Short fiction

There is snow falling outside

There is snow falling outside; the first I have seen for a year. It is the first snow my little boy has seen and he is all excitement.

I hold him upto the window. His fat little legs kick and squirm in my arms. His hands beat the glass; the rhythm of early life.

The snow falls outside. It cascades down from the sky. I look down at the street below and observe how easily it settles on cars.

Lovely, lovely snow, my boy is saying. Though he cannot talk.

Sarah appears from out of the dark. She stands beside our car and looks up at us looking down at her. She is crying. I know those tears. She has her travel bag with her and in it all the clothes she took to her mother’s.

She looks up at me with tired watery eyes and pleads, mouthing words I don’t know but I can understand.

My little boy has not noticed his mother and is still bewildered by the snowfall. He follows fresh drops as they come down from the sky. His tiny hands bash at the flakes that smear the window. In the reflection I see how his face moves from smiles to wonder to confusion.

I will let Sarah in for my boy. He needs his mother here, around. Just two nights without her and he was all tears. This snow cannot distract him forever. He needs his parents, both of us together; it is what all children need. Pride can be put aside for a time; I can learn to forgive and perhaps one day I will forget.

But my boy will grow up, grow old, and this secret he will never know,

Lovely, lovely snow.

Samuel Oates