The Coldest Night of My Life

I sat in the back of my parents' mini-van, bracing myself for a ridiculously boring evening. My parents were dressed nice, my dad in a coat and tie, my mother wearing black, velvety slacks with a long-sleeved shirt that, in my mind, sparkled too much. I wore clothes just nice enough to get by. What can I say, I was the rebellious teenager...I had to play the part, right? We had been given tickets to a musical, performed by the original Broadway cast, in downtown Kansas City. The musical was The Phantom of the Opera. All day I had been listening to my dad spout off information about the singers, the producers, and even Andrew Lloyd Webber, the writer and composer. He loved this musical, so I didn't ruin his fun. I pretended to listen.

I stared out the window at the passing skyscrapers, the sun glinting off their many windows, like they were houses of the Gods themselves. Why does everyone think things are better if they sparkle? Despite the sunlight, I shivered in the cold. The middle of January in Kansas City is a cold time, and my breath fogged the window, partially obscuring the buildings. I didn't really want to look at them anyway.

We finally arrived at our destination and I stepped out of the van to the crunch of snow beneath my boots. Just as I walked out into the open air, a snowflake tickled my nose, and I realized it was starting to snow! I lifted my face to the heavens and raised my arms, grinning at this momentary, but beautiful, blessing. I hoped it snowed a lot. We payed for our parking and began to walk through the evening light toward the large theatre, when I heard someone coughing. They sounded terrible, and I looked around me, for the source. What I saw stopped me in my tracks.

A man stood underneath the overhang of a closed building, in a t-shirt and torn jeans. He was walking down the sidewalk, but he wasn't moving very fast, and I could tell why. In his arms he was carrying a girl, probably nine years old, who seemed unconscious. The world slowed around me, but my senses returned when the man started coughing again, his lungs racking so violently that he fell over, barely turning in time to block the girl's head from hitting the sidewalk. They were both rail thin, and though the girl had a light jacket wrapped around her, he had nothing to protect him from the cold.

Suddenly I took back my wish. I looked back at the sky. Stop snowing, I pleaded silently. I take it back, it's not important! Nothing changed. I felt guilty for wishing for snow...typical teenager, thinking their control of their world extended even to the weather.

"Dad," I said, as i jogged up to him, pulling on his sleeve. He kept walking as he looked at me.

"Yeah?" I pointed to the man and his daughter.

"We have to help them. There's a hospital near here, let's take them there." I started to pull his arm toward the scene, not at all expecting that he would resist; but he did. I looked at him questioningly.

"Lisa, there's nothing we can do," he said, with just enough sympathy in his voice to make him sound like he cared. "The hospital won't take them, they are not on our health insurance."

"But we have the money to pay for them without health insurance," I stated, shocked that he didn't know this. Did he not track his finances at all?

"We don't have that kind of money," he protested with a roll of his eyes, and he continued toward the theatre, his large belly bouncing like a jolly Santa Clause walking down the street. A Santa Clause with no white beard or spirit of sharing.

"You've got to be kidding me," I said, staying where I was. I started to become angry. "You KNOW we have exactly that kind of money!" He turned and gave me that look that said 'You're only a kid, when you're older you'll understand.' But I would never understand. I just shook my head in disbelief. "I can't believe you," I said through clenched teeth, fighting the urge to say more. My mother, as usual, stood beside my father, looking at the ground and agreeing with whatever he said by lack of protest. It was disgusting.

I turned on my heel and walked to the man, who was now attempting to stand back up while carrying his little girl. I had no money of my own, and I couldn't make them take these people to the hospital, but I would do what I could. He looked at me with distrust in his eyes as I approached, and I held up my hands to let him know I wouldn't hurt him. His hands were covered in knots, and looked brittle and arthritic, even though he couldn't have been older than forty. I could see he was fighting back tears, but I think he restrained them for the sake of his child. She, I saw when I approached, wasn't unconscious, but was very sick. She huddled in his arms, clinging to the only warmth she had, as if she really believed if she just hugged him hard enough, he could save her. He knew otherwise.

I stopped a few feet from him, sat on the ground, and took off my boots. I held them out to him, and when he only looked at me in fear, I walked up to them, and carefully slipped one, then the other, on the child's feet, which were bare. She barely responded. I took off my coat and when I offered it to him as well, he sat the girl down on the ground. He took the coat quickly, now that he knew that I was serious, in a great rush to get her warm. I took off my gloves, and put them on the girls hands. She didn't speak, but when I put the gloves on her, she wrapped her arms around herself, hiding her hands in her underarms, and started to cry. I imagine it was the pain from warmth suddenly hitting very cold skin. Lastly, I pulled off my hat, and handed it to the man. "This is for you," I said to him. "You won't do her any good frozen to death yourself." He smiled as he took it from me, and stared at me a moment. As I figured he would, he put the hat on the child's head instead of his own. Now I was crying! His smile suddenly disappeared and he gathered the girl in his arms again as I heard a yell from behind me. I turned to find my parents approaching, and very angrily. My dad looked from the homeless man, to me, and back to him.

"How dare you?" he breathed, using the silent outraged tone instead of shouting. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Your mother and I bought those nice things for you, and you just give them away to some...stranger!?" He spat the last word as if being a stranger were a less human than ourselves. I couldn't stand it, and my tears quickly disappeared in anger.

"How dare I? Are you serious?" I asked, still not believing he could be so selfish. "Somehow I doubt that stranger has as many coats at home to choose from as I do!" I yelled at him. My voice was getting louder and I couldn't help it. I had never been so angry in my life. I started walking toward the van. I turned toward my parents as I walked away. "Next time you want to buy me some useless junk that I already have, take the money and go give it to one of those 'disgusting' STRANGERS instead! That's the only gift I ever want from you." I turned away and kept walking toward the van. They were silent for a moment.

"Aren't you coming into the show, honey?" I heard my mom call from behind me, trying to brush this under the rug like every other conflict we'd ever had. I turned and looked straight back into her eyes.

"I'd rather freeze than sit in there next to you." With that, I opened the van door and hopped in, unwilling to move. I noticed that my dad had unlocked it for me from where he was standing. Some part of me hoped that they would come to the van too, ready to talk about what had happened. But when I finally looked back out the frost covered window, they were gone, heading inside to enjoy their play. The homeless man and his daughter were gone too, and the snow had turned into full, thick flakes, obscuring my view in every direction. It was the coldest three hours of my life.