This Always Happens Here

The images flashing in Tommy's head are of his father sneaking across the snow globe to rescue the woman doing laundry outside the mansion. The woman is shivering, desperately cold as she waits to be rescued. She knows Tommy's father is coming, because how could he not come for her? How could she live this way forever? And then there he is, peeking around a tree, fallen snow gathered ridiculously atop his cap. He resembles a boy having just escaped from a collapsed igloo. He says, "Come with me," and they run and run, even as the people in the mansion scream at them from the windows to come back and properly finish their jobs. There is a steely look in his father's eyes as he holds Tommy's mother's hand and they don't slow down when they come upon the dome of the snow globe, even as someone begins to shake the snow globe and his mother tries to go back to finish hanging the laundry because that's what she always does.

"What happened next?" asks Tommy.

His father just gestures out at the clearing, the pine trees, the cottage where Sarah is probably cooking something delicious. "We were given new jobs," says his father. "In a new snow globe. We aren't suited for much, you know. We were made for snow globes."

"That's it?" asks Tommy, frustrated, trying to ignore the hurt on his father's face. Life here in the snow globe--the life his parents have given him--isn't so bad, he tells himself. He should be grateful. But then why isn't he happy?

"What are you going to do today?" asks Sarah, poking her head out of the window of the cottage. Wonderful smells float out into the clearing, distracting Tommy from his mission.

"Oh, the same old thing," he says, lying.

Today is the day Tommy is going to reveal his secret feelings to the handsome uniformed man. He is going to say things that aren't a part of his job at all, and then maybe the uniformed man will take him by the hand and he'll say, "Come with me," and they'll run and run with steely looks in their eyes until they find somewhere better, inventing new jobs for themselves in a place beyond snow globes. Maybe breaking out of a snow globe is part of growing up. Maybe everybody does it.

Sarah has made another soup. She reaches outside and hands him a bowl. "Carrots again," she says. "Your favorite."

"How did you know?" asks Tommy, accepting the bowl and quickly going to work on the soup. Who knows when he'll save soup again? At least not soup like Sarah's.

Sarah blushes. "Well, I asked your mom. And I also saw how you loved the last one."

Tommy finishes the soup. It makes sense that Sarah would ask his mother what type of soup he liked. Was this Sarah's job, to make him soup? If so, she'd want to do well at her job, so she would have to make a soup that he enjoyed.

"Thank you for the soup," says Tommy, playing along for Sarah's sake. He gathers his things, preparing to trudge through the blizzard to retrieve the brightly wrapped packages and then go to the train station--and then never come back.

"I'll make soup for you whenever you want it," Sarah says eagerly. "I could make you soup forever, if you want. It could just be the two of us here in this cottage, with all this soup."

"There must be something better for you to spend your time doing," says Tommy distractedly, even though he knows that sometimes you have no choice but to do your job if you want to stay in the snow globe. But as Tommy makes his way across the clearing, he glances back--something he has never done before--as if to say goodbye to the clearing, the cottage, his parents waiting forever for the brightly wrapped packages. And he sees, finally, that Sarah's job is not to make soup at all. Her job is to stand outside the cottage and gaze longingly after Tommy each day as he walks away, desperate tears sliding down her cheeks and freezing to her skin before they ever reach the ground.

"Tommy boy," says the uniformed man. "Where are you off to today?"

Running down the highest mountains to the endless valleys below. Off into the night sky, chasing stars. Swimming across the sea to somewhere warm where they haven't heard of snow.

"I don't know," says Tommy.

The uniformed man is reaching for Tommy's hand but now he hesitates, half-reaching, their hands so close but still with so much space hanging there between them. The smile on the uniformed man's face cracks just the tiniest bit. "Well, let's see that ticket."

"I don't have a ticket," says Tommy.

Now the uniformed man's smile is completely gone. The hand has made its way back into the pocket of the fancy uniform. "What do you mean, Tommy?"

"I think about you all the time," says Tommy. "I stand there in the clearing and I think about you. You could hold my hand always if you wanted. It doesn't have to be just when I have a ticket for the train. I'd like to hold your hand forever."

Tommy feels like he has just put something huge out into the world and now there's no going back. Everything will be different from now on. Maybe now he can do whatever he wants when someone shakes the snow globe.

The uniformed man looks up and down the platform. The train whistles, about to depart. "That's not the way it goes, Tommy," says the uniformed man. "That's not my job."

"But you always smile when I come to ride the train," says Tommy, like this should mean something. The uniformed man just shakes his head. "You need a ticket to ride the train, Tommy. But look, here you go, I have an extra ticket right here."

The uniformed man points at the train car--not grabbing Tommy by the hand this time, not hoisting him up--and the uniformed man doesn't wave goodbye when Tommy winds the bend around the lavishly decorated pine tree, heading back to the other end of the snow globe. The train ride takes almost no time at all, but to Tommy it is forever.

"How was your day, son?" asks Tommy's father as Tommy approaches the clearing, carrying the brightly wrapped packages that his mother has been waiting for.

Tommy is about to say exactly what kind of a day he has had. He will talk about all kinds of unfair things like why the train only goes to one place, why the brightly wrapped boxes are always empty, why you only have to walk a short distance to find yourself right back where you started. But someone shakes the snow globe just at that moment, and Tommy watches, horrified, as his hands fly into the air and he spins around, again and again, laughing the whole time.