by James A. Jordan
Mom said Tasha and I could have a snow day, and that we’d do the things we always did on snow days. Eat pancakes with chocolate chips, watch TV in the middle of the day, drink hot cocoa. The only difference, she said, would be the snow. There hadn’t been any all year. It was April now—dogwood winter—and it had been sunny all week. We would have to make believe, Mom said. Also, there were some errands she needed to run that would take her all day.
“She’s not giving us a snow day,” Tasha said when it was just the two of us. She was twelve and knew things. “She needs us to be here with daddy in case anything happens, and to welcome visitors.”
Dad stayed upstairs in what had been the guest room. He was going away soon, and for the past week people had been coming to see him to say goodbye. Family friends, neighbors we called uncle and aunt, and former clients. They brought candy and kid stuff that I was too old for, told jokes I’d already heard. Then Mom would take them upstairs. When they’d come back down, they always said they’d be praying for us. Reverend Farmer, the oldest man in town, came by the most, but he only visited with Mom.
“Won’t the visitors be snowed in, too?” I said, trying my best to make believe.
“Don’t be stupid, Johnny,” Tasha said. “There isn’t going to be any snow.”
The morning of the snow day, I saw white on the dogwoods out front. Maybe snow had come after all.
“Those are blooms,” Tasha said. “Look at the ground.”
The grass was green and tall since Dad no longer mowed.
Mom was already gone, but she’d made a big plateful of pancakes. There was a snowman-shaped note. Eat as many as you want. Supper leftovers can be microwaved for lunch. Hugs and kisses and snowballs.
I bet Tasha I could eat more pancakes than her.
“I’m not hungry,” she said after picking around on one.
We watched TV. To Tell the Truth, The Price Is Right, Maury. I flipped over to Channel 5 to watch Sally. The show’s topic was “I’m Dying and My Family Doesn’t Know.”
“I’m sick of watching TV,” Tasha said. “Let’s play a game instead.”
We decided to play in the dining room. That way we could see the driveway in case anyone drove up. We sat at the cherry table where we ate at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
We played Go Fish, and I won.
We played Sorry, and I got all my pieces home first.
“This is such kids’ stuff,” she said. “Let’s play a real game.”
I pulled out the backgammon set she and Dad played on.
“You don’t know how to play this,” she said. “It’s for grownups.”
“The easiest way to learn is to play,” I said, which was what Dad always said.
We played for a penny a game like she and Dad did. She won three games in a row and told me I owed her a nickel.
“I gammoned you twice and that counts double,” she said.
A baby-blue sports car pulled into our driveway and parked. A man got out. He wore a large dark-brown fur coat and a blue dress shirt that matched the color of his car. He stood in the driveway, staring at the house. Tasha and I watched him from the dining room’s bay window.
“Holy shitake, it’s him,” Tasha said.
“Who?” I said.
The man walked toward the front door, carrying a wrapped package. A square box with shiny gold wrapping paper and a big red bow.
“Holy shitake,” Tasha said again.
The man rang the doorbell. Tasha, using her Junior Cotillion manners, greeted him, asked for his name, and introduced herself and me.
“John,” the man said. “Like your father.”
“Johnny,” Tasha said. “We call him Johnny.”
I waited for him to tell us his full name, but instead he told us he was an old friend of Dad’s and happened to be passing through on his way to Atlanta. He wanted to know if now was a good time to see Dad.
Tasha opened the door all the way and stepped aside. She pulled me over next to her.
“Let me take your coat, sir,” Tasha said. “And kindly please wait in the foyer.”
The man’s face was a different color than his neck. (Makeup, Tasha mouthed when he wasn’t looking.) He had bright green eyes and curly black hair. His collarbones stuck out beneath his shirt. He was not from around here. I followed him into the room. While we waited for Tasha to check on Dad, the man asked me questions—my age, what grade I was in, what classes I liked, hated, did I play sports, what did I like to do. He spoke with an accent.
I told him I liked to draw, and when he asked what I drew, I showed him my charcoal sketches of timber wolves, smoking log cabins covered in white pastel snow, and pencil drawings of superheroes I’d made up.
“These look just like the wolves your dad and I saw on a trip once.”
Dad hadn’t said anything about a trip when he’d looked at the pictures. He’d just said they looked friendly.
I asked the man how long he’d known Dad.
“Oh, a long while now,” he said. “We met before you were born.”
“Have you seen each other a lot since?” I asked.
“Once or twice a year,” he said. “I don’t guess he’s ever mentioned me?”
“Never,” I said.
He fiddled with the wrapped box in his hand. I asked what it was.
“For your father,” he said.
“He needs it,” I said. “He keeps giving away stuff anytime people come over.”
“How does he look?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask you that.” He reached out to touch me but pulled his hand back. “I’m sorry.”
I’d been hearing that a lot lately—grownups apologizing. When Uncle Glenn, who wasn’t actually my uncle, said sorry I’d asked him what for and he hadn’t told me. I got the feeling this man wouldn’t tell me either.
“He looks like he’s always about to fall asleep even when he’s eating,” I said.
“Mom told Tasha and me he’d lose his hair, but it’s still there,” I said.
The man reached in his pocket and produced a small bronze box with a heron in profile on the front. The lid shone like a penny that’s been rubbed too much. He opened the box and took out two small mints. He offered one to me and popped the other in his mouth.
The mint made my eyes water.
“From a special shop in London,” he said.
“You’ve been there?” I said.
“Every now and then,” he said. “Whenever I have one of these mints, I imagine myself back there. It is raining and I hear jazz playing over speakers.”
I closed my eyes and tried to picture this, but all I could see was the drugstore where Dad took us for burgers and shakes after doctor appointments.
Tasha returned. “Daddy will see you now,” she said.
The man and I followed. Before we went into the room, he turned and handed me the present.
“We’re in this together, eh, Johnny,” he said and winked.
Tasha took the present from me and gave it back to him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry.”
“If you want to see Daddy, you better go in now,” Tasha said and opened the door.
The man put on the same big smile every visitor wore when entering the room. He crossed the threshold, followed by Tasha. I remained where I was. Dad was sitting up in the bed. A plastic tube ran from his nose to the green tank. Mom had said I must be careful around it because I might hurt Dad if I accidentally did something to the tube, so I tried not to go into the room unless I had to.
“Hello there, John,” the man said.
Dad smiled, too.
“I’d hoped,” Dad said, his voice a hoarse whisper.
The man set the present down on the bedside table, picked up Dad’s hand with both of his, cradling it as though it were something precious and fragile. I had never seen anyone hold him this way.
“What have you got there?” Dad said, motioning toward the present.
“A gift, for you.” The man released his hand, picked up the present, and held it out.
The box shook in Dad’s grasp.
“Johnny?” Dad said. “Johnny?”
“I’m here,” I said and stepped in from the doorway.
“Help me with this.”
I took the present from him and ripped off the paper to reveal a white box. I opened the lid and pulled out a small snow globe. It was a city, with one large skyscraper dominating the other nondescript buildings. Chicago was written in bubbled letters across the bottom. A silver winding key stuck out from the globe’s base. I wound it, turned the globe upside down, and set it back on the bedside table, making sure I never touched the tubes. “Blue Skies” played. It was a song Dad sang to us as a lullaby back when he still tucked us in.
Dad watched the pebbled snow fall.
“Ah yes, of course,” Dad said, closing his eyes. “I can see us now. All those years ago.”
Dad opened his eyes. “That’s really lovely. Thank you.”
“Never saw the sun shining so bright,” the man sang. His voice wobbled.
Dad reached out, took hold of the man’s hand. “Kids, can we have some time, just the two of us?”
Tasha led me out and shut the door.
I pressed my ear to the keyhole, but Tasha tugged at my arm.
“Can’t we stand here?” I wanted to hear what the man had to say, what Dad had to say. If I stayed there, I thought, I might get some answers.
Tasha pulled at me, this time with force.
“That’s none of our business, Johnny,” she said, then repeated one of Mom’s favorite lines. “That’s something that’s between them.”
Tasha led me back to the dining room, and we resumed our game. I listened for the man’s feet on the floorboards above.
“Gotcha again,” Tasha said, and moved her pip onto a spot where mine had been. She put my piece on the bar where another already was. “You keep leaving yourself exposed.”
I imagined sitting with the man in his baby-blue car and him cradling my hand the way he had Dad’s.
“You can’t move until you’re off the bar,” Tasha said.
Never saw the sun shining so bright, the man sang. Never saw things going so right.
“Are you even paying attention?” Tasha said.
Sunlight through the windows made my stomach-sick, so I shifted so I was in the shade, where it remained cold. Outside, the dogwood flowers glowed.
When the man came down, he carried one of Dad’s blue-checkered handkerchiefs and the old cedarwood box that always stayed locked.
The man lingered in the hall. He used Dad’s handkerchief to wipe his eyes then faced us.
“There now,” he said, and offered the same weak smile that every visitor gave after seeing Dad. “That’s that.”
Tasha rose, asked if the man wanted a glass of water or sweet tea.
“Thank you, no. I’m supposed to be in Atlanta by eight, and I’m already going to be pushing it. Best to leave now.”
“Yes,” Tasha said, then told me to go get the fur coat.
I fetched it. The coat smelled of peppermint and cigarettes. I wanted to wrap myself up in it, but I held the coat out like Dad used to for Mom.
“Quite the young gentleman,” he said. He held his hand out to Tasha. “It was nice to meet you. Thanks for sneaking me in.”
Tasha kept her hands to her side. “I hope you get to Atlanta on time,” she said.
“Yes, yes,” the man said. “Thank you for your kindness.”
I walked the man to his car. He placed Dad’s box in the front seat and turned back to me.
“Thank you for the snow,” I said. “Even if it’s fake, I’m glad he got to see some before he goes.”
His eyes glittered. I thought he might ask me if I wanted to go for a ride, but he held out the brass mint box instead.
“Would you like?” he said.
I held out my hand, expecting another mint. He placed the whole box there.
“Sometimes I make believe that I’m a good person,” he said. “When you look at this, I hope you will, too.”
I thanked him and asked when we would see him again.
He shrugged. “Only fools prospect the future.”
He got in his car, turned the engine, and drove away.
I took a mint from the pillbox, popped it in my mouth. My eyes didn’t start watering until I could no longer see the car.
I turned toward the house. Tasha stood at the dining room window.
“You can never tell Mom about this,” she said when I came back inside.
“About what?” I said.
“About him.”
“Why?” Mom liked to keep a list of everyone who had come to visit.
Tasha looked at me like one who had the answers. She looked tired.
“Just promise,” she said.
“I promise,” I said.
“Pinky swear?”
“Pinky swear.”
Dad’s bell rang from upstairs, and Tasha turned toward the stairwell.
“I’ll go,” I said.
I thought she would tell me no, but Tasha just sat back down at the table. I took the stairs two at a time.
Dad faced the door. His eyes were milky.
“Daddy?” I said.
He motioned for me to come closer.
I sat beside him on the bed. The room beeped and rasped in the silence. I wanted to know my father—who he was, who he had been, the places he’d visited: Chicago, the man. I thought about him seeing the wolves, and I wondered what all he’d seen that I hadn’t. What I would see that he never would.
I cradled his hand the way the man had. It was cold, so I blew into it and rubbed it with my hands.
Dad smiled.
“I can’t even imagine what happiness lies ahead for you,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.
“I wish I had.” He stopped, and there was silence in the room for a few seconds. “But I was afraid. Don’t be afraid to dream.”
“I won’t be afraid, Daddy.”
“Promise me.”
“Pinky swear.”
He asked me to flip the snow globe and to wind the song up again.
The music played. The fake snow fell.
“Chicago,” he said. “Back then I was another man.”
He closed his eyes, and I thought he was asleep, but when I moved to get up from the bed he spoke.
“Take it,” he said. “You’ll need it where you’re going.”
I thanked him and kissed his stubble. His milky eyes stared back.
“Thank you for making the effort to come see me,” he said. “I’m always thinking of you. I’m always missing—”
I waited, but he said nothing more. His eyes closed, his chest rose and fell. He began to snore.
I walked Indian style out of the room, rolling each step, pulled the door to, then moved down the stairs without making a sound.
Tasha sat hunched over the dining room table. I set the globe on the table between us.
“I know where he’s going,” I said. “You don’t have to pretend about it with me any longer.”
Tasha started to speak then stopped. She was always protecting someone, but I didn’t know who she was protecting this time—Dad or me or her. She picked up the globe, wound the song up, and motioned toward the backgammon board. It was my roll, she said, and she was getting tired of waiting.
James A. Jordan’s previous work has appeared in The Bitter Southerner, Carve, Fugue, The Greensboro Review, New South, Quarterly West, The Saturday Evening Post Online, and The Trinity Review among others. He received his MFA from the Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans and his PhD from Georgia State University. He currently serves as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Auburn University.