Light on snow_ a novel - Anita Shreve [33]
“Pretty good,” I say. “I think it’ll fit him.”
“You ended up liking the rolled edge?”
“I did,” I say.
My mother taught me how to knit when I was seven. I forgot about knitting until one day I saw Marion at the counter with hers and confessed that I knew how. Confessed is the right word. In those days, in the early 1980s, knitting was not a hobby a preteen would readily admit to. But Marion, ever enthusiastic, pounced upon me and insisted that I show her something I’d made. I did—a misshapen scarf—which she praised extravagantly. She lent me a raspberry-colored wool for another project, a hat for myself. Since then I’ve been knitting pretty continuously. It’s addictive and it’s soothing, and for a few minutes anyway, it makes me feel closer to my mother. When I run into trouble with a particular stitch or a pattern, I go down to the store, and Marion helps me sort it out. Usually, I am fascinated by whatever Marion is knitting, by the way a ball of string can become a sweater or a baby blanket, but today I just want to get away from the counter as fast as I can. I think of my father waiting in the car, about the way the snow must be covering the windshield already.
I know where the feminine products are kept, and I move in that direction. The box of Kotex seems larger than I imagined it would be. I take it down from the shelf and return to the counter.
Marion sets her knitting on her lap. “Oh, my,” she says, looking at the Kotex.
Foolishly, recklessly, I blurt, “It’s not for me.”
Marion tilts her head and smiles a maternal smile. It’s clear she doesn’t believe me.
I take the ten-dollar bill from my pocket. The Kotex pulses and sings a tune on the scuffed Formica. Marion punches prices into the register. “You feeling okay?” she asks.
“I’m just fine,” I say.
“You know, if you have any questions about anything, anything at all, you can always ask me.”
I nod. My face is hot.
“You not having, you know, your mother around,” she says lightly.
I bite my lip. I just want to leave.
“Not too many people in today,” Marion says. “But yesterday you should have seen the rush for milk and canned goods. Stocking up. It’s supposed to be a big storm. Biggest of the season, they’re saying, but they’re always wrong.”
I put the money on the counter.
“Have you seen the baby since that night?” Marion asks, making my change.
“No.”
Marion looks up quickly, and behind me there’s a voice. “Nicky, isn’t it?”
A blue overcoat and a red muffler slide beside me. I didn’t hear the bell announcing Detective Warren’s arrival. Well, maybe there wasn’t a bell, I realize; maybe he was already in the store, in another aisle.
“How are you?” he asks.
“Fine,” I say through tight lips.
Marion slips the Kotex into a paper bag, but not before Warren has surely seen my purchase. Sweat blossoms inside my parka. I stand as though I’m not really there—head slightly bent, back hunched. Warren puts his magazines and a package of gum on the counter.
“I’m going now,” I say.
“Camels,” Warren says.
“Have a good Christmas,” Marion calls to me. “And tell your dad I think he’s a hero, too.”
“Yes, you and your dad have a good holiday,” Warren says.
I walk as fast as I dare to the door. All I can think about is what will happen if my father sees the detective.
The bell rings as I open it. I slip and skid off the top step and take the rest on my butt. I pick myself up and run to the truck.
I slam the door and throw my head back against the seat. There’s snow in the paper bag. “Let’s go quick,” I say. “I have to pee.”
The ride back to the house is tense and long. At times my father has trouble finding the road. Again and again I feel the sway of the rear tires skidding out or jumping a rut. We see only a couple of other vehicles on the roads—few willing, it seems, to venture out in the storm.
We pass the small white cottage with its evidence of boys. I rub the condensation from the truck window and strain to see inside. The house has candles in the windows. I can see a lit tree in a living room. The mother is in the kitchen near a counter.