Light on Snow Read Free Page A

Chief Boyd says as if I’m not even there. “I’m headed that way anyway.”
    I lean into my father. “I want to stay with
you,
” I whisper.
    My father examines my face. “She’ll stay with me,” he says.
    We follow the doctor to a lunchroom not far from the waiting room. Inside are tall metal lockers, a pair of cross-country skis propped in a corner, a pile of jackets on a Formica table against the wall. I sit at another table and study the vending machines. I realize that I’m hungry. I remember that my father doesn’t have his wallet.
    I think about the baby losing her finger and possibly some toes. I wonder if she’ll have a handicap. Will she have trouble learning to walk without her toes? Will she be able to play basketball without a finger?
    “I can call Jo’s mother,” my father says. “She’ll come get you.”
    I shake my head.
    “I could pick you up after this is all over,” he adds.
    “I’m fine,” I say, not mentioning my hunger, a fact that is sure to get me sent to Jo’s. “Will the baby be all right?” I ask.
    “We’ll have to see,” my father says.
    “Dad?”
    “What?”
    “It was weird, wasn’t it?”
    “Yes, it was.”
    I shift in my seat and sit on my hands. “Scary, too,” I say.
    “A bit.”
    My father takes his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket but then thinks better of it.
    “Who do you think left her there?” I ask.
    He rubs the stubble on his chin. “I have no idea,” he says.
    “Do you think they’ll give her to us?”
    My father seems surprised by the question. “The baby isn’t ours to have,” he says carefully.
    “But we found her,” I say.
    My father bends forward and folds his hands together between his knees. “We found her, but she doesn’t belong to us. They’ll try to find the mother.”
    “The mother doesn’t want her,” I protest.
    “We don’t know that for sure,” my father says.
    I shake my head with all the certainty of a twelve-year-old. “
Of course
we know for sure,” I say. “What mother would leave her baby to die in the snow? I’m hungry.”
    My father pulls a Werther’s out of his parka and slides it across the table.
    “What will happen to the baby?” I ask, unwrapping the cellophane.
    “I’m not exactly sure. We can ask the doctor.”
    I stick the candy into my mouth and tuck it into my cheek. “But Dad, let’s say they let us have the baby. Would you take her?”
    My father unwraps his own candy. He balls the cellophane and slips it into his pocket. “No, Nicky,” he says, “I would not.”
    The minutes pass. A half hour passes. I ask my father for another candy. Overhead, on a TV screen, a newsreader announces budget cuts. Three teenagers from White River Junction have been arraigned following an attempted robbery. A storm system is moving in. I study the weather map and then glance at the clock: six-ten.
    I get up and walk around the room. There isn’t very far to go. At the end of the row of lockers is a mirror the size of a book. My mouth protrudes because of my braces. I try not to smile, but sometimes I can’t help myself. I have smooth skin, not a pimple in sight. I have my mother’s brown eyes and wavy hair, which at the moment is kinked up on top of my head. I try to straighten it out with my fingers.
    A man in a navy overcoat and a red scarf enters the room without knocking, and I guess that he is another doctor. He unwinds his scarf and lays it over a chair. I can see that my father wants to unzip his jacket, but he can’t. He has no buttons on his shirt.
    The man takes off his coat and sets it down on top of the scarf. He rubs the palms of his hands together as if anticipating a good time. He has on a black cabled sweater and a blazer, and his face is gravelly with acne scars. To the right of his chin is an extra flap of skin, as if he’d been in a car accident or a knife fight.
    “Robert Dillon?” the man asks.
    I am surprised that this other doctor knows my father’s name, and then I