I stir my hot chocolate. The marshmallows are little cardboard pellets. I know that if I drink the cocoa, I’ll be sick.
“You have a present for her?” my father asks.
“I made her a necklace,” I say.
I hear a sound that at first I can’t identify. I hold my breath and listen. The sound is faint—a motor, but more than a motor, a motor that grinds and then scrapes, grinds and then scrapes. I set down my spoon. It’s a sound as unwelcome in that still and silent world as a tank rolling into a village it’s about to level.
“Harry,” my father says.
“He’s too soon,” I say.
“I’ll go out to him,” my father says.
Our road is the last on Harry’s route. It’s not unusual for my father to greet him with a mug of coffee or, if it’s really late in the day, with a beer. Once Harry came into the house to use the bathroom, and he stayed talking to my father with a Beck’s in his hand for an hour. He’s a local who makes his living in the winter plowing for the town and for private individuals. There’s no shortage of work in New Hampshire in the winter.
Charlotte sips the last of her coffee. She sets the mug down.
I feel a panicky sensation in my chest.
“I guess I’ll go upstairs and make up the bed,” Charlotte says. “Do you have clean sheets so I can put them on for your grandmother?”
“Why?”
“She’s coming, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know where the clean sheets are,” I say, though I do: they’re in the top drawer of the bureau.
“I’ll just strip the bed then,” she says, standing.
I have an image of Charlotte ripping the sheets from the bed, leaving a bare mattress. “You can’t leave,” I say.
“I have to,” she says.
“You could live with us. What would be wrong with that? We could say you’re my cousin and that you’re living with us for a while. You could get a job, save money, go back to college.”
Charlotte gives a quick shake of her head.
“But I’ve got it all worked out,” I wail.
“If the police discover me here, you and your father will be accomplices.”
That word again. “I don’t care,” I say. And it’s true, I don’t care. I
want
to be an accomplice to Charlotte’s life.
I watch as Charlotte takes her dishes to the sink. She rinses them carefully. She wipes her hands on a dish towel. She slips past my chair and heads for the stairs.
For a minute I sit alone at the table. I touch its surface and remember Charlotte in the front room that first day, running her fingers along the furniture. I hear Charlotte upstairs, and I have again an image of a stripped mattress, blankets and sheets neatly folded.
I find my jacket in the back hallway. When Harry has gone, I’ll plead with my father. We can’t just send Charlotte away, I’ll tell him; we can’t.
Harry is sitting in his truck, his window rolled down, a mug of coffee in his hand. My father is standing next to him. “Hey there,” Harry says to me when I reach my father’s side.
“Hi,” I say.
“Getting ready for Christmas?” he asks in that jovial way adults speak to children.
“Guess so.”
Harry, older than my father, has a thin beard and an even thinner ponytail. His truck is covered with Pink Floyd stickers. Behind Harry is a neat four-foot-wide path the plow has made, the snow at the right edge piled high. He’ll get the other side of the drive on his way down.
“You’re early today,” my father says.
“Been out all night. Got the call around ten.”
“You must be wrecked.”
“Nah, I’m fine,” Harry says, adjusting his baseball hat. Red Sox. “Headed home to put up the tree.”
“How many inches did we get?”
“I can tell you exactly. Forty-one.”
“Must be rough, plowing with the ice underneath.”
“You want me to go up to the barn?” he asks.
“No,” my father says, “we’re okay. I stayed with it. Just do this little bit here we didn’t shovel.”
Harry hands my father the empty mug and puts his truck in gear. He cocks a finger at me. “Don’t forget the beer and cookies for Santa,” he says.
My father and I back away. Harry lowers the plow. We watch as he makes a wide swath. “Dad,” I say.
“Don’t start.”
“She has nowhere to go.”
“She has places.”
“We just can’t send her away.”
“She’s a big girl. She’ll be all right.”
Harry turns around, works his way back to us. He gives a wave out his window as he heads down the long drive.
“Dad, please?”
My father walks away from me to the side of the barn. He takes a glance, seems satisfied, and turns in the direction of the house. I follow to see what he was looking at. His truck and Charlotte’s car are entirely shoveled out, a fine dusting of snow on top. It’s what my father was doing all night—making sure Charlotte could leave in the morning.
Charlotte is standing in the hallway when my father and I enter the house. She has her parka and her boots on. Her pocketbook is slung over her shoulder.
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.
O
n 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 by the kitchen table. She had on a ratty old plaid bathrobe that smelled of Mom even when she wasn’t in it. The shoulder had unidentifiable stains on it, most of which I attributed to Clara. My mother had smudged mascara below her eyes, and her hair was flattened on one side. Beneath the robe, she was wearing a pale blue nylon nightgown as well as a pair of thick white socks that were getting brown on the bottoms. Clara, apparently, was still asleep.
A bowl, a spoon, a glass of juice, and a Flintstones vitamin were set at my place at the table. I poured Cheerios into the bowl.
“You all packed?” my mother asked.
“Yup.”
“Don’t forget to say thank you,” she said.
“Mom, I haven’t even gone yet.”
“Even so,” she said. “And make your bed. Always make your bed.”
“We sleep on the floor.”
“Then roll your sleeping bag.”
“Okay,”
I said.
My mother took a sip of tea. “You have your lunch money?”
“No.”
She got up and took three quarters from a paper cup in a cabinet. “We’ll pick you up at ten,” she said.
“Ten?”
“Nana and Poppy are coming tomorrow to celebrate Christmas with us early, before they go to Florida.”
I looked around. “Where’s Dad?”
“He’ll be right down. He got a late start.”
From upstairs I could hear the rapid padding of feet into the bedroom from the bathroom.
“Are your presents wrapped?” my mother asked.
“Not yet.”
“You can do that tomorrow, too.”
“Everybody stays until eleven,” I said. “Mrs. Rice makes a big breakfast for all of us.”
“Ten,” my mother said.
I remember that she stood and watered a plant on the sill over the sink. My father came down the stairs smelling of Neutrogena shampoo. He drank his coffee standing up. “You seen my keys?” he asked my mother.
“They’re on the dining room table.”
“You ready, Freddy?” he asked me, goosing me at the back of the neck.
I put on my jacket. My mother bent down to give me a hug. “Be a good girl,” she said. “I love you.”
“I always
am,
” I said, annoyed.
We left the house, and I didn’t look back. I didn’t notice if my mother was still standing in the doorway, holding her robe closed at the neck. Maybe she waved or maybe she went upstairs to have a shower before Clara woke up. I didn’t say
I love you, too,
to my mother. I didn’t say good-bye to Clara. I don’t know if my sister was sleeping on her stomach, arms and legs splayed, her diaper making a tight package under her sleeping suit, or if she had wormed her way into a corner as she sometimes did, clutching a white crocheted blanket to her chin. I don’t know if Quack-Quack was with her in the crib. I don’t even know for sure when it was I last saw Clara—at supper on my father’s knee, or in her crib as I passed by on my way to the bathroom?
I was off to school, and I didn’t look back. I had a date that night at Tara’s.
A deputy comes to the house to inform us that Charlotte has been taken to Concord in a cruiser. Charlotte’s car will be towed to the Shepherd police station. Neither of us is to leave the house. A police officer will be with us shortly to question us.
“Where’s Detective Warren?” my father asks.
“He’s gone to Concord with the young woman,” the deputy says.
My father shuts the door and stands with his hand still on the knob.
This can’t be happening to us,
I think. I have not said this to myself at any time since we found the baby.
“She’ll think you called the police,” I say.
My father stands rooted to the spot.
“
Did
you call the police?” I ask.
“No.”
“Then do something!” I yell.
He takes his hand off the doorknob.
“You know she didn’t know!” I shout. “You know she didn’t do it!”
My father turns to look at me, a question on his face.
“I overheard you talking in the kitchen,” I say.
“You heard all of it?”
“I heard every single word,” I say defiantly.
“Nicky,” he says.
“Charlotte fell asleep. She was on drugs. She didn’t know what James was doing. It’s not fair.”
“She knew what he’d done when she got home,” he says.
“She was scared,” I say. “She was sick.”
“She could have called the police.”
“Would you have done that? When you were nineteen, would you have called the police?”
He unzips his jacket, tosses it to the bench. “I’d like to think I would have.”
“Well, if you don’t do something now,” I yell, “they’re going to put her in jail. She’ll never get her baby back.”
“Is that what this is all about?” my father asks, kicking off his boots.
“No,” I say. “It’s about saving Charlotte.”
I’m vaguely aware of an exaggerated sense of drama, of a language my father and I never use. “You have to do the right thing,” I say evenly. “You just have to.”
“Nothing I can say will make any difference at all.”
I glance down at the necklace in my hands. I whip it as hard as I can in his direction.
The necklace hits him in the jaw. From the way he brings his hand to his cheek, I can tell that it stings. “Nicky,” he says, more bewildered than angry.
“Charlotte made that,” I say. “And now she’ll never have it. So you have it.”
My father takes a step forward, but I hold my ground. He removes his hand from his cheek. There’s a red mark where the necklace hit him. “Go to your room,” he says.
“No.”
“That’s enough,” he says, his voice more stern now.
“No, I won’t go to my room,” I say, “and there’s nothing you can do to make me.”
And suddenly I know that this is true. There’s nothing my father can do to make me go to my room. The realization is both exhilarating and terrifying.
“You’re just weak, you know that?” I say, putting my hands on my hips. “You’re afraid to go to the police station. You’re afraid to go anywhere. You just hide from the world.”
“Nicky, don’t,” he says.
“You just retreat from the world like a coward.” A thrilling kind of terror runs along my spine. I have never spoken to my father like this.
“There are reasons,” he says.
“Oh really?” I ask. “Well, just in case you want to know, I lost my mother and sister, too.”
My father briefly shuts his eyes. I wait for his face to close up on me in that terrible way it does—the eyes vacant, seeing only images from the past. For a time neither of us says a word.
“I know you did,” he says.
“You’re not living a normal life, Dad.”
“I do the best I can.”
I thrust my face forward. “But
I
don’t have a normal life,” I say. “How do you think it feels to be me? No friends to the house. No TV. We never go anywhere. You never answer the phone. We didn’t even
have
a phone for six months because you didn’t want to talk to anyone. And why did you give that Steve guy the wrong number, huh? Because you didn’t want him calling you. That’s sick, Dad. It’s just sick.”
“You want too much,” he says.
“I just want my life back! Is that too much to ask?” I don’t want to be crying—it ruins all arguments—but I am.
“You can’t have that life back,” he says.
I’ve gone too far—I know I have—but I can’t stop myself. “I could have
some
life at least,” I protest.
My father turns to look out the window. He puts a hand to the woodwork to support his weight. “A hundred times I’ve regretted the move,” he says.
“We could have stayed in New York,” I say.
“You were young, and I thought you’d get over it quickly.”
“Well, I didn’t,” I say.
“I always thought you were doing pretty well,” he says.
“I just pretend,” I say. “For your sake.”
He turns to me, surprised now. “You pretend?” he asks. “All this time you’ve been pretending?”
“So you wouldn’t be sad,” I say. “I can’t stand it when you’re sad.”
My father bites the inside of his cheek. I can see that I’ve hurt him.
“Are you just trying to stay sad?” I ask. “To hold on to Mom and Clara?”
My father doesn’t answer me.
“Because, Dad, here’s the thing,” I say.
“I can’t take care of you anymore!”
My father looks away. A white noise rushes into my ears. With deliberately slow movements he puts his boots back on and reaches for his jacket. In three strides he is out the door.
I fall onto the bench, lightheaded and breathless.
I won’t run after my father, I decide.
The sun beats in through the windows of the back hallway. It has grown warm with the solar heat. My socks are soaked at the soles, and I take them off.
I won’t apologize.
I pick up the necklace and hoist myself up the banister of the stairs as if I weighed two hundred pounds. I walk to my room and lie on my back on my bed.
My stomach hurts. I ate too many pancakes. I turn onto my side, cradling my abdomen with my hands. It occurs to me to wonder where the promised police officer is. Will my father and I be arrested? I try to imagine that. My father and me in handcuffs, being led to a cruiser. My father and me sitting shackled side by side. It’s too weird to contemplate. What would we say to each other? And then there would be the drive to the police station. Warren would be waiting for us at the other end, a smirk on his face. He’d won, hadn’t he? And then my father and I would be separated, and I’d be led to a jail cell by a matron who looked like Mrs. Dean at school, thick all over. Would Charlotte be in a cell near me? Would we be able to speak to each other? Would we have to invent a code that we tapped through the walls? And why oh why did I eat so many pancakes? The cramps in my stomach are intense.
I think about my father, alone in the barn. Is he furious, kicking lumber and snapping tools down hard upon his workbench? Or is it worse than that? Is he sitting in his chair, in the Dad position, just staring out at the snow? If my stomach didn’t hurt so much, I think I would go out to him now. I don’t know what I’d say, but I’d try to tell him that I know he’s done the best job he could. That I don’t pretend all the time. That, actually, I’m usually pretty okay.
I get up to go to the bathroom. I vow never to eat pancakes again. It will be my New Year’s resolution: never eat pancakes. I stop at the sink and study my reflection in the mirror. My skin is white, and I look sick. I try to smile, but all I see is metal. I turn away from the mirror, unzip my jeans, and sit on the toilet.
My head snaps up. Is it possible?
I examine my underwear again.
It’s just a tiny stain, but it’s unmistakably blood.
Maybe it’s only coincidence. Or maybe it was the fight that brought it on. More likely it was simply time. But it’s hard, in those confusing and exhilarating initial moments, not to think of it as something Charlotte has passed on to me. I remember my mother and feel a pang, but it’s Charlotte I most want to tell.
I’ll tell my grandmother when she gets to the house. She might cry. And I’ll tell Jo the day after Christmas, when we go skiing. I imagine her squeal. Bit by bit I’ll let others know, or Jo will. My father will see the box of Kotex in the bathroom and think Charlotte left it there. He’ll put it away. I’ll take it out again and set it on the sink, giving him the hint. Eventually he’ll get the picture without my ever having to say a word. I wonder if there will be a moment when he’ll look at me differently, and if he does, if I will see it. I hope it doesn’t make him sad, sad for my mother who is not here to see me reach this milestone.
I have had enough sadness to last a lifetime.
I didn’t see Charlotte leave with the box of Kotex. I search the bathroom closet. There are squeezed-out tubes of toothpaste and little slivers of soap, but no Kotex. I walk into the guest room and open the closet door, and there on the upper shelf is the box, half-hidden behind a woolly blanket with a satin edge. I reach for the box and return to the bathroom, and though uninitiated, figure out the not-too-difficult process of securing a pad.
I look in the mirror again.
I am a woman,
I say to my reflection, trying it out.
Who am I kidding? I’m just a twelve-year-old girl waiting for a policeman to come and arrest her. I still have cramps, but knowing that I’m not going to be sick makes the pain more bearable. I try to remember what it is Jo always takes when she has cramps at school. I find some Motrin in the medicine cabinet and take two.
I hear a sound I would know anywhere. I know I have only sixty seconds to make it to the passenger seat, the amount of time my father always waits for the truck to warm up. I bolt from the bathroom and take the stairs two at a time. I put one arm into the sleeve of my jacket and stick my toes into the tops of my boots. With the jacket hanging off my arm, I hobble to the truck, the laces of the boots dragging behind me. I open the door and climb up to the seat. My father looks at me once and then puts the truck into first.
“I just got my period,” I say.