In Chap­ter Forty-Two of “If These Wings Could Fly,” the day begins with a serene win­ter scene. The nar­ra­tor wakes up to a sun­lit room, filled with the beau­ty of untouched snow out­side, and feels com­fort­ed snug­gling with sib­lings, Camp­bell and Juniper, under a drag­on­fly quilt. Briefly appre­ci­at­ing the snowy exte­ri­or, the nar­ra­tor notices a lack of crows in their yard—an unusu­al sight com­pared to Mrs. Stieg’s yard across the street, which is over­run by them.

As the nar­ra­tor tip­toes out of the room, care­ful to avoid wak­ing the girls, they encounter their moth­er in the kitchen, pour­ing her­self tea. The warmth and tran­quil­i­ty radi­at­ing from their moth­er sig­nals a promis­ing day ahead. After enjoy­ing a qui­et moment togeth­er, Camp­bell and Juniper appear, caught between sleepi­ness and excite­ment over the snow.

A brief con­ver­sa­tion about break­fast ensues, but Juniper is eager to go out­side instead. The nar­ra­tor heads to the attic to fetch win­ter cloth­ing, nav­i­gat­ing the cozy chaos of the space. While search­ing, they stum­ble upon a box filled with their moth­er’s old high school mem­o­ries, includ­ing year­books and let­ters. Buried with­in the box is *Amethyst*, a lit­er­ary mag­a­zine from twen­ty years ago, of which their moth­er was edi­tor-in-chief. This dis­cov­ery reveals a hid­den side of her—her pas­sion for poet­ry, as the pages con­tain her works.

Feel­ing inspired, the nar­ra­tor leaves a note inside the mag­a­zine, encour­ag­ing their moth­er to write more. Return­ing to the kitchen, the atmos­phere is joy­ful, with Juniper eager­ly wear­ing match­ing gloves and hats.

After a brief dis­cus­sion, the nar­ra­tor seeks their mother’s per­mis­sion for Liam to come over. She agrees, show­ing a com­fort­ing nor­mal­i­ty in their rou­tine. The con­ver­sa­tion shifts to Liam’s arrival, with play­ful ban­ter sug­gest­ing a snow­ball fight looms. The light-heart­ed exchange indi­cates a bud­ding con­nec­tion between the nar­ra­tor and Liam, high­light­ing the joy and sim­plic­i­ty in their lives.

The chap­ter encap­su­lates warmth, nos­tal­gia, and the excite­ment of a snowy day, show­cas­ing the famil­ial bonds and bud­ding rela­tion­ships inter­twined with­in these fleet­ing moments of hap­pi­ness.