A blizzard had just blown through Toronto the night my father surfaced. While I still had a head full of baby teeth, I remember that he rang the doorbell of our drafty, three-story stucco rental. I also remember that before we had a chance to see who it was, he was able to let himself in because neither of my parents could be bothered to lock the front door, even after we were robbed a year later. There was a menorah on the mantle and a Christmas tree tucked in the corner, away from the windows so our Rabbi wouldn’t spot it on his walk to Saturday services.

We had not seen my father since the summer. Now he stood at the threshold, his bronzed, hairless head spattered with melting snow. He didn’t say hello and he didn’t yell at my mom about the Christmas tree. Instead, he announced he’d slipped on the ice.

“I think my hand is broken.”

Then he stiffly lifted his injured arm like he was being sworn in. My mother made a face that at the time I didn’t recognize, but now understand meant she believed in the universe’s power to administer justice.

A loud silence bloomed between them in the foyer, so my three sisters and I did what kids do. We filled it: squealing and hopping around in our matching zip-up pajamas with pink plastic feet. We took turns pulling at our dad’s good hand, trying to lure him to the attic so he could see for himself that Boris and Morris turned out to be Boris and Doris and now there were ten mice instead of two. But we were sent to bed, and that night Sarah and I were cheated out of our usual routine. No story. No mom aglow from the Paddington Bear night-light and no dawdling in our room while Sarah and I did our best to make her laugh, which was surprisingly easy. Later that night I snuck out of bed to get an extra hug and was confused to find my mother’s bedroom door not only closed, but locked.

My father’s hand was not broken, and the next morning he was tasked with taking us sledding. Despite that according to my mother he was forgetful about sending money, we somehow always had expensive clothes like down snowsuits with real fox hoods. (Maybe she shopped on credit, something she did to excess when I was in high school to punish my dad whenever she found a phone number in his jeans pocket.) No matter how behind we were on our rent in Canada, we always looked like we had plenty of money. I realize now that my father likely relished this fact because more than he feared being poor, he feared seeming poor. Therefore, it must have been with some measure of pride that he led his four well-dressed daughters two blocks down the street to the local sledding hill.

He walked too fast and too far ahead to hold anyone’s hand, leaving us alone to drag the plastic sleds along the snow-packed sidewalks. From behind I watched him in his Adidas running shoes and grey wool overcoat with no hood. I wondered if his head was cold because even though the sky was a robin’s egg, the wind was sharp on my cheeks. Once we arrived at the bottom of the hill, already crowded with parents waiting for children to descend, I observed that my father was among the tallest. I remember thinking that very tall man is my father.

Looking back at how things played out that day, something that still confounds me is why anyone would place an immense stone water fountain at the bottom of what served as a sledding hill for more than half the year. I’d even bet whomever at the Toronto Parks Department made this decision was subsequently fired. But the fact is the fountain was there, and although my father was the kind of dad who instructed us as small children to cross the street against the light (which often included sprinting to “beat” the oncoming traffic), even he had enough sense to smell danger.

“You see that water fountain? DO NOT crash into it.”

We stared at him, still getting used to the sound of his voice.

Then, “Do you understand me?”

Jodie spoke for all of us and gave the desired answer, and soon we were scrambling up the hill, probably a hundred feet to the top.

Jodie and I descended first—I was too young for my own sled, or we didn’t have a fourth—and with my arms wrapped around her pillowy snowsuit and my head trying to peek above her right shoulder, we shared a gleeful if uneventful ride to the bottom. Miriam, a year younger than Sarah and equally capable, followed—bouncing out of her sled at the bottom and giggling as she dragged it away. There must have been other children descending the hill at that time, but those details did not make the cut as they had nothing to do with what happened next.

As soon as seven-year-old Sarah began her downward journey in the purple plastic toboggan, it was apparent she was having difficulty controlling it. Was there too much ice, the sled too big, or she too small? To this day she’s unsure, but soon she was flying with the sled swiveling at 90-degree angles against the hillside and threatening to turn completely backwards. And of course, it was heading directly for you-know-what.

Because Sarah is still with us, I have to surmise that the terrible cracking when she made impact was the sound of the sled and not her skull hitting the stone facade. She tumbled out as if from a car crash and remained there, lying face down in the snow, crying hysterically. Watching her I got a pinch in my chest, then something turned and tightened underneath my ribs like it does when something bad has happened and it’s about to get worse. Jodie and Miriam froze.

Not my father, however. He marched over to Sarah and as she lifted her head to meet his gaze, bent over and slapped her hard across the face.

“I told you not to hit that water fountain, idiot!”

Luckily my father was wearing mittens and no doubt Sarah’s giant fur hood shielded part of her face, so the physical insult was not as bad as the emotional one. Still, I think that’s when I started crying too, although silently, and reached for Jodie’s hand. It was the first time he or anyone had ever struck any of us, and I remember being scared that getting hit was something new I needed to be worried about. While at that point he was just a stranger visiting, I figured he’d be back.

Without another word, my dad turned away from us and headed toward home. Sarah called to him—begging him not to leave, promising never to crash into the water fountain again. But he trudged through the snow like he was late for an appointment and never looked back.

Sarah rolled onto her back, face pointed toward the sky and arms extended away from her torso to form a perfect T. She murmured “Daddy” over and over, even when she saw it was me kneeling at her side. I noticed one cheek redder than the other against the white snow, and in that instant something in my five-year-old gut shifted. At the time I didn’t understand, but it’s likely that was the moment when my center of gravity began tilting toward Sarah and away from my dad. She needed me; my father needed no one.

Sabrina Lee has been telling stories for most of her life. Previously a professional modern dancer and an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker, she recently put pen to paper at the urging of her siblings who feared the strangeness of their childhood would be lost. She’s currently pursuing an MFA from Mountainview’s Nonfiction Writing Program and her work has appeared in Duke Magazine and Hippocampus. Sabrina lives in Montana where she breathes plenty of fresh air and shares a lumpy backyard with a family of prairie dogs.