Snow Angel

                   Snow Angel

"I don't care if Angelina's outside, Tom, we still can't forget about her." Janna shrugged out of his hungry embrace and went to the window.

         Tom lumbered over to have a look. He grunted in amusement at seeing their 4-year-old girl below, flapping her arms and legs to make an angel in the snow. "She's been doing that for an hour now. We'll have a good thirty minutes more to ourselves, sweets." He reached again for her curvy hips.

         Janna eluded him again, though. "You mean a good five minutes, honey. Thirty minutes, in my dreams. But I don't like her being alone with all those construction men around." She pointed to where burly men in orange hardhats were operating a crane.

         Tom forgot about his romantic overtures and raised his hands. "What are you talking about? They're good g-"

         Just then they both heard a loud sound like a whip cracking, then some shouts and a scream. Janna turned her head just in time to see a piano shatter itself on the ground with a sickening cough of snapped musical notes.

         Tom grabbed her in a bear hug even before she cried out. They rushed downstairs to discover the neighbors' destroyed piano atop Angelina's spot in the snow. The orange hardhatters were already franticly clearing away shards of wood and tangles of wire.

"Mommy!" they heard a weak voice cry. Janna sprinted over to help raise the last piece, a fairly intact chunk of the piano's underbelly. They lifted it straight off and saw the little girl. She lay unhurt in what looked like a shallow grave. The snow around her was flattened but had apparently absorbed most of the piano's crushing weight.

         Janna picked her daughter up and squeezed her in a hug before anyone could even check her over for injuries. "Oh baby, my baby, I thought I'd lost you!"

"Mommy, where did my snow angel go?" Angelina pouted. Everyone looked at the erstwhile grave, which was just a ditch after the impact.

         Tom wrapped his arms around both his girls and answered. "Gone now, Angie. Her job is done."