Light on snow_ a novel - Anita Shreve [39]
The highway ascended slowly into small mountains with ledges of startling white rock. Waterfalls had frozen blue, and there were still patches of snow on the north sides of the trees and houses. We hadn’t gone far—only half an hour—when my father veered off the highway at an exit. Perhaps he realized that if he didn’t get off soon, we’d be back in Massachusetts, or maybe he simply needed gas; I can’t remember now. We glided off the exit ramp onto Route 10, drove for a mile or two through a small town, and coasted to a stop in front of Croydon Realty.
I was an uncooperative ball in the passenger seat, my arms crossed over my bulky parka, my chin tucked into the collar. I refused even to look at my father.
“Nicky,” he said gently.
“What?”
“We’ve got to do our best here,” he said.
“Do our best what?” I asked.
“Do our best to try to make a go of it,” he said.
“I don’t want to make a go of it,” I said.
He sighed, and I could hear him tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. He waited. “I know how hard this must be for you,” he said finally.
“You have no idea,” I said, curling myself into an even tighter ball.
“I think I might,” he said, his voice deliberately quiet, deliberately calm.
Mine was not. “This is so unfair!” I shouted.
“Yes, it is,” he said.
“But why?” I wailed.
“There isn’t any why, Nicky.”
“Yes, there is,” I said. “We didn’t have to leave. We could have stayed at home.”
“No, Nicky, we couldn’t.”
“You mean you couldn’t.”
“That’s right. I couldn’t.”
I began to cry and to shake with the crying. It seemed my natural state then. My father put a hand on my shoulder. I was exhausting both of us. “I’m sorry, Nicky,” he said.
I flung his hand off with a twist. I sat up and looked around. “Where are they?” I cried in a sudden panic.
A woman stepped out the door of Croydon Realty. She wound a scarf around her neck. She had on ankle boots with fur on them.
“Where are who?” my father asked.
“You know who,” I said. “Mom! And Clara! Where are they?”
“Oh, Nicky,” my father said, hopelessly defeated. He shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the headrest.
“I hate you!” I screamed.
I opened my door and stepped out onto the road between the car and the curb. In my fury, I’d forgotten that I’d taken my boots off in the car, as I almost always do, to keep my feet from overheating. I stood in a pile of slush in my stocking feet. The woman on the steps of Croydon Realty paused. My father bent his forehead to the steering wheel.
The woman looked at me and then into the car at my father. She glanced at the trailer with the tarp. She sized us up as a sale. She went back into the office. My ankles ached from the icy water. I hopped back into the car and slammed the door as hard as I could. My father opened his door and stepped out. He adjusted his gray tweed overcoat (the last time he would ever wear it), jumped a puddle, and headed for the Realtor’s.
And such was our introduction to Shepherd, New Hampshire.
I climb the stairs to the guest room. I knock and call Charlotte’s name.
I hear no answer and call her name again. I open the door a crack.
The shades are drawn, and it takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. When they do I see that she is sitting in my grandmother’s chair. She has her hands folded in her lap, and her posture is rigid.
“Charlotte?”
“You want me to come downstairs,” she says evenly.
“No,” I say. “No.” And I understand that she’s been waiting in the silly pajama bottoms to be called downstairs and sent away, possibly even arrested. “No,” I say again. “It’s just me, Nicky. I’ve brought you your jeans. And this,” I say, holding out the pink sweater.
“Everything’s all right?” she asks.
“Everything’s fine,” I say, and even in the