First Snow Pancakes

My father called them first snow pancakes.

Bisquick, eggs, milk, oil. And snow.

I grew up in a chaotic and dangerous house—belts cracked against skin, fists against faces—but the first snow softened the world, inside and out.

As if the yard, pure, unmarred, gave us hope we could all be good again.

It made us think we could be different from what we were.

School day or not, on the first snow morning, I would find my father in the kitchen, Bisquick box at the ready.

I knew my job; I was to collect the snow.

Pajamas still on, I would rush to don my jacket and boots, grab the measuring cup, and head out into the yard.

I was excited each year to be given this role, even as I knew the risk of making a mistake. But I was used to the fragility of peace, so I let the jittery elation fill me as I sought to choose the right snow.

Cheeks burning, fingers numb, I scoooooped the measuring cup into the snow. For a moment, I would feel the relief of holding something so pure, untainted. Then I rushed back to the house.

With the snow at the very edges of the cup starting to melt, the tiny water droplets clinging to the plastic rim, I would look to my father.

Those mornings, he would always smile, and my shoulders would relax a little more.

He would nod and I would dump the snow into the batter.

Plop.

As the butter hissed, we pretended this was how we always were—joyful; together.

We collectively hoped the pancakes would transform us.

We tried.

All of us.

I believe that even as I know it didn’t work.

We would eat those pancakes, smiling and laughing.

We could taste the hope on our tongues, sweet and dense, like syrup.

But the magic never lasted.

Outside, the snow turned grey and slushy. Inside, new bruises formed, and tears fell.

Year after year, we repeated this cycle, but the snow never saved us.

It has been nineteen years since the police pulled me out of that home; and still, the memory of the first snow pancakes returns to me each year.

I sit, now thirty-one, and watch a different first snow fall outside a different window.

Eleven years ago, in my first apartment, I bought a box of Bisquick, determined to reclaim this ritual. But I never did.

The box has become battered and misshapen after being shoved to the back of the pantry in every home I have lived in. I pretend it is not there until the first snowfall each year when I open the pantry and look at it, then close the door with shaking hands.

Until today.

I put on my boots and my jacket. I take a measuring cup from the drawer.

The snow falls around me, catching in my eyelashes and my hair.

I am both seven and thirty-one.

I try to breathe, to notice where I’ve planted my feet, even as I slide in and out of the past.

With the measuring cup full, I go inside.

In my kitchen, the batter is too dense. My heart hammers, begging me to fix it.

I turn on some music, take a sip of coffee, and close my eyes.

In the end, I let the pancakes burn.