"Mama," Your voice startles the night. Startles, but does not shatter. When your breath shakes the curtain you're pulling back with a small, pudgy hand, the night shows no sign of lightening to the cadence of your four year old voice. If anything, the night only grows darker as it heads for midnight.
At your age, you do not understand why there are no stars tonight. It's too dark to see the clouds, and so as far as you believe, they are not there, but in light from the streetlamp, you can see the small swirls of white trip down from their place among the heavens and scatter on your front law. Two dark palms press themselves against the window, followed by your forehead, and you hold your breath as you stare at the while on the ground. When you do exhale, it's a small, short breath, but enough to fog the window and get you to pull away from the cold glass panel.
"Mama!" Your voice has a note of distress in it now, you look up at the sky and then back at the ground as if you've realized a terrible, awful truth and now you can't look away. Hearing the sound, your mother looks up from her place at the table with a dazed expression that shows she didn't hear you the first time but she hears you now.
"Hold- hold on a minute, Peter– Sweetie? Vi, where are you?" Her question goes without answer, because she sees you on the daybed by the windowsill, her red lips parting in relief as she walks over to you, landline in hand, and sets the receiver on the cushions next to you, instead taking the opportunity to scoop you up into her arms.
And she smells like she always does: flowers, fire, and a bitter smell you don't have a name for yet. You haven't asked her because it hasn't resonated with you, all you know is that when she's there, it's there, and when she's gone, it's gone. But for now you point your finger to the glass, at all the fallen matter, and scrunch your face up like you just might cry.
"Mama, the stars, the s-stars are falling down..."
The telephone is forgotten for a moment. Despite being all bone and slender edge where you're soft and baby fat, you fit against her like a puzzle piece, face tucking into her neck, arms a small compact shield you hug to yourself. Your hair feels just like hers with your eyes closed, but it's dark in the way that her's isn't at the roots. She kisses your hair and sighs her bitterness against you.
"Baby, it's not the stars falling. Now that it's winter, the sky is making ice. It's called snow."
You want to ask questions, but the phone makes sound again, and a brashness you've never heard breaks your moment with a voice of anger and static.
"Roxanne?"
It's unfamiliar, lower, and you are four years old. When you hear your mother's name on someone else's tongue, you make the first assumption you hope to be right on and before your mother can reach for the phone you say, "Papa?"
Catching your mother's eye is a fearful thing, because for a moment, she does not look at you like her Baby Violet. She's as angry as she's every been at you, and you try to keep your bottom lip from protruding as she lets go of you in place for the phone, putting it back up her ear and speaking words you don't listen to her say as she leaves the room.
Your rub your eyes with the realization of nightfall, trying to get the picture of her expression out of your young mind.
> You show up not much later, having found shoes and collected yourself to be presentable. And then you're off to Seb's, a smile on your face and as much energy as you can muster. You need to stop taking so many naps!
> But of course you won't. Naps are one of your favorite things ever. So instead you hurry on to find Seb, ready for some cake-making.