Light on snow_ a novel - Anita Shreve [18]
“The baby was in a sleeping bag?” Sweetser asks.
My father nods.
“Weirdest thing,” Sweetser says, smoothing the pink strands of hair over his head. He has recently shaved his beard, revealing a sunken chin and strange pale skin like a new layer on an animal that’s just molted. “You wouldn’t think.”
“No, you wouldn’t think,” my father says.
“It’s like those fairy tales my wife used to read the kids,” Sweetser says. “Carpenter goes into the woods and finds a baby.”
“In a fairy tale it would be a princess,” my father says.
“You should be so lucky,” Sweetser says.
For a hardware store in the no-man’s-land between Hanover and Concord, Sweetser’s carries an impressive array of tools. Sweetser likes their heft and shape, he says, much as my father does. Beyond the shelves of tools are other shelves, of Pyrex dishes, boxes of Miracle-Gro (dusty now in the off-season), and cans of Sherwin-Williams paint. Attached to the store is a smaller, shedlike annex in which Sweetser sells antiques, the word antiques used loosely. Much of the furniture is from the sixties.
“That couple make it up to your place last Friday?” Sweetser asks.
“What couple?”
“I sent some tourists your way when they started asking for a Shaker table. I said you did stuff that looked like Shaker.”
“Never saw them,” my father says.
“Your road is crap,” Sweetser says.
Sweetser has been saying our road is crap ever since we moved into town. For over a year now, he’s been sending people my father’s way. Only a half dozen so far have braved the miserable road, but by the time they make the trek, they almost always buy something.
“I need a level,” my father says.
“What happened to the old one?”
“I cracked the vial.”
“Hard to do.”
“Yeah. Well.”
My father moves to the shelf of levels. His old level, which worked perfectly well until he knocked the glass vial against the refrigerator, had metal rails. He picks up a wooden level. Some of the vials, I see, are oval, while others are arched. My father points out to me a level that reads in a 360-degree direction.
“Going to Remy’s for a coffee,” Sweetser says, sliding his arm into a yellow plaid jacket. “You want one?”
“No thanks,” my father says.
“A Drake’s?”
“No, that’s okay. I had breakfast.”
“Nicky, how about you?” Sweetser asks. “You want one?”
“A Drake’s coffee cake?” I ask.
“She wants one,” Sweetser says.
When Sweetser has left the store, I tell my father I need white paint. “I’m skiing Gunstock with Jo after Christmas.”
“How many now?” he asks.
“Seven,” I say, referring to the white peaks of my mural.
“When are you going?” my father asks.
“The day after Christmas.”
“Have you said yes definitely?”
“What’s wrong? Can’t I go?”
“Grammie will still be here,” my father says.
“So I can’t go skiing?” I ask, my tone immediately challenging. I can go from zero to all-out rage in less than five seconds now.
“No, you can go,” my father says. “You should ask first is what I’m saying. I might have had plans. We might have been going somewhere.”
“Dad,” I say, my voice notched up to incredulity, “we never go anywhere.”
I pick out a pint of linen white and walk over to study the antiques. There’s a maple bedroom set and a ratty green plaid sofa. A jukebox is in a corner. I wonder if it works.
Sweetser puts his shoulder to the door and enters bearing a coffee cup and a Drake’s cake. My father selects the level with the fixed vial. He brings it to the counter and pays for it. With my father’s change, Sweetser gives him a small rectangle of newsprint.
“Cut it out anyway,” Sweetser says.
My father pulls out of Sweetser’s parking lot, the level and the clipping on my lap. He heads in the direction of home. I take a bite of the Drake’s cake, the crumbs falling down the front of my parka. “Dad,” I say. “We need food.”
“You make a list?”
“No, but we need milk and Cheerios,” I say. “Bread for sandwiches. Bologna. Stuff for dinner.”
“I don’t want to go to Remy’s,” he says. “Enough of the local hero stuff.”
My father does a 180 and heads