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Back Dead of Winter Save as PDF
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“You need to be quiet and listen to me very carefully, Mr. August Octavio Snow,” she finally said, fighting back tears. “I know this is part of you: throwing yourself into fires to help someone or prove something. And I am in love with this part of you. I also know there’s a—darkness in you that keeps you from me. What I will not accept—from you or anyone else—is using silence and distance to do your lying for you. If we are to be together—here or with an ocean between us—you need to be truthful with me. And you must trust me. Always. I’ve been wearing my big-girl panties since I was seven and living in Mogadishu. So, I can handle myself. In daylight and in darkness.” She showed me her ring, then said, “Do I keep it on? Or do I take it off?”

“Keep it on,” I said.

It might have been the industrial-grade painkillers kaleidoscoping into my bloodstream, but looking into Tatina’s eyes, I could have sworn I saw a reflection of my mother and father dancing like young lovers with a bright, self-made world ahead of them in the kitchen as Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell sang “Ain’t no mountain high enough . . .”

“Thanks for saving my bacon,” I finally said.

“Your ‘bacon’?” she said. “You mean like your ass?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that why we’re all put here?” she said, pressing my hand in hers. “To save each other’s ‘bacon’?”

“What about Elena?” I said. “She’s not a fan of guns.”

“All she needed was the right motivation,” Tatina said. “The possibility of losing her godson qualified as that.”

“How did you find me?”

“That, my love, I’m not sure I should tell you,” Tatina said, smiling.

After a moment, I said, “Lucy? Jesus! She put GPS trackers in my clothes?”

“Maybe a year ago she told me. And just your shoes,” Tatina said softly. “She worries about you.”

“I don’t know if I should take her over my knee or buy her a dozen shiny new laptops.”

“Buy her the laptops,” Tatina said. “Save the knee for me.”

“Wow,” I said, feeling myself tumble into the gravity of her eyes. “Smart, tough and sexy. We’ll make a Detroiter out of you yet.”

With the defiance of an adalwulf’s daughter, Tatina said, “And like a Detroiter would, it’s time to take the fight to those who did this to you. Finish them. Because you and me, Mr. Snow? We are just starting.”

26

26

Considering I was listed as a John Doe at Detroit Receiving, I hadn’t quite anticipated the number of visitors I got in my hospital room: Jimmy Radmon, Carlos Rodriguez, Lucy Three Rivers, Carmela and Sylvia and, of course, Tomás and Elena.