Light on snow_ a novel - Anita Shreve [30]
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he asks.
“It wasn’t . . .” she begins.
I am certain she was about to say, It wasn’t me, and apparently my father thinks so, too. “You were there, weren’t you?” he asks.
“Yes,” she says.
“Don’t say another word,” my father says as he turns to me. “Nicky, leave the room.”
“Dad,” I say.
The woman’s knees go first, and she seems about to squat. She thrusts her arms forward, but she takes the corner of the table with her chin. I have never seen a real person faint. It’s not like in the movies or in books. It’s ugly, and it’s frightening.
My father kneels beside the woman, and he lifts her head off the floor. She comes to almost immediately and seems not to know where she is. “Nicky, get me a glass of water,” my father says.
Reluctantly I leave the room. My hands are trembling as I turn the faucet on. I fill the glass nearly to the brim, and it spills a bit as I run with it to the den. When I get there, the woman is sitting up.
“What happened?” she asks.
“You fainted,” my father says. “Here, drink this.” He hands her the glass of water. “Can you make it to the car? We have to get you to the hospital.”
Her hand is so fast I barely see it. It snakes around and clutches my father’s wrist. “I can’t,” she says, looking at him. “I won’t.” Her face is pale, almost green. “I’m leaving,” she says, letting go of my father’s wrist. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.” She makes an effort to stand. Beads of sweat have popped onto her forehead.
“Sit down,” my father says, and after a second’s hesitation, she does. “When did you last eat?”
“If you take me to the hospital,” she says, “they’ll arrest me.”
A simple truth. They will.
The woman bends over and vomits onto her jeans.
My father puts a hand on her back. I can hardly believe what I am seeing. The fainting, the vomiting—it’s all wrong in our house.
“Nicky,” my father says, “get me a wet paper towel and a pot.”
In the kitchen I rip a wad of paper towel from the holder and wet it. I find a saucepan in a cabinet. When I return I hand the woman the paper towels so that she can clean herself up. I’m shaking as I set the pot on the floor.
The woman wipes her jeans. She leans against the leg of the table. “I need a bathroom,” she says. With effort, she makes it to her feet. She begins to sway. My father reaches for her arm and catches her.
“Steady now,” he says.
Together, my father and the woman move to the back hallway, where the bathroom is. I watch as she detaches herself, enters the bathroom, and closes the door.
Agitated, my father runs his hands through his hair. “This is a disaster,” he says.
“You can’t take her to the hospital,” I say.
“She needs medical help.”
“Maybe she hasn’t eaten. Maybe she’s just tired.”
“She can’t stay here.”
“But Dad . . .”
My father and I stand between the kitchen and the bathroom, near enough to hear the woman if she calls out but not so close that we can listen to whatever is going on behind the door. My father puts his hands in his pockets and jiggles the change there. Each of us is silent then, absorbing the fact of the woman who has entered our house, who has, however briefly, entered our lives. My father walks to the back door, opens it, gazes out at the snow, and shuts the door. He crosses his arms in front of his chest again.
“Christ,” he says.
I climb the stairs and head for my room. On a shelf in my closet behind a duffel bag, I find a pair of pajamas my grandmother made for me. I hate them and wanted to throw them out, but my father insisted that I keep them to wear when my grandmother comes to visit. They have childish pink and blue bears on them and a big elastic waist.
When I return, my father is in the kitchen. He has lit a cigarette. The smoke rises and makes a quick left turn in a draft from the window. We hover, my father with his cigarette and I with my flannel bundle, as if waiting to be called upon to save the young woman in the bathroom. First the infant and now the