Watching The Snow Fall

A small girl sits in the frigid night, watching the snow fall delicately into powdery piles. She smiles, her tiny lips turning pale with the cold and grips her mothers hand as she wraps a small pink blanket tighter around her body. She seems so small under the light flowing from a dim lamp on the porch. Her tiny limbs shake as she pushes her ham sandwich from under the blanket and slowly bites off a tiny bit, savoring the stale bread, old ham, and probably spoiled cheese. She pushes her too-big glasses up again, the movement, though slow and methodical, had nudged them to the tip of her gracefully swooping nose. Shouting emanates in the night and her mother jerks up, eyes glassy, and breathes in deeply beside her little girl, shakily trying to catch up to her ever-grinning daughter, hoping the child will take her knowing eyes off her so she can wipe away her tears before they fall. The little girl is still smiling peacefully, a rock in the pale yellow light. The small child looks to the tattered screen door behind her and quietly prays, the smell of whiskey drifting out with the heat through the poorly insulated door. Dear god, please make daddy sleep through the night, I don’t think momma can fight him off anymore.