An Unkind Winter (Alone Book 2) Read Online Free

even owned a coat. And while San Antonio would never see a blizzard even in the harshest of its winters, it did indeed get cold.
         Something else Mikey’s family never had before he came to America was an outdoor grill.
         Oh, some of his friends and neighbors in Mexico City had them.
         But Mikey’s father preferred to barbeque only occasionally, and did so the old fashioned way, the way his own father had taught him. Over an open fire, in a backyard spit, the meat on a stick and slowly turning.
         The blackout had come the previous March. It was the transition month for San Antonio. Typically, the days were moderate but the nights were still cold, as the city changed over from winter to spring.
         The first day of the blackout, the family had been okay. They, like everyone else, had assumed it was a problem with the power company. Mikey’s father had taken a week off, to build another bedroom onto their house. He was the only one in the family who drove, and since he didn’t have to go to work that week, it never occurred to them that it was more than just a normal blackout.
         Had he tried to start his car, and then looked up the block to see abandoned cars in the middle of the street, he would have realized there was much more going on.
         But he never did that. His car sat untested in the driveway, and the family was blissfully unaware of the extent of the crisis.
         That first night, without heat in the house, the family snuggled under blankets. It was a miserable night for all of them.
         The second day had brought some relief, the sun warming the house and their bodies just a bit. But as the sun set low over the horizon on that second day, they were realizing they were in for another brutal night.
         It was a cultural thing, really. Since most of the people they grew up with had no capability of owning a barbeque grill, no one in the family knew it was a bad idea to bring one indoors.
         Well, ironically, no one except for Mikey.
         But Mikey was out that night. The family was running out of drinking water, and the tap wasn’t working. His best friend Tony invited him to spend the night, and also said his family had several cases of drinking water stacked in their garage.
         “My mom won’t mind if you take a case home in the morning,” Tony had said.
         Mikey’s father could have been forgiven. Although he was considered a brilliant man in his field, he was a
    bit lost in the ways of the world, and had been accused more than once of acting before thinking things through.
         When he announced that he had the perfect solution for making the family’s second night without heat more comfortable than the first, no one thought to question him.
         Rather, they thought he was a genius.
         The family next door, the Marinos, had asked Mikey’s dad to watch their home while they were on vacation.
         The last thing they’d said before leaving was, “If there’s anything you need to borrow in our absence, feel free.”
         The Marinos had once invited Mikey’s family for a backyard barbeque. They had a fine propane grill. It had wheels on one side, and was ridiculously easy to roll.
         And the Marinos shared a common alley with Mikey’s family. So it wasn’t difficult at all for Mikey’s father to roll the grill out one gate, through the alley, and into the other gate. And then into his house.
         Mikey’s father beamed with pride as his wife and children praised him for his ingenuity.
         The last thing he did that night before everyone went to bed… the last thing he did in life, really, was to move the dining room table out of the way and light the grill.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    -5-
     
         Mikey returned home the following morning, a case of Dasani thrown across one shoulder.