Light on snow_ a novel - Anita Shreve [74]
No.
“I guess I’d better get going,” she says.
“Give Harry another minute or so to get all the way down the drive,” my father says. “Give me your keys. I’ll go warm up your car.”
Charlotte reaches into her pocket and takes out her keys.
“Stop it!” I yell. “Just stop it.”
My father seems startled, more by the pitch of my voice than by what I’ve said. He stands motionless for a moment and then opens the door and steps out.
Charlotte smoothes my hair out of the collar of my parka. “Keep up the knitting,” she says lightly.
“I don’t want you to go,” I say.
“I’ll be fine,” she says.
“You won’t be fine. And how am I going to know where you are? Will you write to me? Or call me?”
“Of course, I’ll write to you.”
“But you don’t know our address. You have to have our address.” I run into the kitchen and find a paper napkin and a ballpoint pen. I write down my address and phone number in my best printing. I add my name just in case she forgets who the address belongs to.
“I’m glad I met you,” Charlotte says when I give it to her. “I’m glad I came here.”
“But I want you to live here,” I say helplessly.
“I can’t,” she says. “You know that.” She taps her teeth. “When do these come off?” she asks.
“April,” I say.
“You’ll be beautiful,” she says, smiling.
I hear the sound of an engine. I watch as my father brings Charlotte’s car around to the side of the house. Steam rises up from the blue sedan.
“I hate good-byes,” I say. “Why is everybody always leaving me?”
My father enters the house, stomps his boots against the mat. He hands Charlotte her car keys. I refuse to look at him.
“Thank you,” Charlotte says, “for everything.”
“Be careful on the hill,” my father says. “It’s plowed, but it’ll be slick. And take it slow on the streets.”
Charlotte extends her hand, and my father shakes it.
“All right then,” he says.
Charlotte tilts her head. I reach out for her arm. She lets me hug her. I can feel her body beneath the padding of her jacket. I can smell her yeasty scent. Charlotte pulls away, and then she is gone.
I run to the window and press my face against it. I watch as Charlotte walks to her car. She opens the car door and slips inside.
“This is all wrong!” I cry.
Charlotte sits in the car a moment. Maybe she’s adjusting the temperature or the radio. Maybe she’s putting on her gloves. As she does, I remember the necklace of blue fire-polished beads she made the night before. I have to give it to her; she doesn’t even know I finished it.
I find it in the box in the den. Through the window, I can see the blue sedan moving slowly forward now, as if Charlotte were testing the snowy drive for traction. I run to the back door and fling it open. “Wait!” I call out after her.
I run in stocking feet along the drive. I hold the necklace aloft, hoping she will glance into her rearview mirror and see it. “Stop!” I yell. “Charlotte, please stop!”
In the center of the driveway, Harry has plowed down to a layer of ice. When I hit that icy patch, I skid in my stocking feet, my arms flailing to keep me upright. I come to an abrupt stop where the ice is once again covered with snow. I stumble forward three or four enormous steps and then catch my balance.
When I look up, the blue sedan has pulled away from the house—too far for me to catch it now.
Through the trees, where the long driveway bends, I see a blur of red. I watch as a man steps out to the middle of the drive. I see a flicker of brake lights as Charlotte stops her car.
On the morning of the accident, I packed a blue nylon backpack for my sleepover at Tara’s. I also had a small plastic pouch, courtesy of Delta Airlines, that held a folded toothbrush, a tiny tube of toothpaste, a comb, a pair of socks, and an eyeshade. Though I’d gone to several sleepovers that fall, I hadn’t yet used the pouch. Extravagantly, I decided to take it with me that night.
I dressed in pink corduroy overalls and a purple shirt. When I got downstairs, my mother was sitting