That Winter Ago

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On his fourth birthday, James prayed for snow. He did so on the first Sunday of the month, the one when the gathered believers who were to celebrate birthdays in the coming thirty-one days of January paraded to the altar to receive the blessing of the birthday song sung by Cedarsville United Methodist Church’s overly ambitious choir. While everyone waited on ninety-nine-year-old Estelle Hardy to shuffle to the front, James jumped up the single stair that separated him from the understood spotlight and stole the podium from Reverend Nelson, the chap-cheeked boy’s grandfather, and he led a prayer, the prayer. The little boy closed his eyes and spoke with so much force—belief—into the microphone that even the easily humored teenagers in those crowded, mouse-gnawed pews in the back knew to hush up and mouth “amen.” James had never seen snow. None of them had, but according to the weather reporter on the radio, there was actually a chance.

When it blanketed the town that night, James knew he was the reason why.

On his fifth birthday, James prayed for snow. Not because he wanted to experience the joy of making a snow angel again or to reignite the struggle of constructing a snowman. It wasn’t because he craved another bowl of sugary snow cream either. Or because he wanted to see how another snowball fight might end. He prayed because he wanted all those people to come back—the ones who’d been out with him among it all and vanished. His parents. His grandparents. Ms. Hardy. Even snaggle-toothed Ralph Nash, the neighbor kid who used to sit alone in his yard on Sunday mornings and slurp worms from the damp soil. He thought if the wintery sky opened again it might be to allow the lost—everyone he’d ever known—to return. 

When nothing came, James closed his eyes and tried again. 

On his eleventh birthday, James prayed for snow. Just as he had every day for the past seven years. Of course, he prayed for it in winter, sitting at his family’s old kitchen table, with his mother’s soup-stained quilt draped over his back. With it trapping his dense clouds of breath. With the silent company of his stained and balding stuffed dinosaurs and dogs. But he even prayed for snow in the summer as he scavenged, coated with mud and sweat, as far as he could see for dandelions and clovers. And, too, as he stood under the plum trees and waited for the fruit to drop because he still could not reach the bent limbs himself. He prayed as he went from lonely house to lonely house, searching cabinets for beans and soups. Stale chips, crackers, and cookies. Searching freezers for strawberries and cherries. Popsicles and pies. 

When the sky stayed clear, he didn’t give up.

On his eighteenth birthday, James prayed for snow. So that, with its return, he might have someone to touch. A hand to hold. Lips to kiss. He prayed to hear a voice that might speak his name. And for a body to sit outdoors, against his own, on a humid evening to watch the lightning bugs flicker. And that maybe that body could keep him company as he fell off, perhaps under a full moon, into his dreams.

When the clouds proved to be empty, James bowed his head and asked again.

On his twenty-first birthday, James prayed for snow. He prayed for snow so he might pull the books off his parents’ dusty shelves and be reminded of the sounds the letters made. What the words meant. To be reminded that stories could have happy endings. 

When the skies failed him, he didn’t stop. 

On his twenty-ninth birthday, James prayed for snow. He prayed for snow so that, with it, he might have a son of his own. A daughter. A wife. A career. A reason to laugh. To celebrate. Shout. Even, he prayed, another reason for him to cry.

When nothing came from above, he kept at it.

On his thirty-eighth birthday, James prayed for snow. For it to come. For it to please, please come. Not even for it only to bring them back, but for it, this time, if it could, to just come and to not spare him. To take him. To take him far away. Away with the others. Please. Please, with the others. Please, please. He prayed for snow, too, on his forty-second birthday and his fifty-sixth. His fifty-ninth and sixty-third. He kept at it, more determined by each passing day. Month. Year. On his sixty-seventh birthday. His seventy-first. Seventy-second. Seventy-third. Fourth and fifth. 

When the moon and stars shone brightly in the clear sky, he still bowed his head. 

On his eighty-fourth birthday, James prayed for snow. When the white shadows of falling flakes decorated his bedroom wall, he didn’t even bother going to his window to make sure his eyes weren’t playing a trick on him; instead, he, with his father’s too-big, ragged clothes and dirty, cut skin and teeth that no longer sat right in his gums, stayed put, with his covered legs spilling out of the only bed he’d ever known. Listening for those voices. For the doorknob to turn. Waiting for those familiar shadows to darken his bedroom’s doorframe. For those he loved to wrap their arms around him once again. Praying. Always, always praying.

When snow blanketed the town that night, James prayed he was the reason why.

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Bradley Sides is the author of Those Fantastic Lives: And Other Strange Stories. His recent fiction appears in BULL, Ghost Parachute, Psychopomp, and Superstition Review. He holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. He lives with his wife in Huntsville, Alabama, where, on most days, he can be found teaching writing at Calhoun Community College. For more, visit bradley-sides.com.

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