Free Summer Snow by Rebecca Pawel

pleased and half embarrassed. “One or two. Nothing as dramatic as yours.”
    “Ahh, I probably lied to impress you kids.” The ex-guardia laughed. “How’d you end up in the Guardia, anyway? Don Pablo told me you’d gone to study law.”
    Tejada shrugged. It was a question he seldom asked himself anymore, but when it did come up, the lack of a simple answer always made him uncomfortable. He turned aside the question with a compliment. “I guess I admired all the old guardias I knew.”
    “What, an old cripple?” Nilo scoffed, but his eyes were still slits of pleasure in a weather-beaten face. “There must have been more to it than that.”
    “A little more,” Tejada admitted. They had reached the staircase that led to the first floor and he put one hand on the banister, unwilling to offend the old man by turning away, but feeling guilty about postponing his meeting with Almeida. “But it’s a long story.”
    “You come and have a drink with me this evening and tell me all about it,” the porter invited. “I get off at eight. Can your parents spare you for a few hours?”
    Tejada hesitated. “Yes. But . . . .”
    Nilo’s eyes twinkled. “You have a family of your own?”
    The lieutenant nodded.
    “Kids?”
    “One. He’ll be five in April.” Tejada’s voice was warm with pride.
    “Make it a café then, and bring them along,” the doorman offered. “I’d love to meet them. That is,” he added, “if you don’t mind spending time with a nosy old man.”
    “Of course not,” the lieutenant replied.
    Nilo named a café on the other side of the square, and suggested a time. Tejada agreed with genuine pleasure and asked if Don Pablo was free. “He’ll likely be free to see you ,” the doorman said, patting the lieutenant on the back paternally. “We’ve all missed you, you know, while you’ve been off doing great things in the north.”
    “Then I’ll see you at eight-thirty, God willing.” Tejada once more turned toward the stairs.
    “God willing.”
    Tejada managed to get up the stairs with only one more pat on the back and a handshake. He was smiling as he knocked on Almeida’s door. A secretary his own age let him in. “Can I help you, Señor?”
    Tejada identified himself as a family friend and asked to speak to Don Pablo. The secretary, recognizing his surname, hurried into the lawyer’s office and returned a moment later, followed by Pablo Almeida himself. “Carlos!” Almeida held out his hand, smiling. “How long has it been?”
    “Too long.” He submitted to a quick embrace with a better humor than he might have without Nilo’s greeting downstairs. “It’s good to see you, Don Pablo.”
    “Likewise.” the lawyer ushered Tejada into his office, speaking in a continuous flow of commonplaces.
    Tejada answered Almeida’s questions with the slight awkwardness that comes of trying to summarize a decade of living in a few polite phrases. After three minutes that covered the lieutenant’s war record, his promotions, his job prospects, his marriage, his son, and whether he would like a cup of coffee, Almeida seemed at a loss. “Well,” he repeated. “Well. Doesn’t time fly. And your parents, are they well?”
    It occurred to the lieutenant that since his parents saw Don Pablo far more frequently than he did, this was a slightly ridiculous question. “They’re fine,” he replied. “Although of course we’re in mourning now, you know.”
    Don Pablo adjusted his expression. “A great loss. May she rest in peace.”
    “May she rest in peace,” Tejada agreed, with only the faintest hint of irony in his tone. “You knew Doña Rosalia, too, of course.”
    “Of course. I remember her scolding me as a boy.” Don Pablo attempted to make his voice hearty, but he winced slightly as he spoke, as if he remembered more recent scoldings from Doña Rosalia.
    “You were her lawyer?”
    “Yes.” Don Pablo shifted uncomfortably. “Speaking of that, what is the situation of the