The door frame propped up Momma, and she watched her little girl kneel beside the bed. Tiny fingers steepled as she prayed, “Dear Santa. Hi, it’s me, Lulu Mae. Some don’t believe, but I know you’re real. I think I’ve been mostly good this year, so I’m asking you to fix the uglies Momma gets upset about. Amen.” She jumped up and then crinkled her face in thought before abruptly plopping back down to her knees. Squeezing her hands together extra tight, she added, “Oh, and maybe could I have something to play with this year? Amen.”

Lulu Mae climbed into bed as Momma’s heart dropped to her toeless slippers. She padded into the room, forcing a smile before she sat on the bed and pulled the covers up underneath her seven-year-old cherub’s chin. 

The prettiest eyes stared back at her with hope’s sparkle. “Momma, I just told Santa what I wanted for Christmas. Do you think he’ll give it to me?”

Momma couldn’t face Lulu Mae waking up to disappointment once more, and a few tears pooled in her lower lids as she shook her head. “Santa’s not real, baby girl. I wish he were, but he isn’t.”

“‘Course he’s real, Momma. He did what I asked last year.”

“Oh, and what was that?”

“I asked him to drop my good-for-nuttin’ daddy in a hole.”

“Lulu Mae, where’d you get calling your daddy that?”

“From you, Momma. And anyhow, he ain’t been back, has he?” Her face settled into a satisfied grin. 

Momma bent her head and rubbed noses with her daughter until her grin turned into a fit of giggles. She knew the real reason her husband wouldn’t be back, and despite their lack of money, they were both better off without him. 

Lulu Mae’s eyelids grew heavy, and Momma snuggled behind her and stroked her daughter’s chestnut hair. The small child drifted off to dreamland with magical pictures in her head. But, no sugar plums danced for Momma—she struggled not to shake the bed while crying herself to sleep. 

~ooOoo~

“Momma, wake up! Santa came!” 

The high-pitched squeals mixed with the bouncing bed woke Momma with a jolt. She rubbed her eyes as Lulu Mae gave one final bounce, then jumped to the floor and fished Momma’s hand out from under the covers. 

“Come on, Momma!”

Lulu Mae tugged the tattered quilt covering the window to the side and rested her chin on the chilly windowsill. She wiped at the glass fogging below her nostrils and gazed upon the bright white landscape never before seen by her young eyes. 

Turning her head left and right like an old barn owl, Momma saw nothing but pristine snow glittering like diamonds in the sunlight. “It’s beautiful,” poured out of her soul. 

Neither could see the trash where flowers should grow. The rusted old car had a glittery new white coat. And best of all, the heavy snow adorned the twisted, barren branches of the trees which now elegantly bowed. 

“Let’s get dressed, Momma!”

They both dressed with their feelings of excitement and wonder. Before they went outside, Momma draped her warmest wool scarf around her daughter’s head and wrapped it around her neck. 

As soon as Lulu Mae’s feet sunk in the snow, she bent over and rolled herself up a ball. The snow was the perfect sticky consistency to keep its form while she tossed it into the air and caught it. 

“A ball! Santa brought me a ball to play with!”

But when she turned, Momma wasn’t smiling; her momma dropped like a heavy sack of potatoes to the concrete block beneath the front door.  

“It’s too loud. The silence is too loud.”

Lulu Mae rushed to her. “No, it’s quiet, Momma. I think the world's asleep, cept for us. We have it all to ourselves!” 

Momma, however, cupped her ears and sat frozen with her eyes tightly clenched, muttering, “Too loud. It’s too loud. Too loud.”

The sights and sounds of the snow had jarred her insides something awful. Lulu Mae didn’t understand the screams of worry and despair that had lived inside Momma’s head for so long. 

“Shhh,” whispered her daughter as she covered her momma’s hands with her own and gently pulled them from her ears. “Shhh.”

Momma opened her eyes and stared into her daughter’s matching blue ones. She desperately wanted to see a child’s wonder and hear the peace that made her daughter’s smile so bright. 

Her daughter fluttered her eyelashes and then, she heard it—the calm.

Something long-forgotten stirred inside Momma and she rose and walked toward two snow-covered garbage can lids, which she turned upside down and presented as sleds. Lulu Mae squealed with delight as she kneeled on one and took off sliding down the hillside. Momma plopped down on her bum and raced down the hill after her. The merry twosome lost count of how many times they stomped back up that hill to slide down again before their legs finally gave out. 

Looking around her, Lulu Mae suddenly rolled over in the snow and grabbed two sticks, rolling back to give one to Momma.

“Look, Santa brought me all this white paper to draw on.” She set to work, outlining a kitty in the snow, then a giraffe, and a dinosaur.

“What wonderful animals to play with us today, Lulu Mae,” she exclaimed before drawing her dream home on the blank canvas at her feet. It had a porch, oversized windows, and a chimney. “Look at our home, sweet pea! Do you like it?”

“It’s the biggest, bestest house ever!” She threw herself into her momma’s arms and peppered her cheek with wet kisses. “We’ll live there someday, won’t we, Momma?”

For the first time since she could remember, Momma’s heart swelled with happiness.

The snow had covered the uglies. 

And the loudest voice of all—hopelessness—had been silenced.