Free Dead of Winter by Kealan Patrick Burke Page B

forgive
me my trespasses and rush into my arms. She would gladly accept the
gift I bought her then. She would gladly accept me as part of her
life again. She would care.
    I weep, silently, as I unwrap the
gift. I'm blocking it from her view, so she can't see what it is.
But that hardly matters now, does it? It could be a pony, a car, a
million dollars, and it wouldn't matter. She only wants her
mother.
    "It's a cell phone," I whisper,
running a finger over the small rectangular box. "An expensive one.
I bought it..." My throat closes, trapping a sob. I wait. Try
again. "...I bought it and programmed my number into it so that,
even if you didn't want to talk...you could send me a text now and
then." The sobs come, wave after wave of them rippling through me
as I push the gift aside and reach for Kara's. I can barely see it
through the ugly orange and dazzling white kaleidoscope the tears
have made of my eyes. Blinking furiously, I tear open the wrapping
paper and roughly fling it aside.
    "For you, Kara, honey." I raise the
box to show it to her. I am heartened to hear her give the
slightest gasp. "A Sassy Sarah doll. The clerk at the store told me
they're the coolest thing out there right now." I continue to hold
it up for a moment, waiting, wanting her to take it. When she
doesn't, I let it fall to the floor and stand, my knees cracking
painfully.
    We are a tableau of pain and misery
and fear.
    I watch them, searching their small
faces for the slightest hint of love.
    And find none.
    "Okay," I tell them. "Let's get you
home. You can still take the gifts if you want them."
    They don't, of course.
     
    * * *
     
    They say nothing on the ride back to
their mother, even when I tell them I'm sorry for scaring them,
even when I tell them the words I've rehearsed in my gloomy
apartment every night for over a year. Even when I open the car
door for them and tell them I hope we can try again some
time.
    They have nothing to say, and that
says enough.
    Lit by the car's headlights, our
passage up the snowy cross-studded hill is a somber one.
    "Happy Christmas," I whisper to
Isabelle, as I lay her body back into her grave. The wind freezes
my tears.
    "Happy Christmas," I whisper to Kara,
as I lay her down in the hole, which is not as deep as I dug it
thanks to the endless snow.
    I return to the car and retrieve the
shovel, grimacing as the handle chafes against my calloused
hands.
    And as I fill my children's graves
back in, my eyes stray to the headstone next to theirs, to my
wife's grave, and I wonder if she will ever forgive me, if maybe
that's where a wiser man would have started. If maybe, just maybe,
some day she might give me another chance.
    Hope is a dangerous thing, but without
it, what else is there?
    I allow myself a small
smile.
    We'll see.
    Valentine's Day is not so far
away.
     
     
     
    # # #
     
     
    ABOUT THE
AUTHOR

    Kealan Patrick Burke is the
Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The
Turtle Boy , The
Hides , Vessels , Kin, Midlisters , Master of the
Moors, Ravenous Ghosts , The Number
121 to Pennsylvania & Others, Currency of Souls, Seldom Seen in August , and
Jack & Jill.
     
    Visit him on the web
at: http://www.kealanpatrickburke.com or http://kealanpatrick.wordpress.com /