Three Black Buttons — Julia Feng
There is a snowman, standing on a hill.
It has two, beady black eyes on its face, and the snowflakes drifting past get stuck on them.
A carrot nose.
A long, woolly red scarf. It was my mother’s. I stole it from her closet when she wasn’t watching.
And then three black buttons. Except that they aren’t all black, because I lost one of them. So there's just two black buttons and a brown one I found.
I know my snowman is still there, standing on that snowy white hill, smiling that same smile, waiting for me to return.
It’s a bright morning, and my mother and I are sitting at the kitchen table. Through a large, flat-planed window, we see the hot sun of Brownville, Texas, burning outside. A red-crowned parrot chitters brightly, perched on a pine tree, its gray feathers lightening from the sun’s rays.
My mother sits primly, with her long brown hair wrapped into a neat bun on her head. A bobby pin sticks from her bun, jutting out purposefully on the right. She has these hawk-like, hazel eyes that pierce through my skull, and she’s wearing an oversized sweater made of course, gray wool. When I was younger, she would make me wear ugly sweaters just like hers, with spiky little threads that made my entire body itch.
Something tightens inside of me. She hands me a plate of scrambled eggs and begins to drill me with the same questions that I always hate answering.
“Honey, how’s school?” she asks, her sharp gaze making me sweat under my T-shirt.
There’s a long, awkward silence as I think about what to say.
My silence seems to further irritate my mother. “Ella’s mom tells me about Ella’s school projects all the time, and you barely even speak to your father and me!”
Ella is our neighbor. She’s two years older than me and my mother thinks she’s exemplary - she’s the lead dancer in school musicals and on three varsity sport teams - in other words, she’s at peak popularity.
And me?
Well, I’m the small, new girl in sixth grade with overlarge glasses, untidy auburn hair, who sits alone every lunch period.
“Well?” My mother presses, keener and louder.
“Oh,” I answer, though I can barely hear myself. “School is good.” The response is out of my mouth before I can even register the thought in my brain.
“Really? I hear that Ella sees you walking alone in the halls and sitting by yourself at lunch.” Her lips are pursed very tightly.
I stumble on my words for a moment. “Not really,” I say reluctantly. “I mean…” catching sight of my mom’s demanding face again, anger boils over in my stomach.
“So what?” I know I’m raising my voice, but I can’t stop myself, and part of me doesn’t even want to stop it. “None of this is my fault!”
My mother’s fingers seem to lose grip on her mug, and it slips to the ground, shattering.
“I never wanted to move here,” I say scathingly, as I rashly pick up the glass shards, wanting nothing more than to scream. “This is your mess!” I shout, pointing at the remains of her broken mug, but my head is spinning. “Why can’t you clean it up?!”
My mother doesn’t lose her composure, but she gapes at me and her face falls. Instead of feeling compassionate, my temper, which has been showing more and more often nowadays, spikes even more at her sign of weakness.
“Honey,” says my mother loudly, as though I am doing something wrong. “You need to act your age. Grow up!” Her voice is laced with a tone I can’t quite place. Is it repulsion? Arrogance?
But I don’t listen to her. I never do.
The morning light filters through my window and I wake up with a fluttering feeling in my stomach. I cross my fingers, hoping that it snowed last night, and I am not disappointed. I open the curtains. There’s a tall hill, laden with crunchy white powder from last night’s snowfall. Snowflakes are still cascading from the clouds, and through it all, a soft, ambient sun shines above.
Perfect conditions.
Once we’re ready, we race outside. The snow outside is everything I had hoped for. It has the perfect texture for making snowballs, yet it’s still initially soft.
“Same as usual?” My dad asks me with a rowdy smile on his face.
“Yep,” I answer, and give him a thumbs-up.
My dad takes on the biggest snowball, my mom makes the second one, and I make the third. That’s just the way it’s always been.
Somehow, my dad finishes his snowball first, even though it’s the largest, and then my mom, and lastly, me. But it doesn’t matter. We stack the three snowballs in order and then survey our work with pleasure.
“There’s a carrot in the fridge,” my dad remembers suddenly, “I’ll go grab it.”
“We could use some sticks from over there,” points my mom, walking over to pick them up.
My mind is bursting with ideas.
“Wait, we can use your scarf!” I gush, grinning, but my mom raises an eyebrow at me.
“We don’t need it,” she says quietly, and then she smiles at me a bit more playfully, “how about you get some buttons instead?”
I laugh and dash back inside to get buttons. I find 3, round black buttons inside a drawer in my parents’ bedroom. I also find a smaller, brown button, which I take anyway, stuffing it into my jacket pocket, just in case any of the buttons get blown away in the wind.
When I trudge back outside, my dad has already put the carrot on the snowman, and even two small black stones as eyes. My mom is placing the sticks on as arms as I walk over, so when I put the buttons on, the snowman is finished.
Staring at our snowman, I feel the happiest I’ve been in a long time. Inside my head, I wish that this moment would never end, that I could stay forever in this white-coated dream, building snowmen with my parents.
My dad sees me staring blankly out the window at the oak trees in our yard.
“What's the matter?” he asks, after such a long silence I had forgotten he was there. I tell him about my argument with my mother, and he listens.
“Oh,” he remarks shortly after I finish, “er… you do need to listen to your mother… I mean, she is quite right…”
The last of my patience evaporates. “Excuse me?” The prospect of my father taking my mother’s side instead of mine makes my jaw clench.
“Well…” he looks around awkwardly, averting my stricken gaze, “you do need to talk to us more…”
“I’m done,” I say hoarsely.
“What?” asks my dad. I don’t think he heard me.
“I’m done!” I scream, at the top of my lungs, making my father jump. “I never wanted to move here,” I seethe. I feel like I’ve been electrocuted.
I run to the front door and wrench it open.
My entire body aches.
Why doesn’t my father understand? If my snowman were here, at least he would listen.
There’s a prickling feeling in the back of my eyes. I stand there, in the hot air of Texas, wishing I was back in Maine. My parents are shouting from the front door, but they are only a whisper as a storm rages in my ears.
I know my snowman is still there.
I stumble on a rock and scrape my knee, falling to the ground for a second, but I scramble back up to my feet instantly.
My parents are coming towards me, so I run back inside, charge to my room and slam the door. I sit on my bed and stare blankly out the window. I don’t even know how long I am in my room. Perhaps hours, even days.
I hear voices outside my door.
“Let’s go in, now - don’t you look at me like that!” My mother is breathing all crazy, as if I’d just jumped off a cliff, or something. As if.
“We should give her some space. I’m sure she’ll come around.” My father sounds calm and restrained, but I hear a small crack in his voice.
There’s a short silence so loud it hurts my ears.
“What if she doesn’t?” my mother whispers.
“Not now,” my father replies, but my mother cuts him off.
“We need to talk now,” she says angrily, “you can’t keep pushing it off!”
My father sounds a bit hesitant. “Alright.”
Their steps are receding, and a twinge of curiosity mingles in my throat. My opportunity is quickly fading. Desperate not to let a good opportunity slip, I quietly open my door and sneak down the hallway on tip-toes. I put my ear on the door and listen.
“She’s been acting strangely,” says my mother, “she’s been barely speaking to us after the move!”
“I mean, it is a big transition…” defended my father, though his voice became brittle, so I assumed that my mother had stared at him skeptically. “Really, it is rather difficult… and she is growing up, too…”
I cringe as my mother lowers her voice. I now have to strain to hear what they say.
“Yes, but she’s ignoring us completely!”
“She’ll come out of it,” reassured my father, “don’t worry about it.”
My mother drops the subject, but she heaves a tremulous sigh. “She is growing up very quickly,” she agrees at last.
I start to sneak back towards my room, but then my mother adds, “speaking of our move - I haven’t seen my scarf in a while. I was looking for it the other day - I don’t remember packing it! Did I forget it at our old house, or what?”
I suddenly feel as though I am being deprived of oxygen.
“Your favorite one?” comes my father’s reply. “Ah, I wouldn’t worry about that either, I’m sure it’s laying around here somewhere.”
My heart races in my chest. I sprint to my room, close my door. I lean back on my wall and slide to the ground.
“No,” I murmur, as my head throbs with a painful memory that digs through my mind. “No, no, no…”
It was the afternoon after we had built that gorgeous snowman. We were sitting at the kitchen table, eating lunch, which was a thick French onion soup and soft rye bread.
“We have some news,” my father said, then winced as he swallowed a spoonful of hot soup.
“News?” My eyes brightened with excitement. How could my day get any better?
“Oh, yes,” said my mother, though she didn’t meet my eyes. “We’re moving to Brownville!”
It felt like I had been punched in the throat.
“What?” I asked, my voice sounding far away from me as I willed my mother’s words to be untrue, to be a laughable joke… “We’re what?”
“We’re moving,” nodded my father, looking even more anxious than my mother. “Your mother’s job was moved to Brownville, in Texas. She has a brand new office there!”
My mouth went dry. “I… have to go to the bathroom,” I said quickly, and without waiting for an answer, I went upstairs, veering into my parents’ room, which had the largest window in it. I sat there for a moment, just gazing down at the snow, and my snowman. He looked so innocent. So sublime.
My stomach jolted. Was this the last time I would ever see him? I knew that Texas was hot, and it barely snowed… My mother had gone there once, for work… Had she already known that we would have to move? How long had she kept this from me?
My snowman looked cold without a scarf…
Scarf?
My mother had said no.
Did I care?
No, I told myself, fueling my anger, making it stronger. I don’t care at all.
I raced to my mother’s closet and grabbed her scarf, then dashed downstairs. I threw on my jacket and slipped outside, where I put the scarf on my snowman with trembling hands.
But something inside me felt dissatisfied. I’d thought that seeing my snowman, in all his glory, wearing my mother’s beautiful scarf, something inside me would have calmed. But no. Instead, something inside me roared.
I heard the front door open.
“Come inside!” my mother called. “It’s too chilly outside!”
Sooner or later, she would notice that her scarf was on my snowman, that I had disobeyed her. I frantically tugged off the scarf, knocking out all the buttons.
“No!” I muttered angrily under my breath, scrambling to find the buttons. I quickly found two of them and stuck them back on the snowman, but the third one was nowhere to be seen.
“...your food’s getting cold!” I heard my mother singing. I clenched my jaw and held the scarf behind me as my mother turned her head and glanced at me.
“I’m coming!” I shouted, my voice sounding two octaves higher than usual. “I just… wanted to check the snowman. You know, just in case, like, I never see him again…”
Tears filled my mother’s eyes. “So thoughtful,” she cooed, “always so thoughtful.”
I smiled at her, feeling rotten on the inside.
“Come and finish your dinner, now,” said my mother, and I nodded obediently, just like any good child would. But when we went inside, I slipped the scarf into my room without my mother ever knowing. I felt faint as I sat back at the kitchen table, finishing my lunch begrudgingly, knowing that I had lied to my family, betrayed my mom, stolen her scarf… I had stolen her scarf…
And now, that same guilt throttles me, and I feel as though I am suffocating, sitting on my bedroom floor. I get up slowly, my breathing shallow. I grope aimlessly through my drawers until I find it - the warm, red scarf, matted and marred from the last few months of packaging and rough handling.
Without the scarf, my snowman would be cold. Cold…
I know my snowman is still there.
There’s this prickling feeling in the corner of my eyes again.
Because I know it's all a big lie.
I know that my snowman is gone. Forever melted, disintegrated into nothing.
I know that I can never go back. I’ll never see him again.
But will I still remember him?
Suddenly, without knowing how, the scarf is wrapped in my arms, and I am crying into it, really crying, all the unshed tears from the morning, from moving to Brownville and from losing my friends, my school, my neighbors, my house, my snowman… all of it just comes down. Somehow, this brings an arc of comfort to me.
And then, I know what I must do.
I wipe my tears and open my door. Only a small screech resounds when it opens and closes. I don’t tiptoe anymore - I just walk.
I open the door to my parents’ room, and I am not surprised to see them still sitting there, conversing. Their faces turn to astonishment; to worry. I approach my mom and hold out my hand, which is furled around her scarf.
“What?” she asks, staring not at the scarf, but at me.
“Your scarf…” I whisper. My voice is hoarse all of a sudden.
I wait for my mother to accuse me of eavesdropping, or to lecture me, but she just takes the scarf and glances at it thoughtfully. For a moment we are both standing like that, until my mother turns to me, shaking the scarf, perhaps angrily, knowing what I had done… or is her hand shaking?
“You found this for me?” she asks softly.
I shake my head.
For a moment we are silent. Just my parents staring at me pitifully, and I, staring at the ground.
Cold, I think, fighting back tears, my snowman will be cold.
“Oh, honey…” murmurs my mom. She drops the scarf and wraps her arms around me.
My snowman is not there anymore, I think, and that’s okay.
My dad walks over with a small smile alight on his face.
He never stopped listening, I realize, never. He just wanted me to grow.
Grow, or grow up?
Tears fall, thick and loose, until everything is blurred. I hear a million voices and see memories inside my mind, intensifying my feelings until they’re sharp and painful:
“Same as usual?” asks my dad, grinning at me as we make a snowman…
“We don’t need it,” I hear my mother’s voice, but it’s sharp, distorted.
It’s all a lie…
“We DO need it!” I hear myself screaming, words I never said. “We NEED these memories, we NEED the snow, and…”
Grow up…
“What about the snowmen?” It’s me again, in my head. “What about everything we shared?”
Gone, I think, forever.
No, a stronger voice shouts in my mind. NOT gone.
It’s like all the air has been replenished in my body.
Not gone, but forever remembered.
Those stabs of pain and voices all vanish.
“Are you okay?” asks my mother.
I blink twice. My mind flickers far away, to the snowman standing on a white hill, to the twinkle of snowflakes against my tongue, to my dad’s lopsided grin and then to my mom’s distressed face, then to sheer blurriness and back to the red scarf laying in my hand. I see my mom, staring at me with her head cocked, and my dad, raising his eyebrows at me anxiously - but a hint of his classic grin is on his face.
“Yes,” I say, slowly, and for the first time, the words feel real. “I’m okay.”
Julia Feng is a 9th grader at Wissahickon High School who balances her time between robotics competitions, playing the flute, piano, and tennis. When she isn't competing or performing, she finds passion in reading and writing fiction.