Free Things Worth Remembering by Jackina Stark Page B

down for three whole days, including the company Mother worked for. That was the one year Margaret and Hugh tried the snowbird thing, spending the three months of winter in Florida, where some of their oldest friends had retired. So Mother and I hung out together while the snow swirled in the lights of the city, massive mounds of it building up on the sidewalks and streets, making them utterly impassable.
    We scrounged up stuff to eat, pulling cookbooks from a top shelf to see what we could make with the ingredients we had on hand, and we watched a lot of old movies, chatting almost like girl friends during commercial breaks. I asked her questions about work, and during several commercials she regaled me with stories about some of the people she worked with.
    Those were enchanted days as far as I was concerned. We stayed up late, never consulting the clock, and two of the three mornings we were snowed in, we didn’t even get dressed.
    We stayed in our flannel pajamas and robes and cooked and watched television and played Scrabble and gin rummy. Mother said I was good company.
    I remember wishing it would snow forever.
    Maisey
    Considering how late it was when I finally got to sleep, I’d say I’m up pretty early. I pull on a T-shirt, a pair of shorts, and tennis shoes, and tap on Marcus’s door. I can’t believe he’s gone already. When I get to the bottom of the stairs, I hear Marcus and Mother talking in the kitchen. She is saying something about Benjamin Franklin, and he is saying something about financial responsibility.
    Is that crazy or what?
    That’s a conversation I don’t want to interrupt—or join. I hear the familiar and somehow comforting hum of Dad’s mower and look out the front door to see him beginning the first long swipe down the front yard.
    I remember all the times he mowed with me sitting on his lap. I remember him teaching me how to mow with that rider when I was older, turning expertly around the trees like he does. I remember meeting each other in the garage when we were through with the yard, giving each other high fives, toasting each other with bottles of water from the fridge we keep out there.
    He’s reached the end of the first row, hugging the long driveway, and is coming back toward the house now. I slip out the front door and run toward him. He must see me waving my arms, because he has stopped and is idling the motor, waiting for me.
    “You want to do this?” he asks.
    “I will,” I say, “but I really want you to take a break and play a game of Horse with me.”
    “I’ve just started, honey.”
    “Please,” I plead. “We might not have time later.”
    I know he wants to get the yard done, but I see in his face that he also wants to play ball with me. We’ve played together since the summer before I started the eighth grade. We were sitting alone at the dinner table one evening in July when I asked him if he could get me ready to try out for the basketball team that fall. “Sure,” he said, and in less than a week the mini-court was poured, the goal set, appropriate tennis shoes purchased, and we began my foray into “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” We’d play until we were hot beyond endurance and then we’d hit the pool. When winter drove us inside, we moved from the court—that is, the cement pad off the driveway—to the church gym. I think of the year it began as Mr. Dickens’s “the worst of times,” except for this sliver of happiness.
    I learned stamina, teamwork, and overall technique in long hours of practice at school, but I learned how to shoot from Dad. I made more three pointers than any other girl on our high school team, and we won state my junior and senior years. Everyone said I looked like a cheerleader instead of a basketball player, but I was devoted to the game. Basketball came along just when I needed it. I believe my sudden desire to play was sent from God to help Dad and me survive a house that had become too gloomy to