Creative non-fiction by Eryn Hiscock - Room Magazine

didn’t even tell me to pick up his coat’s sleeves, which were dragging in
the snow.
At h o m e , h e m a d e c o c o a as I changed into warm, dry clothes. My brother
made pancakes, a special treat, and even got out the ladder to retrieve
my mother’s serving plate, reserved only for guests. He let me stack the
pancakes high on it and pour syrup over all of them like they did on TV
commercials. Normally, this would be a waste of perfectly good pancakes
because it made them all soggy, but that afternoon, my brother let me do
whatever I wanted.
We sat in the living room, steam rising from chipped ceramic mugs of
hot chocolate dissolving like vaporous clouds between us, and I thought
of telling him that as I stood in the cold, gushing water, my boots were
planted on the river’s bed the whole time and I could have walked to shore,
but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
9