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“Wow! I’ve never seen this much snow at once. It’s so…everywhere!” Charlene leaps into the snow and proceeds to faceplant with glee.
When she doesn’t pop back up immediately, Skwisgaar hurries to grab his daughter. Clearly, the pile of coats Sunday forced on her made her top heavy. He knew that was too many! Her hatred of cold has made her blind to her daughter’s needs. As he scrambles to get a hold on her puffy parka, she rolls over, laughing so hard she’s gasping.
“It’s only cold on my face! That’s so weird.”
“Ja, yous mother puts you in too manies clothing to feels it, littles marmshmallow. Does you need a hands?” He puts both hands out for her, but she turns him down.
He brushes the snow off her jacket when she kips up, but not fast enough. Charlene shakes like a dog, covering him in wet flakes.
“Hej! Don’t splatters your pappa!”
She giggles and bounds away, sinking to her knees in powder with each step. Skwisgaar follows, weighing the morality of putting a handful of snow down his child’s neck. She wouldn’t feel a snowball through those layers. Then again, they haven’t known each other very long. He’ll wait a few more winters on that one.
Charlene stops in a clearing near the entrance to the woods. “How about here?”
“Sures, as goods a place as any.”
“So, how do we start?” She studies him intently, blue eyes unblinking in their concentration.
“Eugh…” It might be a good time to mention he’s never built a snowman. He won’t though; his credibility as a parent’s hanging by a thread after the coat thing. And the ignoring her existence for the first seven years of her life thing, an unhelpful voice in his head supplies. “Wells, yous makes de big rounds ball.”
“Won’t it balance better if it’s flat on bottom?”
He shakes his head. “Snowsmen needs to be round so theys can roll around when you isn’t lookings.”
“That’s not true!” She laughs in disbelief. “Have you even built a snowman before?”
His authority lays in shambles at his feet. She caught him out before she grabbed any snow. He racks his brain for something to say and comes up blank. Pickles was right. He only knows things about guitars. You're not cut out for the parenting thing and it was silly to try, the voice insists. His mood plummets.
“Hey buddies! What’s yous guys doing?” Like a winter angel, Toki stands haloed in cold sunlight before him, redeeming this family activity before it can crash and burn.
She literally bounces in excitement, sinking further into the snow. “Hey Mr. Toki! We’re making snow people! Do you wanna help?”
“Ja! I loves the snowsmennen. Sometimes I makes little snows Tokis and snows kitties.”
“Wow! You must be an expert!”
Normally, Toki besting him would make him anxious, but his expertise lifts the load from Skwisgaar’s shoulders. And isn’t it so much more important to see his daughter happy? She’s elated— even more than she was when they stepped outside. He starts rolling a massive snowball for the bottom, picking up speed as he continues. Huh. This is relaxing, actually. Toki sings Snømannen Kalle while he rolls. Charlene can’t decide between the Norwegian lyrics and the original English ones, so they end up with an incomprehensible mishmash of Kalle and ‘Frosties the Snowsmen’ that they frequently interrupt with peals of laughter. Skwisgaar’s heart grows two whole sizes.
The guitarists connect the middle of the body to the bottom and share a smile. He clasps Toki’s shoulder. Moments like these are rare gifts. Skwisgaar couldn’t think of better company. As he opens his mouth to say so, Charlene darts between them and plants the head on top.
Toki looks from him to the snowman and squints, tongue peeking out between his lips. “Oh! I gots it! We forgot to gives him cool decockrations. Holds on!”
With a decisive snap of his fingers, he’s gone, sprinting into the woods. He watches him go with a warm feeling in his chest. What could his goofball be doing? Wait, his goofball?
“Whoa! Be careful Mr. Toki! Look! Look, he’s going up the tree!” Charlene shouts, craning her neck up to watch. Beside her, Skwisgaar does the same.
Toki scales a tall bare tree and grabs onto a branch. He sunders it from the trunk with one strong yank, muscles straining under his shirt. Skwisgaar bites his lip. Concern… isn’t exactly what’s on his mind right now. He’ll process that later. His fellow guitarist shouts something about breaking the branch apart, but it’s drowned out by a creak and a deafening crash.
He blinks and he’s shielding Charlene with his body a good seven feet away from where they were. Father and daughter look back. A still buzzing power line bisects their snowman in two, lying where they just stood. As soon as she catches her breath, she screeches at the top of her lungs, bursting into tears. Skwisgaar flops over onto his back, chest heaving with icy breaths.
Toki screams back. He blinks again and the younger guitarist is standing over them, pale blue eyes wide with worry and welling up with tears.
“Yous coulds have dies and its ams MY FAULT!” He wails, clutching Skwisgaar to him in a bone-crushing embrace, squeezing the air he just fought to get back from his lungs. “I almost kills you!”
“It amn’t yours fault, Toki,” he wheezes back, weakly patting him on his back while he struggles to escape the hug. He extracts himself enough to check on his daughter— whose screams have quieted but sobs have by no means stopped— and is relieved to find her frightened, but otherwise unharmed.
He can’t make out her blubbered request until Nathan’s there helping her fulfill it.
“Your mom’s coming. I’ll take you over there. You’re okay. It’s okay,” he rumbles, scooping her up in his arms and sprinting back the way he came. Sunday’s running their way as best she can while stumbling and clawing her way through the snow.
Watching their tearful reunion, Skwisgaar wonders if he’ll ever be a good parent. He pushed her out of the way without thinking about it, and he checked on her after, but… He’s not clutching her against him and weeping.
He’s still attached to Toki, who looks between him and the trio kneeling in the snow and reassures, “Yous knews she’s okay. They’s didn’t. Yous still a goods dad, Skwisgaar. You isn’ts a dick for not cryings.”
“Ams it that’s obvious?” He asks, shame still burning a hole in his pride.
“Nah. Tokis just been watchin’ yous for a whiles. Yous cares in your owns way.”
He’ll never admit it, but the words resonate with him and stick. They all care in their own ways, and while he hasn’t figured out exactly what his is yet, he’s thankful for the people in his life. Toki’s brand of caring warms him up a little more than others— but that’s a fluttering he’ll keep in his chest for now.
Sunday and Nathan finally make it back to the scene of the accident, the latter carrying his soon-to-be-stepdaughter on his shoulders.
“Pretty wild first snowman, Charlie. How could you ever top this?” Sunday asks, taking in the carnage. “That’s gotta be the most brutal snowman I’ve ever seen.”
Nathan snickers. In their usual way, they’ve decided to make light of the situation so nobody feels too bad about it. “Yeah. Cleaved in half by a power line. Actually, that’s a song idea…”
“But what about the people that won’t get power?” Charlene whines, reminding them that she’s a decidedly unbrutal nine-year-old. “Aren’t I hurting them?”
“Don’t worries, littles Charlie. They’s Klokateers. They suffers through worse,” Skwisgaar promises.
“Ja, like gettings throwns in volcanos, chopsed up in de hatredscopters…” Toki trails off, realizing his audience, and tries again. “They’s probably have a backups generator whats keeps their heat on. Or theys can builds a fire with the wreckage whats comes from the downsed line.”
“Well, I guess it's brutal and cool. No one else at school will have put an electrical wire on their snowman. And the Gears are good at fixing things…”