August Snow

by Stephen Mack Jones

  I’d purchased an Xbox and several G-rated games to keep the Rodriguez boy entertained, knowing what being the only kid at an “old people” party felt like. Of course Frank was sitting next to Manolito with a controller in his hands and, in between the electrically charged glances he shared with O’Donnell, he vowed to take the boy to school on FIFA.

  Since Tomás’s fifty-fifth birthday was a week away, I also bought two bottles of Tequila Cabresto (Reposado and Silver) and a pair of monogramed Reidel crystal tasting glasses for him. Naturally, I hoped to be the first he raised a glass with.

  Halfway through the party I got a call.

  It was from a beautiful half-Somali, half-German woman six hours away in Oslo, Norway.

  “It sounds like I’m interrupting you,” she said.

  I told her she wasn’t. Tomás, with four tequila shots in him, grabbed the phone out of my hand and told Tatina that I missed her terribly and spent nearly every minute crying like a baby for her. It took me a good three minutes to get the phone back—Tomás had handed the phone off to Elena and Elena tossed it to Frank. Finally in possession of my phone, I went upstairs to my bedroom. As we talked I looked out at my street. Lights were on in houses that hadn’t seen light in years. The first of the season’s snow began drifting down and catching the light of the streetlamps like flecks of diamonds and pearls. It was what I remembered seeing from my boyhood bedroom. And it was the long-ago anticipation of Christmas and all that it meant in Mexicantown expanding warm across my chest.

  “I miss you,” Tatina finally said. “I’m sorry if my saying that makes you—”

  “I miss you, too,” I said, sitting on the edge of my bed.

  We listened to each other breathe for a moment.

  Finally, Tatina broke the easy silence between us. “So, Mr. August Octavio Snow, ex-policeman. What have you been up to?”

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The world would still have its books without the people at Soho and Stephany at Fineprint. Of course, I am of the belief those books wouldn’t be nearly as interesting, intriguing, illuminating or lovingly cared for …