***

Sunday Lunch

The storm grew stronger as the hours passed. Through the window, one could see how the benches and the table outside on the garden sank into the brilliant white of the snow.

Alan, who had stayed up late the night before watching a premiere of his favorite series, slept in the refuge of his bed and under the comfort of his five blankets; he somehow felt safer with their weight.

On the other side of his bedroom door, he could hear his mother going up and down the stairs. Back and forth, and surely, organizing everything in her path. Although it was something usual for her, that sunday was special because his grandmother would come over for lunch. It wasn't very common for that to happen since every sunday Elvira went to church and then usually shared lunch with elderly friends she had made there.

"Alan, get up. Your grandmother will be arriving any moment now, and you haven't even gotten ready," shouted Rosa from the other side of the door.

"I'm coming, Mom! Just a little longer."

"It's 11 in the morning, your father has been reading the newspaper in the living room for 2 hours already. I haven't finished tidying up, and the sauce is halfway done. Please, do me a favor and get up, get ready, and tidy up your room," Rosa unleashed her frustration on Alan.

"Alright, but I can't promise the room will be tidy," he replied, knowing that this response might calm down his energetic mother a bit.

As he got up, he reluctantly made his bed, and upon leaving the room, he took with him wrappers of chips and candies he had finished the previous night during the marathon of his favorite series.

When he went down to the kitchen, which was attached to the living room, Pedro, his father, was sitting on the couch with his feet on the coffee table, reading the newspaper, just as his mother had anticipated. Alan prepared his breakfast like every day, a cup of tea and seven saltine crackers. Then, he sat near his father to have breakfast.

"Good morning," he said with a forced tone.

"Hello, son" Pedro replied without even lifting his gaze from the sports section.

After a thick three minutes, Alan, who had no interest or knowledge about football, asked his father about the result of the match his favorite team had played the night before. Reluctantly, Pedro replied, "Let's not even talk about it."

Clearly, Alan didn't intend to upset his father with a negative result from his team; had he known, he wouldn't have brought it up.

Their relationship had always been somewhat peculiar. Although there had never been any issues between them, the father-son relationship was distant, or rather cold.

Alan always supposed that perhaps his father had a strong character due to the lack of affection he may have had when he was a child. His grandfather had met Elvira when he was 15 years old, they got married and moved to live together in a field far from the city back then.

They worked tirelessly to build their house and dedicate their lives to work at the port of Ushuaia.

Pedro was born as soon as the house took shape, and from a young age, he had to work with his father at the port to survive. After finishing high school, Pedro decided to move near the city, and that's where he met Rosa, at the print shop where he started working, and where Rosa used to buy the newspaper once a month for her father.

With nothing more to say after the unfortunate comment, Alan went upstairs and headed straight to the shower, as his grandmother would arrive shortly, and his mother would be on edge if he wasn't ready by then.