The Fifth Snowman in the Front Yard

The porch

He pulled up at five to two in the Silverado with the cracked windshield. He sat in the truck for a while with the engine running. Then he got out and stood at the end of the walk, looking at the snowmen.

The kids were inside having quiet time, which is the only way I get anything done on a holiday. I came out on the porch with my coat on. I didn’t ask him in. I didn’t make him stand in the cold, either. I came out to him.

He was looking at Brody’s snowman. At the gray scarf.

“That’s mine,” he said.

“You left it,” I said.

He nodded. He looked down at his boots.

“I got laid off,” he said. “In October. At the mill. They cut the whole second shift.”

I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t known. He hadn’t missed a child support payment, and I hadn’t asked, and he hadn’t said.

“I’ve been plowing driveways for cash,” he said. “Picking up what I can. Paid you out of my savings. It’s about gone. Mom bought everything that was under the tree at my place. All of it. I didn’t buy one thing.”

“Cody.”

“I know.” He put his hands in his jacket pockets and pulled them out again. “I know. I’m not saying it makes it okay. I’m telling you why.”

“Then tell me why.”

He looked at the snowmen for a long time.

“Because I sat at that table and watched them open stuff my mother paid for,” he said. “And I thought, I’m their dad and I’m nothing. I’m a guy with a truck and no job. And I thought, if they think Christmas only happens at my house, then at least I’m something.”

He shook his head.

“I wanted mine to be the one that mattered,” he said. “So I took yours away from them. In front of them. That’s what I did.”

I had thought about what I would say to him all night. Out there in the dark, rolling those snowballs, I had written about forty speeches. Every one of them was good, and loud, and true.

I didn’t use any of them.

“You told four kids their mother was poor,” I said. “I am. That part was true. I’ve got a hundred and twelve dollars until the second of January.”

He flinched.

“The other part wasn’t,” I said. “Christmas came to this house. It came at three in the morning, and it came with a shovel and a bucket of warm water. And it came from next door, too.”

He looked over at Earl’s house.

“I want you to go in there,” I said, “and tell them yourself that what you said wasn’t true. Not me. You. In your own words. And then I want you to go thank Earl.”