Light on Snow (15 page)

“You walk in front this time,” I say. “The tracks will be easy to follow. I’ll let you know if you go wrong.”

Her face is scratched and chapped. The bruise on her chin from when she hit the corner of the table is turning yellow and green. She looks as though she’s been beaten up. I slip back to get the hat and stuff it into my pocket. I watch the back of her blue parka as I follow her. She wipes her nose on her sleeve, which can’t be much help. I think about her scratched face and worry that she might have given herself frostbite when she put her face in the snow.

Charlotte moves slowly, and it’s hard not to step on her snowshoes. I don’t want to lead, however, because I’m afraid she might simply lie down or wander off. I wonder at her rage and grief. Was it rage at herself or at the man who left the baby there? Not a man, a boy. A college boy. A student, like herself. She is only nineteen. Is a nineteen-year-old a girl or a woman? I wonder. A boy or a man?

At the place where I took the wrong turn, I call ahead to her and tell her which is the correct path. She’s an automaton on bamboo, proceeding forward because there isn’t any other alternative. If she stops she’ll lie down and curl up in the snow, and I’ll never get her to stand up. She stumbles once and puts her hands out to stop her fall. She scrapes her palms on the rough bark of a pine tree.

“Put your mittens on,” I say.

After we pass the halfway point, I realize that I’m hungry. I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast, and I hardly ate that. I fish in my pockets for a piece of gum or a crumpled cracker in cellophane, left over from a school lunch. Charlotte stops in front of me, and I tread on the backs of her snowshoes.

“What?” I ask.

When she says nothing, I peer around her. In the distance I can see a moving beige shape.

“Crap,” I say.

I walk forward to meet my father, because I know he’ll be even angrier if he’s forced to make his way to us. We meet on the path in our snowshoes. His fury is tight and monumental.

“What in God’s name are you up to?” he asks through his nearly frozen mouth.

“I was just —”

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he asks, interrupting me. “She might have fainted again. You might have gotten lost. You both might have died.”

I hardly recognize my father’s contorted face. He points in the direction from which he came. “I want you in that house just as fast as your legs can get you there,” he says. He looks around me at Charlotte. “And as for you . . . ,” he begins.

But the ruin of Charlotte’s face silences him. The scratches are more prominent now, and her eyes are swollen.

“What happened?” he asks.

Neither Charlotte nor I answer him. I can’t think how I’d even begin to describe what took place within the orange circle. I know, as one does at twelve or eleven or ten, that I have witnessed something I shouldn’t have witnessed, seen something I shouldn’t have seen. I know already that I will not be able to erase the image of Charlotte cuffing the snow in a frenzy.

I
walk through the trees, knowing that my father will have to wait for Charlotte. I don’t want to be told to go to my room. I’ll go there of my own accord and climb into bed and pull the covers over my head. With any luck I’ll fall asleep and wake up with no memory of the last hour.

The path is easy to follow: three people in their snowshoes have trampled it. My father, in his anger, has made the deepest cuts of all. Snow begins to fall before I reach the house.

I’ve always been amazed by the onset of a snowfall. First a few tiny flakes dot the air, so that I’m not sure if it’s actually snowing or the wind is blowing it off the tree branches. Then there is a gentle and pervasive fall that resembles the snow of movies or of Christmas cards.

Before I’ve walked fifteen minutes away from Charlotte and my father, I feel as though I’m caught in a blizzard. I think of waiting on the path in case the snow covers the tracks before my father and Charlotte reach the point where I’m standing, but then I reason that my father will surely know the way. I don’t want to think of their silent trek, Charlotte walking ahead, my father taking up the rear, two strangers in the woods.

At the house I unbuckle my snowshoes, go inside, find a package of Ring Dings in a cupboard in the kitchen, and hurry up to my room. I let my wet and soggy clothes slide to the floor until I have on only my underwear. Looking into the mirror over the desk, I see that my face is chapped red and my hair is stringy. I walk to the bed, sit at its edge, and stuff the Ring Dings into my mouth.

Still chewing, I lie down and pull the covers up to my chin. The world beyond my window is opaque. I hear a door open and close and the stomping of boots against the mat in the back hallway. The door opens and closes a second time, another stomping of boots. There’s no exchange of words, merely a stocking-footed tread on the stairs. I hear the creak of the guest room door, then a second tread on the stairs, this one heavier than the first. My father’s bedroom door swishes closed. I lie in my bed and listen, but there is only silence.

I awake to a knock on the door. It seems colder in my bedroom than it ought to be. I prop myself up on my elbows. I notice that it’s dark outside.

“Nicky,” my father says.

“Just a minute.”

I toss the covers aside, snatch my bathrobe from the back of the door, and put it on. I tie the sash and open the door.

My father stands in a darkened hallway. He has a flashlight pointed toward the floor, and I can just make out his face.

“We’ve lost the power,” he says.

“What time is it?”

“Seven. Get dressed and come down to the den. And wake her up and get her down, too.” My father still won’t say her name. “And Nicky.”

“What?”

“Don’t you
ever . . .
and I mean
ever . . .
pull a stunt like that again.”

I concentrate on the spot of light on the floor.

“Another half hour and I wouldn’t have been able to find you,” he says. The fury is gone from his voice, but the parental scold is not.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“I should hope so,” my father says in the dark.

I have to shake Charlotte’s shoulder to wake her. She sleeps with her face smashed against the pillow, her mouth slightly parted. I wonder, just before I touch her, what she dreams of. Of her boyfriend, whose name is James? Of Baby Doris before she was Baby Doris? Or are her dreams more specific and more terrifying—of a baby hidden beneath a mound of snow?

“The power’s out,” I tell her when she sits up. “We have to go down to the den. There’s a fireplace there.”

She seems disoriented. “What?” she asks.

“Dress warm,” I say.

“What time is it?”

“Seven. You’ve got a flashlight here on this table. Use it. Especially on the stairs.”

There’s a fire in the fireplace when I arrive in the den. A half-dozen candles have been lit and set on a side table and the coffee table. I know from prior experience to overdress. I have on two sweaters, long underwear under my jeans, and two pairs of socks. I can hear my father in the kitchen. I go to the window and peer out at the snow. The storm has stopped, and the cloud cover is breaking up. To the west are stars and the moon. I love the look of moonlight on the snow, the liquid blue of a molded landscape. Beside the sofa are two rolled sleeping bags. Normally these would be for my father and me, who would sleep close to the fire during the night, but I guess that now they will be for me and Charlotte. My father, I know, will not sleep in the same room as Charlotte.

My father enters the den. “She’s coming down?” he asks.

“Yup.”

“That sweater there, that’s for her.” A heavy gray sweater has been folded and set atop the armrest of the sofa.

“What are you making?” I ask.

“Scrambled eggs and bacon.”

My father will be able to stay warm in the kitchen by lighting the gas stove. That’s probably where he’ll sleep, I now realize.

I kneel in front of the fire, feeding it bits of kindling. There are two scorch marks in the wood floor where sparks landed when a log toppled. The inside of the fireplace is black with chimney soot.

Charlotte appears in the doorway. She has her pink sweater pulled tight across her chest. Her hair is freshly brushed, and her skin is rosy in the firelight.

“My dad’s making dinner,” I say. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

“Me, too. I’m starving.”

Charlotte sits on the sofa with her arms crossed in front of her.

“What happened on the walk back?” I ask. “Did my dad say anything?”

“No,” she says.

“Not a word?”

“Nothing.”

“Wow,” I say, my generic response to all statements. My hand brushes the hem of her jeans. “They’re wet,” I say.

“Just damp.”

“You’ll freeze.”

“I’m all right.”

“Wait here.”

I climb the stairs to my father’s room. I search for a pile of clean laundry, distinguished from the dirty laundry on the floor only by the fact that the clean clothes are folded. My father’s pants will swim on Charlotte.

“I can’t,” Charlotte says when she sees what I’ve brought her.

“You can,” I say evenly. I’m not my father’s daughter for nothing. “Put these on. There’s a belt here. And that sweater there is for you. It’ll be warmer than your sweater.”

Charlotte hesitates, then stands. She takes the clothes and walks toward the front room.

“Hang your jeans to dry,” I call, “on a door or something.”

I set the trays and pour the milk, opening and shutting the fridge as if a wild animal were inside and wanted to escape. My father serves up the scrambled eggs. I’m salivating from the pungent smell of the bacon.

I balance two trays in my hands and find Charlotte sitting on the sofa in what is rapidly becoming her spot. She has rolled the cuffs of the jeans and has my father’s sweater on over her own pink sweater. She looks as though she were playing him at a Halloween party. I set a tray in front of her. She examines it but makes no move to pick up a fork.

My father enters with his tray and the lantern, clearly taken aback to see Charlotte in his clothes. In the lantern light, the windows are black and reflective. I can see my face, distorted, in the old glass.

Charlotte lifts her fork and takes a restrained bite. I know she must be as hungry as I am, but her gestures are stiff and formal. I’m less restrained, and were it not for the power outage or my father’s painfully rigid silence, he almost certainly would tell me not to shovel my food.

What makes a family? I wonder. My father and I are technically a family, but it’s a word neither one of us would ever use. Yes, we are father and daughter, but because we were once members of a family that was torn apart, we think of ourselves now as half a family or a shadow family. As we sit there with our trays on our laps, however, I feel, or perhaps only imagine, a “family” consisting of my father, Charlotte, and me.

I imagine it because I want it. I want an older sister who will not be a replacement for my mother or Clara, but instead something in between. Someone who will tell me how to wear my hair or what to say to a boy, who might know how to dress. My father, Charlotte, and I do not have blood in common, but we are united by a person whose presence hovers in that room, who might be lying in the center of that room on warm, soft cushions.

“This is good,” Charlotte says.

My father shrugs.

The telephone rings, a harsh and foreign sound. I always forget that when the power is out, the telephone still works. For a moment none of us moves. I think about Detective Warren. I jump up. “I’ll get it,” I say.

I’m relieved when I hear Jo’s voice at the other end. “Hi,” I say.

“What are you doing?” Jo asks.

“Eating.”

“I’m so bored.”

I glance over into the den. Jo wouldn’t be so bored if she knew that the mother of the abandoned baby was sitting across from my father.

“This storm is a drag,” Jo says.

“Yeah.”

“We were going to the movies before this.”

“With who?”

“My cousins. You’re still coming skiing?”

“Yup,” I say.

“So what did you do all day?”

I took the mother of the abandoned baby into the woods and watched her go nuts.

“Nothing,” I say. “Wrapped a few presents.”

“Me, too.”

“I kind of have to go,” I say. “Call me later?”

“Sure,” Jo says.

I hang up the telephone. I stand a minute in the kitchen. I eat another piece of bacon. When I return to the den, Charlotte has finished her dinner and sits primly, as if waiting for instructions. My father finishes his meal.

Charlotte stands and removes my father’s tray from his hands and slips it under her own. I watch her walk out to the kitchen.

“What did Jo want?” my father asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “I don’t know why you do that.”

“Do what?” my father asks, though he knows perfectly well what I mean.

“Not talk to Charlotte. I don’t get it. Is it going to kill you to talk to her?”

“I hardly know her,” my father says.

“She doesn’t want to
live
here,” I say. “She keeps saying she wants to leave.”

“And as soon as we get plowed out, she will,” my father says, standing. “This isn’t a social occasion.”

“What would you know about social occasions?” I snap.

When I reach the kitchen, Charlotte is scraping the plates. I set the lantern on the stove. Charlotte’s hair is burnished gold in the light.

“Do you play chess?” I ask.

“Not really,” she says.

“You feel like toasting marshmallows?”

“In the fire?”

“Yes.”

“Um, not really. But you have some,” she says.

I remember how sick I felt yesterday. I can hear my father shoveling outside.

“But if you have another game or something, I’ll play it with you,” she adds.

“What did you used to do at night?” I ask. “When you lived with James?”

As soon as I ask the question, I’m embarrassed. Probably they had sex all night.

“He’d get home from practice late. We’d eat. We might listen to music for a while. Then he’d study. I might read or watch TV. Sometimes I’d knit.”

“You knit?” I ask, surprised.

She nods.

“I knit all the time,” I say, barely able to contain my excitement. “That hat you wore today? The purple-and-white one? I knit that, like, a year ago.”

“Cool,” she says.

“I never meet anyone who knits. Except old ladies. Marion down at the store knits.”

“Who taught you?”

“My mother.”

“My grandmother taught me,” Charlotte says. “She taught me to knit and to paint and to sew. She used to insist that I speak only French to her.”

“Not your mother?” I ask.

“My mother’s always worked at the mill.” Charlotte puts all the dirty dishes in the sink. She wipes off the trays and sets them onto the top of the fridge. “In the summer James and I would sit in the backyard. The landlord let me have a garden. I had some vegetables, but mostly flowers.”

My father has set the stove to two hundred degrees, which is enough to warm the kitchen, but there are no chairs in the room on which to sit. I return to the den, just as my father is bringing in a load of wood. He sets it by the fire without a word and goes outside again. After a time, Charlotte joins me by the fire.

“What year are you in school?” I ask.

“Sophomore,” she says.

“You won’t go back?” I ask.

“No,” she says. “Not there anyway.”

“Because he might be there?”

“He plays hockey. He’s on a scholarship for it.” She pauses. “He wants to go to medical school.”

“Wow,” I say, picking at the rug.

“It’s why I couldn’t tell anyone,” she says.

“Didn’t anyone notice?”

“I wore loose sweatshirts and sweatpants,” she says. “I had one seminar course, which I dropped. The rest were lecture courses in auditoriums. Eventually I dropped those, too.”

“But didn’t your friends or roommate say anything?”

“I spent all my time at James’s apartment. I hardly ever saw my roommate. Maybe she thought I was putting on weight, I don’t know. I gained weight all over. You probably wouldn’t think it to look at me, but I’m supposed to be skinny.”

I cannot imagine it. Charlotte looks perfect as she is.

“People probably would have begun to notice except that the baby came early,” she says. “A month, I think.”

“You don’t know?” I ask.

“Not really.”

“Your family didn’t know about the baby?”

“My parents would have killed me. They’re strict Catholics. And my brothers—I can’t even think what my brothers would have done.” She shakes her head once quickly. “I know this is kind of hard to understand,” she says, looking straight at me. “But I kind of gave myself over to him. To James.”

“You did?”

“And Nicky?”

“Yes?”

“I wanted the baby. I really wanted it.”

“What’s it feel like?” I ask.

She tilts her head and studies me. “You don’t have anyone to talk to about this, do you?”

“No.”

“You can’t ask your father.”

“No.”

“A friend?” she asks.