Chapter 3

Rolf put a hand on a shoulder of each of the older boys as they stood next to one another. "How about we build a snow dragon?" he delicately proposed.

Dieter's and Iosif's eyes grew round with glee. "Yeah! That's just the ticket," Iosif crowed.

Dieter cried out, "Come on, Iosif, we'll roll up a ball for the main body."

Everyone pitched in, mothers and fathers and sons and daughter. The back of the beast grew and grew, and a long tail snaked out behind. At lunch time, Liliya and Jaana broke open the packs they had hauled along, and thermoses with steamy hot cocoa were disgorged, along with sandwiches and brown gingerbread cookies and pink and golden apples. After the group had eaten their fill, the men aided the boys in hoisting up a head to the front of the body, and then Liliya and Jaana and Anna gently shaped the bluish snow into eyes and a nose, and a fierce toothy mouth. Then to see what they had wrought, they all stood back.

They were gobsmacked. It was wonderful. Never before had such a lifelike dragon been created from simple snow. Cameras were pulled out of pockets, and they all took turns posing in front of the mammoth brute. Finally, someone perched a polaroid on a dry bit of wood, and set its timer, and a keepsake picture was taken of these friends and family with their amazing reptile.

It was the best day ever. A very tired bunch trudged back through the drifts, and Anna and Petrushka were barely strapped into the warmed SUVs before they were snoring, and even Dieter's and Iosif's chins nodded forward onto their chests. With coaxing, the children came to life long enough to partake of the colorful stew that had been bubbling in the electric crock while they had been away conquering dragons, but their beds beckoned soon thereafter, and they wearily followed the call.

Emmett stared up at the ceiling over the bed. That's all he could do now, since his stroke. He couldn't move his eyes, he couldn't blink, he couldn't talk or walk or make any movement whatsoever. He just lay there.

It wouldn't have been so bad if his mind wasn't fully awake and functioning. No, he was aware of everything, and his brain was always going lickety split in response, but he couldn't get out of his own body to tell anyone. Why couldn't he have just died during the stroke?

The nurse's aide came in to put drops into his staring eyes, and to swab the drool running from his gaping mouth. It's something she did every hour or so. He wished he could tell her to turn on the TV or radio to fill his attention. There was nothing wrong with his ears, although no one knew that.

He heard his wife Martha greet the aide as they crossed in the doorway. He inwardly tensed, it was so painful to hear the sadness in Martha's voice. Before his stroke, he and Martha had been aging about the same rate, partners in that as well as most things. Now he had surged almost to the finish line without her, abandoning her except for the one cruel tie that kept her bound in place and unable to move forward on her own. She bent over him to kiss his forehead, and he saw the new lines etched on her face by her worry over him. "Hello, Honey," she chirped, falsely cheerful. He longed to smooth the back of her hand, and tell her he was ok, that he was reconciled to his fate.

The officious young doctor came dashing in on his rounds. "Good morning, and how are we today?" he boomed as he did every morning. Emmett wanted to groan out loud.

Martha decided to pin the man down for once. "Hello, Dr. Plummer. Please, Doctor, I need to know what to expect. What's going to happen to Emmett?"

The doctor began to prevaricate. Martha cut him off.

"Please tell me the truth. Is he going to get better?"

Dr. Plummer gave a large sigh. "The human mind is a miraculous thing, Mrs. Jones. We don't know if he's going to improve, but right now, his chances are not so good. There's no way to tell if he's hearing us or if he's still in there, trying to get out. Keep talking to him, that will bring him back if nothing else will. Don't give up hope, never give up hope." There was a gap in conversation, filled by the sound of a back being patted. Martha thanked the doctor in a strangled voice, then Emmett could hear the doctor's feet tap away down the hall.