as if my legs all of a sudden knew what was going to happen, I started to jog toward the lake where she was now skating.

She had glided back towards the edge right when I made it to her, and it was like slow motion as her body dropped through the ice.

I still couldn’t understand how I instinctively dove down so that I could slide across to her on my belly just as her head went under. I reached her in just enough time for my fingers to get a good grip on her jacket hood.

Every time that particular scene crossed my mind, I became nauseas with grief as I thought about what would have happened if we wouldn’t have followed. If she was there alone when she went under the freezing water.

It was Bentley who made it to us first. He dived in halfway with his stomach hanging over the edge to try and get a grip on her body. His hand had shot out of the water and reached behind him for me in a hurry. On instinct I let go of my grip on her hood and lifted him out. Some how I just knew he had her.

My mind fumbled through all the little things that could have gone wrong that day. How quickly she could have been lost. How my intuition had led every decision that I made that night and how it had worked in our favor.

Bentley and I had just pulled her from the water just as my wife and daughters made it to the lake edge. Bentley was yelling for Brielle to go and grab the truck as I had started CPR. Looking back, it had seemed like such a long time before she’d coughed up water and took a small breath, but it had only been a few minutes.

Brielle had made it back with the truck and we’d rushed her to the hospital where she was placed into a medically induced coma. We were told so many things that could go wrong with her waking up. That they wouldn’t know if she would be able to walk or talk again. Whether she would have respiratory conditions or be stuck in a vegetive state.

I looked back out at the hole once more before turning around and walking back up the path. This time as I called out the names of the pear trees, I allowed myself to cry at hers. I allowed the full break down that I had been avoiding for days. I cried thinking of my wifes revelation that everyone followed that night because chocolate cake wasn’t the same without the whole family. I thought about her phone call to me minutes earlier and the rolling emotions that I no longer had control over.

Walking back to the house I grabbed the package with the dye in it realizing how something as small as hair color seemed so trivial in the mist of it all. I knew that every decision I made as a parent from that point forward would involve me thinking about this day and if it was worth me losing someone on bad terms over small things.

In a matter of minutes our lives could have changed due to a horrible accident but the only thing that I thought about was what couldve been my daughters last words to me, was that she hated me, over blue hair dye. I thought about how the tradition of chocolate cake being eaten as a family led all of us to the lake that night. How, if not for Bentley that I wouldnt have been able to pull her out of that water without falling in myself.

Looking down at the dye once more I clutched it closely and headed back to the hospital relishing the fact that my daughter hadnt died on that frozen lake due to intuition and the family tradition of chocolate cake on holidays.