Winter's Whisper

Snowflake

*Him*
After a few days of visiting that coffee house,
hoping
that she'll be there,
I became a regular.

I walked to the coffee house,
and bumped into someone.

I had hoped it was her but instead
it was the coffee house owner, the husband,
and a small tree.

"Hey, uhh Andrew?" He gently backs up away from me and moves his head around the tree to glance at me.

"Adam," I carefully remind him, I don't want to come off as rude.

"Oh shit, sorry. I should know your name by now."

I shrug my shoulders and dig my freezing hands in my pockets.

"Anyways, can you help me put this tree up in the house please. One man armies are not suitable for Christmas trees." He grunts which I mistaken for a laugh until I watch his face contort into a grimace.

I silently agree and grab ahold of the second half of the tree. I pull the door open with my foot and push it wide open with my shoulder. Fighting against the door as it strains to stay open, I struggle backwards into the house until both parts of the tree arrived successfully inside.

I set the tree right-side up on the wall and move away from the needles that fell.

The husband cracks his back and sighs.

"Ahh, Merry Fuggin' Christmas ya filthy animals," He laughs a deep baritone laugh and I laugh too as he referenced one of my favorite movies.

"So Andrew you're here early, what do you want to enjoy today? A nice cup o' cocoa or a home brewed tea? Pick your poison." The husband taps the palms of his hands on the granite counter. His wedding band scratches against the hard surface.

"Ah a nice cup o' cocoa, please, uh sir,"
I move from the wall and towards the counter.  I keep my hands in my pockets and try to warm them up.

The owner looks at me and chuckles.
"Just call me Jackson. And I'll remember to call you Anderson."

I open my mouth to correct him but he winks at me and before I can say anything he turns to get my drink ready.

I sit down at a random table and silently shift my attention from Jackson
moving swiftly behind the counter
as if he's memorized every movement in his head
every placement of the ingredients,
every bit of the process,

to the snow outside,
the snowfall ceased for the little while
allowing for the sun to come out
for the first time in weeks
to melt away a few inches before agreeing to allow more snow to replace those few inches.

I stay with Jackson for a while, and after finishing two mugs and a brownie,
I help him and his wife-Kat, she told me as she and I shared a brownie- set up the Christmas tree. Apparently, to my lack of knowledge, they were closed to prepare the shop for festivities and yet I stayed the whole day, up until what would have been closing, helping them out and sharing their time to tell me stories about themselves.

Midday I accidentally drop a glass ornament. I frantically apologize as I sweep the pieces together with my hands.

"Don't worry about that," Kat told me, Jackson bringing me a small broom and dustpan to help sweep the mess up with. "We have many more where that came from."

Jackson sat back in his booth in front of a box of tree lights, huffing and puffing as he struggles to untangle them all,
"Do you still have that one ornament? You know the one that I'm talking about right?" He puts the lights down to look at his wife.

Kat, who was in mess of her own- a tangle of silver garlands that littered strips of iridescent confetti everywhere-stares back at her husband until her eyes widen and glow with excitement.
"Ah! I almost forgot! Yes, I still have that. Why would I ever throw it away?" She smiles fondly and shakes her head at Jackson's thought.

Jackson huffs again and mumbles as he goes back to his failing untangling process, "I meant that you might've lost it," He rubs his greying beard with his hands.

"Hey Adam," Kat motions me to follow her. I drop the ornaments back in the box, very carefully and walk to where she headed. She leads me to the very back of the house, where a door stood. Kat takes out a chain of various keys, and I stand there over her shoulder watching, she was a short woman, until she found the right one and puts it into the keyhole, unlocks the door, and walks inside the room.

As soon as I step inside of the room, Kat reaches behind me, on the wall and turns on the light.

Immediately the room lights up with a bright fluorescent light and suddenly I realize that it was a storage room.

Boxes littered the floors and walls, large clear bags were placed randomly around the room, one so close to the door that Kat knew to leap over, and that I tripped over it, large storage shelves were filled with books and paper files and manila folders, old music and advertising posters were posted around the room on each wall.

Kat walked over to a box on top of the smallest shelf and placed it on the floor in front of her. On the side written in big girlish handwriting in red marker noted the contents of the box.

Treasures.

"When we first started this coffee house, it was around this time of year, near Christmas time. In the winter,"
She slowly opens the box at the top, and I kneel on the other side of the box across from her.

"My grandmother passed." She paused as she recalled an unpleasant feeling.

"And so I decided to make a little coffee house in her memory, that creates a warm, comforting feeling for every single person who comes here. So that when they leave, even if they never come back, they feel like they can never really leave and that they feel at home no matter what.

So that winter, we opened up shop, and as we started to decorate a small tree that we bought for cheap, someone delivered a box, full of decorations."

She digs into the box gently pulling out smaller boxes of ornaments. She pulls out a red velvet box with a silver bow on it. She gives a sideways smile.

"It was from my grandmother. At first I was confused because she had recently passed, but the deliverer told me that she had put it in a order to be sent to me before December, and that it hadn't been delivered until late.

She wanted to send me the package so that she can visit and see the decorations that she had given me on my Christmas tree. But she never got the chance. She didn't even know if it had been delivered to me or not."

Kat squints her eyes as she tears up but never really letting the tears fall. She caresses the velvet.

"Jackson rummaged through the box for me, I had gotten upset and sat by the fireplace to stop from crying. After a while he came up to me and placed a small box on my lap. He told me that he found it underneath a bunch of ornament boxes. He said he didn't know what it was."

Kat opens the small box. From where I kneeled I was out of view of what laid there in the velvet. I waited for Kat to show it to me.

Kat hands the box carefully to me.

Inside laid a round glass ornament. It was clear and held a few white and silver barren trees. Near the bases of the trees, there was white snow. Holding it in the light, the ornament illuminated like a snowflake.