Light on snow_ a novel - Anita Shreve [62]
I pick up my grandmother’s necklace and hold it up to the firelight. There’s a sheen on the beads and the pendant is perfectly centered.
I glance over at Charlotte. She has strung the beads on the rawhide. “Wait a sec,” I say. “I should have told you. If you do it like that, the beads will slide around and the clasp will end up in the front. What you have to do is put a knot on either side of each bead. Because you have six beads, you have to put your first knot in the exact center of the string.”
I reach over to show her. I make a simple overhand knot.
“Okay,” she says.
I hand her the rawhide. I watch as she slides a bead on. Her delicate fingers make an easy knot, nicely placed. Her hair hangs down around her face, and she has to flip it to one side so that she can see in the firelight. I watch as she strings another bead and another and then begins on the opposite side. It’s a simple necklace to make—they’re all simple, really—but it’s her first, and spacing the knots on the opposite side to match the first side is sometimes a little tricky.
For a while I simply observe. Charlotte’s face is tight with concentration. She must look like this when she’s studying, I think.
When she has strung the last bead, she holds the necklace up to the light. The facets sparkle. “Looks great,” I say.
Charlotte lays the necklace against the small triangle of skin inside the collar of her white shirt and my father’s V-neck sweater.
“You’ll love it in the morning,” I add.
Earlier, when I was rummaging through the box for the six blue beads, I felt a second crimp under my fingers. “I think I’ve got one in here somewhere,” I say, holding the box up and tipping it toward the light. I sift through the beads. A bit of silver catches the light. “So here’s the hard part,” I say.
The telephone rings. Again, it seems wrong in the cozy firelight, as if something from one century had crept into another. I glance over at the kitchen. “Jo again,” I say, standing. “I’ll be right back.”
I walk into the kitchen and pick up the phone. “Hi,” I say.
“Nicky?”
I spin around, my back to the den.
“This is Detective Warren. Is your dad there?”
I hear the rhythmic scrape of the shovel outside. I take a quick breath.
“No,” I say. “He’s in the shower.”
I can hear Charlotte behind me in the doorway.
“Tell him to call me when he gets out, okay?” Warren asks.
“Sure.”
“Let me give you the number.”
Detective Warren gives me a phone number, which I don’t write down.
“Your power out?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Here, too. Stay warm.”
“We will,” I say.
I hang up the phone. I turn and look at Charlotte.
“Oh God,” I say.
“What?” Charlotte asks.
“It was that detective.”
Charlotte’s face is expressionless. “What did he want?”
“He wanted my dad.” I feel breathless with my crime. “I said he was in the shower.”
“I’ll go in the morning,” Charlotte says. “You can’t keep this up.”
I think about how my father drove to the police station in back of the post office, how he intended to tell Chief Boyd. If Chief Boyd had been there, Charlotte would be in jail now.
Charlotte turns and walks into the den. I follow her. She stands a minute by the fire. “Maybe I should go to bed,” she says.
I’m not sleepy in the slightest.
She scans the room. “We’re supposed to sleep here?”
I roll out the two sleeping bags. I put hers closest to the fire because that’s the best spot. I think about everything Charlotte told me. How could a man really love a woman and expect her to give up her baby once it was born? The idea of giving up a baby—never mind leaving it to die—is incomprehensible to me. I can’t imagine it. Wouldn’t it just hurt your whole life, just like losing Clara always hurts me even if I don’t think about it every second? It’s why I’ve had to create the idea of Clara still growing, still alive. It’s where I send my thoughts