Light on snow_ a novel - Anita Shreve [65]
I know where Burlington is. I’ve skied Stowe, which isn’t far from the northern Vermont city.
“When the labor started,” Charlotte says, “we got in the car. James wanted to get as far away from the college as possible. And then the labor stopped for a while, so we kept going. When it started up again, we looked for signs for a motel. That was James’s plan. To go to a motel and have the baby ourselves. If there was any sign of trouble, James said, he’d make sure we’d be only a few minutes away from a hospital. But if we didn’t have to go, why should we risk it?”
My father makes a sound of disgust.
“And yes,” Charlotte says, “I guess I was playing house. I convinced myself that James and I would get married, and I’d have the baby, and we’d live in his apartment, and he’d go to medical school, and everything would be great. The fact that it was secret just made it . . . just made it seem all the more romantic.”
I imagine my father shaking his head.
“And no matter what happened afterward,” Charlotte says with a quaver in her voice, “or what happens from here on out . . .” She takes a breath to collect herself. “That will always be a good memory for me. The time I spent with her. With the baby. Because she was inside me, and I talked to her, and . . .”
I hear a rip of paper towel.
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte says.
“Here, use this,” I hear my father say.
Charlotte blows her nose. “Thank you,” she says.
“Where’s he from?” From the sound of my father’s voice, it seems that he’s leaning against the counter again.
“You won’t . . . ?”
“I told you I wouldn’t.”
“His father’s a doctor. They live just outside of Boston. I’ve never met them.”
“He didn’t want his parents to know.”
“That’s the thing he was most afraid of.”
“How was he going to explain you and the baby? Eventually?”
“I don’t know,” she says.
My father clears his throat. “Are you thinking about trying to get the baby back?” he asks.
“Part of me wants to,” Charlotte says.
“Can you take care of her?”
“No.”
“I don’t know the law,” my father says. “I don’t know if they would give her to you. Even after whatever happens in court.”
“When she was inside me, I wanted her so much,” Charlotte says.
“Charlotte,” my father says, his voice low. It’s the first time he has used her name, and it shocks me. “You have your whole life in front of you. No, don’t look away. Listen to me. There will be consequences whatever you decide. Hard consequences. Things you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life. But think first. Think about the baby, about what might be best for her. Maybe you should fight for her, I can’t say. Only you can answer that.”
“You lost a baby,” Charlotte says with a kind of snap.
Her words send an electric zing through the air and around the corner to me. I wait for the sound of footsteps, for the sound of my father leaving the room.
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte says at once. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It was different,” my father says.
“Really, I’m sorry,” Charlotte says.
“Very, very different.”
“I know,” Charlotte says, “I know. You weren’t to blame. You didn’t do anything. It just happened to you.”
“You know about the accident,” my father says.
“Yes. Nicky told me.”
“Did she.”
“Just the fact of it. That it happened.”
I hear a creak from upstairs. Wood settling, my father once explained. Even after a hundred and fifty years, the house was still settling into the ground. Burrowing in.
“Maybe you should take those off now,” my father says.
“I want to tell you what happened in the motel room,” Charlotte says.
“I don’t want to know.”
“Please,” she says. “I want you to understand.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. You found her.”
“Nicky’s asleep?” my father asks.
“She was snoring when I got up.”
My head snaps up. I snore?
“James and I drove a long way,” Charlotte says. “I had to get out once. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I couldn’t even make it to the woods. I just went on the snowbank. And then there was this terrible shuddering feeling, and I saw that there was blood and . . . other stuff on the snowbank