Let. It. Snow.

As the transistor radio spewed static, the drone of school closings leached into his mind. Frustrated, he fiddled with the dials, and for a brief moment, a smiled played across his taut lips as he imagined heaving the well-worn device out the window, envisioning it shattering on the icy snowbank below.

“No. No, no, no,” he convinced himself. A flying radio would catch the attention of the children playing below. Their shouts and laughter drew him out of his reverie. He shook his head, flinging away the thought instead of the radio. Fiddling again, he found a station playing Christmas songs. The smile was replaced with a flicker of pain as the strains of “Let It Snow” filled the cramped room.

“Let it snow, indeed,” he muttered softly to himself, “Let. It. Snow.”

He turned his attention to the table; topped with chipped Formica, it was, like the radio, a relic of another time. Another life. Shoving aside paper plates which once held something resembling food, he dug through the pile of newspapers. They needn’t have been saved so long- he’d memorized every word. Every letter of every word on every faded, yellowed clipping.

“Tragedy!”, they declared.

“Funerals Set!”, they blared.

“No Charges Filed!”, they mocked.

Laughter! Damn those children below, and damn their laughter! What right had they to be so happy, so carefree? He glanced at the calendar, back to the clippings, and once more to the date. Let. It. Snow. It ran through his head like a mantra, a command, a plea. The time had slipped past him like leaves on a rushing stream, but for one long, lonely, painful day each year, time stood still. And he waited. Each year, he waited for snow.

His breath rushed out of his lungs in an ungainly sigh, and he ran a hand through the greasy strings of his thinning hair. He took another look at the calendar, longer this time, and an incongruously happy puppy stared back at him. “Should tell the pet store the cat’s gone,” he thought, “so they stop sending the damn calendar every year.” He reminded himself that it was snowing. Next year, it wouldn’t matter.

He found his coat, worn very little these days, and his boots, blue- a favorite color from that other life. It took some effort to force his tired feet into the stiff leather. In the pocket of the coat, he found a wool cap. Stretching it over his head, he fumbled around the table for his wallet, knocking over the remnants of the morning’s weak coffee. Unable to stop the flow of ruined memories, the bitter liquid stained the ragged pages of his past.

“It’s snowing,” he thought, “That’s all that matters. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”

He flexed his toes in the blue boots. They felt as sturdy as ever. He let the sturdiness seep up his legs, through his torso, into his heart, into his mind. He felt as sturdy as ever. Keys in hand, he didn’t look back.

Opening the front door of the apartment building, the cold air and the sound of children playing were enough to take the wind out him. “Let it snow, today’s the day, let it snow, today’s the day.” The mantra was growing longer, a whispered chant inside his brain, propelling him forward. He used the silent rhythm to brush the snow off his car, and once inside, leaned over to the glove box.

One last newspaper clipping. A smiling family- not his family- frozen in time. The man in the picture was smug, pleased with himself, and with the world. The grinning child, now a mother herself. Her child, the same age as his girls had been. Their home, two short, snowy miles away. He popped the clutch and turned over the engine. “Today’s the day, let it snow, today’s the day, let it snow.”

Pulling out onto the street, he flicked on the car stereo, mashing the buttons until he found it. “Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful…”

He turned the corner. Saw the house. Saw the lighted garland twined around the mailbox post. Saw the child, scarf flying as he tumbled through the frosty piles. Saw the mother. He turned up the radio. He paused and revved. And he knew. He knew what the newspapers would say, and knew he wouldn’t be around to read them. When he was finished with his business here, he wouldn’t be
going home.

Slowly pulling up to the curb, he rolled down the window. The woman and the boy paused, cautiously, expectantly.

“It was snowing that day, too,” he said, “He’s a beautiful child. Cherish him…oh, and tell your father it’s okay. I know it was an accident.” Before the mother could interpret the full weight of his words, he was gone.
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A different radio crackled…

“Dispatch, we’ve got a car into a snowbank, do you copy?”

“Copy that- should I alert EMS?”

“Dispatch, no... No, that won’t be necessary.”