Light on snow_ a novel - Anita Shreve [35]
She brings herself up to a sitting position. Her hand is shaky as she holds the spoon.
“As soon as the storm stops . . . ,” he says, gesturing toward the window.
As soon as the storm stops, what? I’d like to know. Wrestle the woman to the truck? Make her drive her blue car down an unplowed road?
My father sits and assumes his usual position: head bent, legs spread, his elbows on his knees. The room darkens, and my father reaches over to turn on the lamp. “How did you find me?” he asks.
“I read about you in the newspaper,” she says. “Your name was there. It was easy enough to find out where you live.”
Beyond the windows the snow falls in fat flakes. “Have you seen a doctor?” he asks.
She looks up.
“While you were pregnant,” he adds.
“No.”
“You never saw a doctor?”
“No,” she says again.
“That was foolish,” my father says.
She opens her mouth to speak, but he holds up his hand, cutting her off. “I don’t want to know,” he says, standing. “Nicky, I want you to start shoveling.”
“Now?” I ask.
“Yes, now,” he says. “I have to go over to the barn and finish that bureau.”
“But —”
“No buts. If we don’t keep up with the storm, we’ll never get out of here.”
I stand reluctantly with a parting glance at the woman on the couch. She doesn’t look up at me. I drag myself to the back hallway, sit on the bench, and put on my boots. What if she needs me? I think. I put on my jacket and hat and mittens. Should she be left alone? I go outside and bend my head against the snow. What if something happens to her and I’m not there?
I use a wide shovel and push it forward like a plow. Of all my chores I hate shoveling the most, particularly when it’s snowing and it’s clear that in a couple of hours I’ll have to do it all over again. I make rows, pushing the snow to the far edge of the top of the driveway. I’m impatient, and I do this in record time. After twenty minutes, I survey my work. It’s sloppy, but I can’t bear to be outside a minute longer. I lean the shovel by the back door, step inside, and undress quickly. I walk to the den.
The woman is still sitting on the couch with the tray on her lap. She has left the stars to float in an oily golden puddle at the bottom of the bowl. I always eat the stars first. She leans over to set the tray aside, but I take it from her. Clara Barton. Florence Nightingale.
Again she lies down. The light from the lamp falls on her hair and her face. I sit once again on the floor and lay my arm against the piping on the cushions. “What’s your name?” I ask.
“Your father doesn’t want to know,” she says. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“I won’t tell him,” I say.
She says nothing.
“We have to call you something,” I point out.
The woman thinks a minute. Two minutes. “You can call me Charlotte,” she says finally.
“Charlotte?” I ask.
She nods.
Charlotte, I repeat silently. I don’t know any Charlottes, have never known a Charlotte. “It’s a pretty name,” I say. “Is it your real name?”
“It is,” she says.
I want to know so much then. How old is she? Where is she from? Who is the man? Did she love him very much?
“The baby’s doing fine,” I say instead.
Sobs—a gulp, a second gulp—escape her. Her eyes scrunch up and snot runs down her upper lip. She is not a delicate crier. She wipes her nose with a pink sleeve. I run to the bathroom and come back with a wad of toilet paper.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
She waves my apology away.
“Tell me about it,” I plead.
“I can’t,” she says, blowing her nose. “Not now.”
But the now is everything, isn’t it? Now implies a future, a time when she will confide in me and tell me her tale—if only I can wait, if only I can be patient. I am dizzy with the promise