Free An Order of Coffee and Tears by Brian Spangler Page A

of the white stuff was dumped on us. We took turns unburying the stoop and the sidewalk in front of the diner. A few of our regular customers even joined in and helped shovel during the storm, keeping our walkway clear by removing a few inches at a time. The snow was fluffier than I expected. It was feather-light, and didn’t pack together at all like some of the snow we had earlier in the year. I tried to make a snowball. I even tried to throw one in the street, only to see a confetti bomb of loose flurries explode from my closed hand.
    The snow was so light that I played magic tricks with it. Waving my hand over the top of the snow, I could pull up a handful of flurries and have them chase my fingers before falling again. Someone mentioned it was a cold and dry snow, with very little moisture, so it stayed extra fluffy. It sounded funny, like something you’d order at a bakery. What I liked most was that shoveling wasn’t much of a chore, although I can’t say the rest of the city agrees. After all, thirty-plus inches of anything is bound to slow things a little. Or a lot.
    In all, the storm shut down most of the greater Philadelphia area. Cars were buried – first by the drifting snow, and then after the streets were plowed. Busses, trains, and airplane flights were all cancelled. The winds that pushed the snow up into drifts also brought down phone lines and some power lines. At least five deaths were directly attributed to the storm. Two of those were an elderly husband and wife only three blocks from my apartment. Their house filled with a poisonous gas when a vent on their roof became blocked by snow and ice. The news reported that they went to sleep that evening, and never woke up.
    Angela’s Diner was one of the few places that stayed open. We lost our phone lines for a day or so, but we never lost power. Clark said the grill ran on gas, anyway. He said he’d cook up whatever was in the fridge, and then leave it outside. I thought that was clever. According to the thermometer, temperatures were still hovering around twenty, which was already colder than any refrigerator we had.
    The Irish Pub across from us stayed open, too. I’d seen a few comings and goings as I passed by in a walk to the diner from my apartment. And, as usual, some of their regulars were swaying, and some were falling, and most had overstayed their welcome. Fortunately for us, those stumbling had made their way home to their own beds, and didn’t stop in for a bite at the diner. A part of me was happy to see that the fast-food restaurant was shut-down by the storm. And it wasn’t just closed during the snowfall, it remained closed for the better part of three days. Angela’s saw more new faces during those three days than we’d seen in the previous two weeks.
    One of the faces I’d not seen back at the diner was the detective’s; not that I’d care to see his face, anyway. He’d come in to bid his warnings to Ms. Potts and Clark, and then left. He said one case, just a single case of his remained open and unsolved. Days passed, and I wondered how it could be that the detective’s single case involved two of the most caring and loving people I’d ever come to know.
    A few times, I caught myself wanting to ask about Detective Ramiz. I was a breath away, once – I’d had my hand up with a question on my tongue, as though I were back in grade school. Ms. Potts walked from the back and stopped where she stood. She fixed me a look as if ready to answer a question she hadn’t heard yet. She was like that – she could read me, especially when there was something on my mind. But I didn’t ask. I’m not sure if it was because I didn’t want to think any differently about my new family, or because I knew that, if I opened the book on their past, then maybe I’d obligate myself to opening the book on my own. I wasn’t ready to do that. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready. I shrugged away the pending questions, and Ms. Potts lifted