Free Mennonites Don't Dance by Darcie Friesen Hossack

the winter air without a coat and mittens. The cold nipped at her fingers. In another month or so, the weather would become severe. In December though, it was still possible to rush outside and quickly back into the house before getting frostbitten.
    While Ani danced back and forth to keep warm, Clive opened the trunk of his car — a large, square boat of a vehicle — and disappeared halfway inside. “Here, you can carry these,” he said as he plopped a box full of brightly papered gifts into her arms. He reached back inside the trunk and came out with a plastic bin full of food and bottles of pink cream soda. On top he balanced an enormous turkey in a speckled black roasting pan. The turkey, its skin buttered and salted all over, wobbled in the pan. And carrying it, Clive looked like a character in a black-and-white movie — the kind that always finished with meaningful, cheery music that meant things had ended happily despite the possibility they might not have. The two of them laughed together when he nearly slipped, which would have sent the bird sledding down the icy sidewalk. For months afterwards, it was their inside joke. When Ani’s mother told them she’d nearly fallen when the heel of her shoe broke, Ani would say, “At least you weren’t carrying a turkey!”
    The following October, wearing her new flower girl shoes and a soft-blue dress, Ani met Clive’s daughter for the first time. He had picked up Caroline at the bus depot in the morning and taken her out for pancakes before driving her to the house on Seventh, where all the women and girls in the wedding party were getting ready to go to the church.
    Caroline wasn’t as Ani had imagined. She was neither shy nor friendly. Didn’t have bouncy brunette curls and clothes that Ani could borrow. She didn’t wear glasses, which Ani secretly wished they’d have in common. And, two years older, Caroline no longer played with dolls. When Ani asked her whether she had ordered blueberries on her pancakes, she rolled her eyes in a way that let Ani know she was exactly the way Caroline had expected her to be. A bumpkin with butterflies on her shoes.
    â€œWhat does it matter?” she said. “It was just breakfast. Not like my dad hasn’t taken me for pancakes before.”
    â€œI guess it doesn’t matter,” Ani said, drawing a curve in the carpet with the toe of her shoe. Until then, she had held a present for Caroline — a tiny silver heart on a chain that her mother helped her buy. Now she set it on her dresser next to a stack of moving boxes. Maybe someday when we’re sisters, she thought. But later, although she looked everywhere, Ani couldn’t find the necklace.
    At the reception in the church basement, while Ani’s mother surveyed the dessert table, and her uncles congratulated Clive, Ani wound her way through the chattering guests towards him. The guests were old ladies, mostly, who smelled like baby powder and wanted to pinch and kiss her cheeks. When she reached Clive, Ani slipped her hand into his, expecting his face to crinkle into a smile. She had been sure all day that he would want to give her something special, like at Christmas when he’d bought her a pair of hair combs studded with blue and green crystals and said they made her look as pretty as her mother. She had worn them every day for weeks, until one of the teeth broke and her mother said she should put them away.
    â€œI’m happy you married my mom,” she said and lowered her head shyly to look up at him through her bangs. “Dad.”
    Clive was quiet for a moment, his eyes skipping over her to where Caroline was holding a plate of fruitcake, distractedly pushing crumbs around with her finger. Ani watched him look at his daughter. He swallowed hard a few times.
    â€œHow are you and Caroline getting along?” he finally said.
    â€œOkay. I mean, I think maybe