Making Winter
    
My little brother is sitting on the kitchen floor, letting the chilly air from the refrigerator wash over him.
    
“Mikey!” I cried, running to shut the door. “What are you doing?!” He looked up at me.
    
“Makin’ winter,” he explained earnestly. That was not the first time I had heard that phrase this week. Or the second or third, for that matter. “Makin’ winter” explained why all of the feathers from Mom’s down pillow were shaken out and blanketing the hallway. “Makin’ winter” explained “sledding” down the stairs on a pillow. It explained why my white bed sheet had been cut into a wobbly snowman.

Mikey had lived his whole life in Vermont. When we moved to Texas two months ago, he lost his friends, he lost what had been his home all his life, everything familiar. And when December rolled around and the weather wasn’t cold, he realized he had lost winter, too. We had told him cold weather would come, but he didn’t believe us. If it would come, why wasn’t it here now, where it always was?

“Mikey, you can’t make winter,” I said. An ice cube hit my shoulder and slid miserably down my shirt.

“Snowball?” he said, hopefully. It was a question, longing for a wholehearted reply. A friend to join his game.

“Mikey,” I said sternly.

He burst into tears and ran upstairs to his bedroom. Why doesn’t he understand? He’s old enough to know better. I realize a tear is on my cheek. Why don’t I know better? I look at the refrigerator. To Mikey, it was a window to winter. A window to the world he had lost when we moved away. Slowly I walked up the stairs. Mikey’s door was a crack open, and I can see him sitting on his prized toboggan, tears streaming down cheeks stained red from crying. I sit down next to him.

“Mikey?” I say softly, putting my arm around him. He sniffles pitifully and looks at me. “Want me to show you how to cut snowflakes out of paper? We can make winter together.”