Light on snow_ a novel - Anita Shreve [1]
“A cat,” my father says.
We begin the steep climb up the hill. My feet feel heavy at the ends of my legs. When we reach the summit, my father will judge the light, and if there’s time he’ll sit on the stone wall and see if he can make out our house—a smidgen of yellow through the trees. “There,” he will say to me, pointing down the hill, “can you see it now?”
My father has lost the weight of a once sedentary man. His jeans are threadbare in the thighs and tinged with the rusty fur of sawdust. At best he shaves only every other day. His parka is beige, stained with spots of oil and grease and pine pitch. He cuts his hair himself, and his blue eyes are always a surprise.
I follow his tracks and pride myself that I no longer have any trouble keeping up with him. Over his shoulder he tosses me a Werther’s candy, and I catch it on the fly. I pull off my mittens, tuck them under my arm, and begin to unwrap the cellophane. As I do I hear the distant thunk of a car door shutting.
We listen to the sound of an engine revving. It seems to come from the direction of a motel on the northeast side of the hill. The entrance to the motel is further out of town than the road that leads to our house, and we seldom have a reason to drive by it. Still, I know it is there, and I sometimes see it through the trees on our walks—a low, red-shingled building that does a decent business in the ski season.
I hear a third cry then—heartbreaking, beseeching, winding down to shuddering.
“Hey!” my father calls.
In his snowshoes he begins to run as best he can in the direction of the cry. Every dozen steps he stops, letting the sound guide him. I follow, and the sky darkens as we go. He takes a flashlight from his pocket and switches it on.
“Dad,” I say, panic rising in my chest.
The beam of light jiggles on the snow as he runs. My father begins to sweep the flashlight in an arc, back and forth, side to side. The moon lifts off the horizon, a companion in our search.
“Anybody there?” he calls out.
We move laterally around the base of the slope. The flashlight flickers off and my father shakes it to reconnect the batteries. It slips out of his glove and falls into a soft pocket of snow beside a tree, making an eerie cone of light beneath the crust. He bends to pick it up, and as he raises himself, the light catches on a patch of blue plaid through the trees.
“Hello!” he calls.
The woods are silent, mocking him, as if this were a game.
My father waves the flashlight back and forth. I’m wondering if we shouldn’t turn around and head back to the house. It’s dangerous in the woods at night; it’s too easy to get lost. My father makes another pass with the flashlight, and then another, and it seems he has to make twenty passes before he catches again the patch of blue plaid.
There’s a sleeping bag in the snow, a corner of flannel turned over at its opening.
“Stay here,” my father says.
I watch my father run forward in his showshoes, the way one sometimes does in dreams—unable to make the legs move fast enough. He crouches for better leverage and keeps a steady bead on the bag. When he reaches the plaid flannel, he tears it open. I hear him make a sound unlike any I have ever heard before. He falls to his knees in the snow.
“Dad!” I shout, already running toward him.
My arms are flailing, and it feels as though someone is pushing against my chest. My hat falls off, but I keep on clumping through the snow. I am breathing hard when I reach him, and he doesn’t tell me to go away. I look down at the sleeping bag.
A small face gazes up at me, the eyes wide despite their many folds. The spiky black hair is gelled with birth matter. The baby is wrapped in a bloody towel, and its lips are blue.
My father bends his cheek to the tiny mouth. I know enough not to make a sound.
With one swift movement he gathers up the icy sleeping bag, presses it close to him, and stands. But the material is cheap and slippery, and he can’t get a decent grip.
I