Snow Day
by Stephanie Loleng
Beatriz fastens off the last stitch of her blue-and-red crochet blanket, then carefully spreads it on top of her bed. This is her second winter in New York, and she’s slowly getting used to the rhythm of a new city and a new country. She’s finally finished after months of working on the blanket, stopping too many times from the pain in her arthritic hands. The stiffness in her fingers gets worse in the winter because of the dry air from the radiator that her son and daughter-in-law complain about. The heat escapes in loud clangs that sound like the banging of pots and pans. Beatriz doesn’t mind the warm air though. She just wishes it came with the humidity that reminds her of being back home in Cavite in the Philippines.
When her husband, Eduardo, passed away, her son Junior pulled her aside after the funeral while she was pouring herself a cup of Nescafe coffee, black with a teaspoon of sugar. He told her that she should move in with him and his wife, Marianne, and their kids, Eddie, Sylvia, and Lily. What he didn’t tell her, but what she could see in his expression, was that he was worried about her living on her own so far away from him. At first, Beatriz didn’t want to move away from everything she knew, but, feeling the pangs of loneliness creep deep inside her and the desire to witness her grandchildren grow up, she sold her house of fifty years, packed her bags, and took a flight from Manila to New York City.
She arrived in the middle of July in the suffocating heat and humidity of an island made of concrete and steel, not like the cool tropical breezes where she came from. Junior met her at the arrivals lounge looking eager and tired. He pushed a luggage cart toward the baggage claim area where they waited for her two large suitcases. One had her belongings inside and the other was filled with pasalubong from the divisoria market: bags of peanut brittle, sweet polvoron, and tamarind candy for the kids; wooden bowls, woven fabric placemats, and capiz shell candleholders for Marianne and Junior.
She spotted one of her suitcases on the carousel and reached forward to grab it, but Junior gently moved her arm aside.
“Ma, I got it. Don’t strain yourself.”
“Junior, I may be old, but I’m not weak,” she said, reaching for her luggage.
“I’m not saying you’re weak, I’m saying I’ll help,” he said.
Junior grabbed each of the suitcases and placed them on the cart, then pushed them out to a taxi waiting outside that took them from JFK to the Upper West Side. When they got to Junior’s apartment, a man wearing a dark blue uniform with gold buttons opened the door for them.
“Good morning, Dr. Lumaban. This must be your mother. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Lumaban,” the man said, extending a hand. She didn’t take her hand out of her jacket pocket but instead nodded a hello.
Junior showed her to a small bedroom adjacent to the kitchen and next to the back door where they placed their garbage for the porter to pick up. She thought what a luxury it was to have someone else handle your garbage for you. The building reminded her of the high rises she saw in Makati when she was in Metro Manila visiting her sister Pacita, who told her celebrities and wealthy politicians lived there.
At first, her grandkids treated her like a stranger but eventually Sylvia, who’s ten years old, and Lily, who’s six, warmed up to her. Eddie doesn’t though, even at twelve years old he’s just as hardheaded as his father. That stubbornness must run in the family, Beatriz thinks. Both Eddie and Junior have the same unwavering look in their eyes when they don’t get their way. The same look that her husband, Eduardo, gave her when she didn’t add enough sugar to his coffee, even though she warned him of diabetes. Although he frustrated her with his rigid ways, her love for him grew stronger the last years before he died. It pains her to think that he never got to meet his grandkids.
#
Eddie stares outside the window from their apartment on the 10th floor as clusters of snowflakes blow across the sky in a horizontal pattern. The wind whistles through a tiny crack in the window frame that makes him think of a bottle rocket zooming into the sky on the 4th of July. School is closed because of the storm, and Eddie has only one thing on his mind—sledding down Devil’s Slide, a steep hill in Central Park that Jonathan Bigsby bragged about going down at epic speeds during the last snowstorm. The smug look on Jonathan’s face made Eddie want to show him that he wasn’t the only sixth grader who had the guts to sled down that hill. Most of the kids their age headed over to the smaller hills, leaving Devil’s Slide for the high schoolers.
There was only one problem. Eddie wasn’t allowed to go outside without his parents, and since they were at work, he would have to figure out a way to sneak out of the apartment so that his grandmother wouldn’t know he had left. He waits until after she’s made his favorite lunch of sweetened spaghetti sauce mixed with cut-up hotdogs over soft pasta noodles. After they finish eating, Sylvia and Lily go to the living room to watch TV, but Eddie stays in the kitchen to make sure his grandmother goes to her room for her afternoon nap.
“I’m gonna lay down. If you’re hungry, there’s cookies here.” She pushes a large tin of Danish butter cookies toward Eddie.
He watches as his grandmother makes her way across the kitchen to her bedroom where she closes the door behind her, leaving a small crack open. A few minutes later, he hears old people’s music coming from her radio and figures she’s settling down for a nap.
When Eddie’s parents told him that his grandmother was going to live with them, he hoped it would be temporary, but a year later, she’s still there. It took him months to understand half the things she said because of her heavy accent. When his friends came over after school, he was embarrassed by the strange Filipino snacks she made for them, even though his best friend, Sam, said he liked the avocado sweetened with milk and sugar. He was probably just being nice, Eddie thought.
#
Sylvia and Lily are laughing at something on TV as Eddie walks down the hall to his room. He puts on a pair of thermals and snow pants, then goes to the entryway closet to grab his coat and gloves.
“Hey! Where are you going?” Sylvia asks.
“Geezus, you scared the shit out of me,” Eddie says.
“Oooh, you said a baaad word,” Lily says, clutching her stuffed bunny, Gus.
Eddie looks down at them standing there in their sweats. Sylvia has her hand on her hip, just like when their mom gets mad at him for misbehaving. Lily stands sucking her thumb, a childish habit that she should have outgrown already, Eddie thinks.
“I’m meeting Sam at the park. Don’t tell Lola, or else.”
Sylvia stares at him with her hand still on her hip. He despises that look on her face, like she’s trying to figure out if she should tell on him or not.
“You’re not supposed to go outside by yourself,” she says.
“I won’t be gone long. It doesn’t matter. Lola’s asleep. She won’t even know I left.”
Eddie starts to unlock the door, but Sylvia grabs his arm.
“Wait! We’re going too. I don’t want to be stuck inside all day, and Lily can’t be alone while Lola’s asleep.” Sylvia grabs Lily’s hand.
“No, there’s no way you’re coming with me,” Eddie says.
“Oh yes, we are.” Sylvia stamps her foot. “Or else we’ll wake up Lola and tell her that you’ve left.”
“Yeah, we’ll tell,” Lily interjects. “Gus is coming too, right?” She hugs the plush bunny to her chest.
Eddie sighs. His sisters have teamed up against him as they do from time to time, and it’s just easier to give in than to risk getting caught.
“Fine then. Hurry. But be quiet,” he says.
The girls rush to their bedroom to change as Eddie waits by the front door. He’s tempted to leave without them but knows that Sylvia would tell on him the minute they found out.
They take the elevator down to the lobby. Willie, one of the daytime doormen, is standing next to the front door watching the snow fall. Eddie is happy to see Willie because he’s much more gullible than the other doormen.
“Hi, Willie! Can you help us get our sleds from the storage room?” Eddie asks.
“You kids going out there now? It’s coming down pretty hard,” Willie says. “You sure your grandma’s okay with this?”
Sylvia and Eddie look at each other for a moment, then Sylvia turns to Willie.
“She’s coming too. She told us to go ahead. She’ll meet us there. I think she just needs to clean the kitchen first or something.”
He looks at each one of them, lingering on Lily. “Okay, but keep an eye on the little one.” He turns to Eddie. “You gotta make sure your sisters are okay.”
Eddie nods. “Of course. I wouldn’t let anything happen to them.”
“Okay, then. Wait here,” Willie says.
He grabs the key from behind the desk and walks to the storage room to get their sleds. He hands one to Sylvia and one to Eddie.
“Where’s mine,” Lily asks, not knowing that their parents haven’t bought one for her because they think she’s too young to go sledding.
“Lily, you can sled with me,” Sylvia says.
Outside, the snow is falling so fast that Eddie thinks it feels more like being in the middle of Antarctica rather than Manhattan. Snow blows onto their faces even though they’ve pulled their hoods up over their heads. Sylvia grabs Lily’s hand and tries to keep up with Eddie’s fast pace as they make their way to the park. Aside from a few people pouring salt on the sidewalk or shoveling snow, the usually busy street is empty.
The benches at the entrance of the park are buried in a foot of snow as Eddie leads his sisters up a windy path lined with barren trees, patches of snow clinging to their branches. The snow falls steadily, coating the park in a soft white blanket, muffling the sounds of their footsteps. They approach the hill from the summit side where a small group of kids and adults are gathered, some positioning themselves to sled down while others watch. He sees Sam and his other friend Hector waiting with sleds in hand.
“Jonathan just sped down. I hate that dude,” Hector says. “Such a showoff.”
Sylvia and Lily walk up the hill behind Eddie, breathing heavy. Lily tugs on his sleeve. He’s forgotten they were behind him.
“What the heck? We almost lost you back there!” Sylvia says.
“Whatever. You made it, didn’t you?” Eddie wishes he’d left them at home.
He looks down at Lily clutching her stuffed bunny with her mitten. She looks like a giant ube-flavored marshmallow, Eddie thinks, all bundled up in a puffy purple parka and matching wool cap. He’s had a soft spot for Lily ever since his parents brought her home from the hospital. He remembers seeing her for the first time; her eyes were too big for her face, and her hair was fuzzy spikes at the top of her head.
Sam nudges him in the arm and points at a hooded figure walking up the side of the hill. Eddie knows right away that it is Jonathan from his shiny silver jacket and industrial-style snow boots more appropriate for Wisconsin winters than Central Park. Jonathan makes a point of letting everyone know that his parents buy him all the latest cold-weather gear for their ski vacations in Colorado or Utah. Even though they joke about how much of a showoff Jonathan is, deep down inside, Eddie wishes he went on family ski vacations too.
“I see you guys made it. Not too scared to face Devil’s Slide, eh,” Jonathan says. He looks at each one of them individually as if trying to decide who to pick on first. “Hey, Eddie. Nice coat. Did you get that at Target?”
Eddie feels blood rushing to his face. “Shut up.” He looks over at Sam and Hector, but neither one of them says anything. He watches as two people speed down the hill, their sleds spinning sideways, snow flying everywhere.
“C’mon guys. What are you waiting for,” Eddie says to Sam and Hector.
“Nah, you go first,” Sam says, holding his sled in front of him like a shield.
“Are you serious? Don’t be a chicken shit. Let’s go,” Eddie says.
Hector turns to look away as if he isn’t listening.
“Hector. What the hell? C’mon!” Eddie shakes his head.
Jonathan looks at all three of them and laughs, then positions himself on his sled.
“Well, if you pussies aren’t going, I’ll go!” He grabs the sides of his sled, leans forward, and takes off down the hill, leaving a cloud of snow in his wake.
#
When Jonathan first arrived at Eddie’s school, he didn’t know anyone, but after two weeks, he was one of the most popular guys in school. Eddie, Sam, and Hector grew up together and despised the popular crowd because they thought those kids were a bunch of showoffs. But sometimes Eddie wishes he could be popular too. He thought he might “break into” that group when he went over to Rick Foster’s apartment on 72nd Street after their science teacher assigned them to be partners for a project about tsunamis. Rick’s nanny brought out vegan brownies and almond milk as an afternoon snack. Eddie thought the brownies were good, but that the almond milk tasted funny.
The nanny spoke to Eddie in Mandarin, thinking he was Chinese, but when he said he was Filipino, she looked disappointed. The following week, when Rick went over to Eddie’s apartment, Eddie’s grandmother baked them empanadas with ground beef, potato, and raisins. Rick refused to eat anything because he said his parents only fed him vegan food. Eddie felt so bad that he asked her to make something else, so she cut up slices of apple and dipped them in vinegar. Rick took one look at it, made a funny face, packed up his bag, and left. The next day, Jonathan teased him saying, “Have your people ever heard of potato chips?” A few of the other kids laughed.
#
Eddie, Sam, and Hector watch as Jonathan speeds down the hill. None of them say anything. Eddie thinks Jonathan makes it look so easy.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m gonna do it.” Eddie positions himself on his sled.
Sylvia and Lily stand off to the side next to a large pine tree to shield themselves from the wind. Eddie sees Lily run toward him, but Sylvia is staring at something in the distance. He yells at her to grab Lily’s hand, but she doesn’t hear him. He is about to get up off his sled but feels a hand press down on his shoulder.
“Alright, Eddie, let’s do this,” Sam says.
“Wait, not yet,” Eddie says but Sam doesn’t hear.
Eddie feels the snow whip against his face. It’s such a rush, but he’s also scared to go too fast. He starts to veer to the left in the direction of a bank of trees. He leans to the right and rides over a mogul that makes the sled spin. He closes his eyes and waits for the inevitable to happen. But instead of hitting a tree, as Eddie imagines, the sled slows to a stop at the bottom of the hill.
Eddie opens his eyes, looks around, and sees Sam and Hector a few feet away, brushing snow off themselves. His hands are still gripping the edges of the sled.
“That was epic,” Hector says. “Let’s go again!”
“Where’s Jonathan? I want to see the expression on his stupid face,” Sam says.
Eddie looks for Jonathan and sees Sylvia at the top of the hill waving her arms back and forth. He ignores her, thinking that she probably wants to go back home because she’s bored or too cold. She’ll have to wait, he thinks, until he’s taken a few more runs. He takes his time getting back up the hill. When he gets to the top, she’s out of breath.
“You idiot. What took you so long? Lily is gone. I don’t know where she went,” Sylvia looks scared.
Blood rushes to Eddie’s face and his palms start to sweat. He wants to get back on his sled and go down for one more run.
Sylvia grabs Eddie’s sleeve, “We have to find her,” she yells. He pulls his arm away. “This is all your fault,” he says.
“Don’t blame me! If you didn’t want to go sledding, then we wouldn’t even be here,” Sylvia says.
The snow has stopped, and Sylvia walks to a group of trees calling out for Lily. Eddie follows her, and each searches the distance, hoping for a glimpse of Lily’s purple parka amidst the barren trees and bushes. They follow the path leading out of the park, hoping that maybe Lily went that way but there’s no sign of her.
#
Beatriz spreads the crochet blanket on her bed and steps back to admire her work. Outside, the snow is falling in large clumps and the wind rattles against her window like someone knocking impatiently to be let in. The kids are home even though it’s a school day. Eddie explained to her that it was a “snow day” which meant they didn’t have to go to school. This reminds Beatriz of the monsoon floods she experienced as a child when no one could even walk across the street without fear of being swept away.
The youngest of seven children, Beatriz was quiet as a child, preferring to spend time in the back of the house where her father raised pigs instead of sitting in the sala with her brothers and sisters talking over one another. She liked watching the fuzzy piglets run around the pen with their tiny hooves and curly tails as they crowded under their mother, reaching their mouths up for milk. One day, she noticed that the runt of the litter was struggling to get past the other piglets. She watched as it tried to maneuver its way through the others, mesmerized by its fighting spirit, and decided to name the piglet Rizal, after the national hero of the Philippines.
Later that evening, while sitting at the dinner table, Beatriz felt a jolt of pain at the back of her head that pulsed to the beat of her heart. She closed her eyes and saw a vision of Rizal alone in the corner of the dusty pen, not moving. He just lay there as the others walked around him. Poor little Rizal, she thought, and began to cry so much she started gasping for air. Her mother, Loreta, told her to calm down and asked what was wrong with her. Beatriz rubbed at the pain in her head and told her mother about the vision she had. Loreta grabbed her youngest daughter’s hand and pulled her with such a force Beatriz nearly fell off her seat. They walked over to the pigpen and looked down at the piglets moving around the mother, squealing for milk. Beatriz scanned the dirt and saw Rizal in the corner, not moving as if he was asleep. Her mother walked into the pen and poked at him. Shook her head and made the sign of the cross. She shouted at one of the maids who was sweeping leaves out back to get rid of the piglet then turned to Beatriz and told her to never tell anyone about the vision.
The visions would happen again and again as Beatriz got older. One time when she was sixteen, she saw an old man pushing a tub filled with sweet taho in front of their house. You could hear his bell ringing out into the road and his shouts of “taho! taho!” She loved how the soft tofu felt in her mouth and how the warm brown sugar syrup glided down her throat. As soon as he turned toward her, the pain started at the back of her head. She closed her eyes and saw him lying on a bed with no sheets, his body drenched in sweat as a woman was wiping him down with a damp cloth. The taho seller didn’t come by the day after Beatriz’s vision and the day after that. Each morning, she sat by the window listening for the bell and his familiar call, but she only heard the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves of the mango tree out front.
Then one morning, her grandmother, Lola Lourdes, told her to come with her on a very important errand. She asked Beatriz to help her carry a basket of herbs and small bottles of ointment. They walked down the road until they got to the other side of the rice field where there was a cluster of houses with walls made from pieces of wood and cardboard and roofs made from sheets of aluminum. When they got there, a woman was kneeling beside an old man who was drenched in sweat. As they got closer, Beatriz recognized the man as the taho seller. She watched as Lola Lourdes lit a few of the herbs and started to massage the man’s chest with the ointment. Her strong hands moved across his body in large circles until his fever subsided.
Beatriz’s mother didn’t like talking about Lola Lourdes’s healing powers even though almost everyone in their small town sought her help when the local doctor couldn’t make it in time, or when the midwife needed assistance.
“Oh, Betty. Your Lola spends too much time with those potions, like a witch. Don’t mind her. She’s not right in the head,” her mother would say.
Despite her mother’s warnings, Beatriz liked spending time with Lola Lourdes and listened to all of the stories she told. Tales of people she had helped to recover from fevers, tremors, hallucinations, even some hearing voices in their heads. She talked of the visions she had that were passed down to Beatriz and how her healing power was a gift not a curse.
Before she died, Lola Lourdes gave Beatriz a book of handwritten recipes for her remedies and a wooden box filled with dried herbs and small glass bottles filled with ointments. She showed her how to massage away almost any ailment from the body with strong hands and gentle fingers. As Beatriz packed her belongings for the U.S., she wrapped the book in woven fabric and carefully placed it in her suitcase. She packed a small collection of dried herbs and ointments into an old cookie tin. When she unpacked, she placed the tin on the top shelf of her closet behind her bag of crochet yarn and needles.
#
Beatriz spreads the crocheted blanket over her small frame and listens to the harmonized voices and twanging guitar sounds of her favorite crooners and drifts off to sleep. She dreams of the mango tree in front of her house growing up, its branches reaching outward as if to grab her. It’s nighttime and the wind makes the tree sway and the leaves whisper. The spirit that lives in the tree, as her older siblings had warned her time and time again, was shy and only came out at night.
In her dream, the wind brings a monsoon rain that turns into a blizzard. Day turns into night. Children, bundled up into thick coats, carry sleds along the road. A snow day in the Philippines. How could that be? Her head hurts so bad it feels like it might burst open. Tendrils of pain shoot up from the back of her neck and up the sides of her head to her temples. She sees Eddie and Sylvia walking through the snow yelling something. She sees Lily shivering in her purple parka. She forces herself awake and gets out of bed. It’s just a dream, she tells herself, but is worried the visions mean something.
She puts her slippers on, walks into the kitchen, and pours herself a glass of water and walks down the short hallway that leads to the living room. Two cartoon robots are shooting at something on the television screen. She calls out to Eddie, Sylvia, and Lily, hopeful they’re sitting on the floor on the other side of the couch, but there is no reply. A sharp pain rushes from the back of her head to her temple. She reaches for the couch to steady herself and sees an empty space where the kids should be.
Ay naku, where are they, she thinks, holding her head as the pain grows sharper. She sees snow swirling around in her mind. Then there’s Lily crouching low underneath a network of branches. Snow all around. She walks upstairs to each of the kids’ rooms, calling out to them. Eddie’s room is cluttered with clothes scattered everywhere. There’s a lump on the bed. She taps it to wake him but feels something soft. The lump are pillows made to look like he’s sleeping. She rushes over to the girls’ room. They’ve placed pillows in their beds too.
Beatriz changes into a pair of thick pants and a sweater, goes to the hallway closet and bundles up as best she can, sliding puffy mittens over her fingers and a thick wool scarf and matching beanie that Marianne bought for her from Macy’s. She puts on her heavy boots that Junior bought for her at Harry’s Shoes on Broadway. Beatriz didn’t want him to buy them for her because they were too expensive, but he insisted. She takes the elevator down to the lobby level where Willie stands in front of the door staring out at the snow.
“Hello, Mrs. Lumaban. The kids said you’d be coming down,” Willie says.
“How could you let them go outside,” she says.
“Oh, I thought you knew they were going out. I’m so sorry. They told me that you let them go out sledding. Sorry. Really, I . . .”
“Why would I let them go out in the snow!” Beatriz says.
“I don’t know if you should go out there. It’s bad,” he says.
She shakes her head and walks toward the door. “I need to find my grandchildren.”
“I’ll get that, Mrs. Lumaban,” Willie says, rushing to open the door for her. “But I still think you should stay inside. I can have Manny go look for them,” he says, referring to the building’s porter.
“No, no. I’ll go,” Beatriz insists, pushing her way past Willie and onto the sidewalk.
The snow has stopped, but the wind blows clumps in every direction. Beatriz walks as fast as she can down the sidewalk, being careful not to slip or bump into the piles of garbage now blanketed in white. She notices that the city is quiet as the snow muffles the sound of car horns and sirens. At the corner, she waits for the light to change and feels the pain on the side of her head and sees a vision of a narrow path and a splash of purple against the stark white snow. The distance to the park is only one block, but Beatriz feels like it’s taking forever.
When she gets to the entrance of the park, she sees Eddie and Sylvia looking frazzled.
“Susmaryosep! What were you both thinking!” Beatriz yells.
Beatriz looks at each of them and at the empty space where Lily should be. “Where’s Lily?”
Sylvia’s shoulders move up and down as she starts to cry. “She’s gone. We can’t find her.”
Eddie looks away from his sister and shakes his head. “It’s Sylvia’s fault. She was supposed to watch her.”
“Shut up! It’s your fault we came here.” Sylvia wipes her tears with the back of her mitten.
“Stop it. No fighting. We must find Lily. Sige na!” Beatriz says.
She leads them up the narrow path she saw in her vision until she sees Lily’s purple parka. Lily is shivering and searching for something underneath a bush and tells them that Gus is stuck.
“He’s so cold and he wants to go home,” Lily says. Eddie reaches underneath the bush and pulls out the stuffed bunny.
“Here you go, Lily. Gus is safe now,” Eddie says.
When they get home, Beatriz takes the old cookie tin filled with her medicinal remedies and rubs ointment on Lily’s back. She wraps the child in the crochet blanket and lays her down for a nap. She tells Eddie he should always protect his sisters and that it’s his responsibility as the oldest to make sure they are safe. Beatriz won’t tell Junior and Marianne what happened. She’ll keep that to herself, but when the visions come, she’ll be ready.
Stephanie Grace Loleng is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing program and a Summer 2023 VONA alum, where she was a recipient of the PAWA/Manuel and Penelope Flores Scholarship. Her fiction was published in Gastropoda literary magazine, and her non-fiction was published in Instant Noodles literary magazine and the travel anthology Expat: Women’s True Tales of Life Abroad. She’s working on a collection of short stories inspired by Filipino-American culture and Filipino folklore. Stephanie is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and currently lives in New York City.
Photo by Flow Clark on Unsplash