Free Dead of Winter by Kealan Patrick Burke

father, joins her sister in
watching the snowy streets and stores blazing with multicolored
lights, but shakes her head.
    "Well then I'm glad I put a turkey in
the oven!" I tell them. It's a microwave meal, but they don't need
to know that, though I'm sure the taste will give it away.
"Everyone hungry?"
    No response. Isabelle has tears in her
eyes.
    In the mirror, my smile looks
desperate, and frail.
    I return my gaze to the road. I
shouldn't be driving in this. The snow makes the windshield look
like a TV screen with bad reception. Half-glimpsed figures rush
through the lights, heads bowed, as unaware of me as I am of them.
My attention is focused on my daughters, who have brought the cold
of this Christmas Eve into the car with them.
    "You excited about your
presents?"
    Again, Isabelle says nothing. Kara
only blinks.
    Somehow I manage to guide the car out
of the shopping district without incident. The festive lights and
their associated—if alien—cheer vanish, replaced by whirling
dervishes of snow turned red by the brake lights as I turn into
our—into my—neighborhood.
    Here the houses are vague, dispirited,
dark-eyed shapes hunkered against the cold. The wheels of the car
slide a little in the slush, but I keep my small, battered Toyota
from hitting the curb and offer the girls a reassuring smile
neither of them sees.
    Then my home, which looks no less
unwelcoming than any of the others, and I kill the engine. Listen
for a moment to the ticking of the snow against the windshield as
it tries to erase the outside world. Listen for a moment to the
hitching breath from Isabelle's mouth as she struggles not to cry.
Listen to the sniffling as Kara bravely fights with a
cold.
    "All right girls...we're
here!"
    And I listen to the erratic thumping
of my own heartbeat as I swallow and open the door.
     
    * * *
     
    "Makes yourselves at home. Go on. Take
your coats and boots off," I tell the girls as I hang my coat on
the rack by the front door.
    They look inclined to do no such
thing. They just stand there, looking small and miserable, and
lost. Isabelle is still pouting, but as frustrating as it is, I
know better than to chastise her for it. It's one of the many
privileges I lost with custody, and one that would only exacerbate
things now. Kara is shivering despite the cloying heat in the
apartment. It's always warm in here, but today I set the thermostat
higher knowing the kids would be coming back with me. I guess I
didn't think getting them here would take as long as it
did.
    I stamp snow from my shoes and offer
them reassuring smiles though it hurts my heart to see them
standing close together as if seeking solace from some terrible
threat. Nightly I relive the warm cherished memories of their faces
lighting up at the sight of me coming home from work, especially on
Christmas Eve, my arms laden with gifts I made a show of pretending
were not for them. I remember the clean scent of them as they
wrapped their arms around me, the softness of their lips against my
cheek, the laughter, the joy.
    The love.
    "Right then," I say, rubbing my hands
briskly together and moving past them to the kitchen. "Off with
those coats or you'll be more roasted than the turkey. I'll get
dinner on the table and we can eat. And after that, we can exchange
gifts."
    As I tug open the fridge, I wince.
Using the word "exchange" was a force of habit. Of course they have
no presents for me, nor should I have expected any. I promised them
gifts last Christmas and on their birthdays and forgot on each
occasion thanks to self-pity and a bottle with a man's name on the
label. So I expected wariness and doubt. I expected awkwardness. I
didn't, however, expect fear, distrust, and coldness.
    "What I mean is," I tell
them, yanking three microwave dinners from the fridge and nudging
the door shut with my knee. "You guys can unwrap the gifts I got for you ." The chill from the
boxes feels like Heaven on my calloused fingers. I set the meals
down beside the