Cover of Snow

by Jenny Milchman

  “I’ll never wait for you to come inside, breath clouding your face. You’ll never say, ‘All done, Chestnut.’ Never! Never! Never!”

  I tore at the ice with the scraper until the green plastic began to whiten with wear. I realized that for the first time in days I wasn’t chilled to the bone. My body was heated through, back clammy with sweat underneath my thick coat.

  “I’ll do it myself, like I’ll be doing everything myself!”

  Bangs and rips to the ice-choked car.

  “But it’s not about what I’ll be doing, Brendan—”

  The scraper snapped in half in my fist and I started to use my hands, snatching up broken slices of ice, and swiping at the leftover film until the car was finally clear enough to see.

  “It’s about what I’ll miss,” I said hoarsely. My throat was raw.

  But not thick, threatening to cut off breath.

  My chest heaved in my down jacket. I had torn the tips off six fingers on my gloves.

  I tossed the broken pieces of scraper onto the lawn and dashed back to the garage for a canister of de-icer. Then I swept my bag up from the ground. As a glow of yellow lights began to light the houses of my neighbors, I threw myself onto the front seat, ground the clutch into reverse, and fishtailed out toward the highway.

  I didn’t see the whipping red lights, carnival-bright against all the whiteness around me, or hear a wail until the police car was beside me. Then I jerked the steering wheel to the right, and skidded onto the shoulder of the Northway.

  I’d been married to a policeman; I knew that if a police car drove up next to you, the cop had been trying to pull you over for a while. I put my head down on the steering wheel, letting the window down blindly. A flurry blew across my bare face. It had started to snow without my realizing it.

  “Want to look up at me, ma’am?”

  I tilted my head to one side.

  “Oh, Nora. Honey, I didn’t see it was you. Your license plates are covered with snow.”

  “Sorry about that, Vern,” I said. “Chief.”

  A big, meaty arm penetrated the window and the police chief lifted my face. His own was covered by a gray ski mask, which produced a particularly alien effect. “Fact is, you were driving mighty fast. Sliding a bit, too.”

  “Was I?”

  “Didn’t you hear me behind you?”

  “No. I’m sorry. My head was … somewhere else.”

  The Chief peeled off his mask and peered in at me. “That wasn’t why I pulled you over.”

  I was staring at Vern’s gray-swathed chest, the familiar row of silver buttons, a sheen on his badge that I knew took work to maintain.

  The Chief rested both hammy fists on my window bed, where a lip of snow had already gathered. “One of your taillights is out. Can’t afford that in this weather.”

  “Oh, right,” I replied. “I’ll have to replace the bulb.”

  “Where you headed now? Away from Jean’s house, I can see.”

  The desolate thought that it would never be my house washed over me. It wasn’t even Brendan’s. “To the pharmacy,” I said.

  “You having some kind of medical problem?”

  “No,” I said, a small smile creeping up on me. I could refer to something goopy, female, and the Chief would surely back off. Then I wondered why I wanted him to. Vern stood there, his breath emerging in steady, white plumes.

  “I found some medication,” I went on after a moment. “It’s—it was—Brendan’s, but I don’t recognize the prescription.”

  I left out the fact that Brendan had drugged me with this particular pill.

  “You’re looking for ‘how comes’ and there aren’t any here,” the police chief told me gruffly. “Brendan died and I’m mad as hell, like you, but no good comes from wondering why.”

  I squinted through the snow-strewn air at the Chief’s fleshy face. Died. Not killed himself. Was the Chief trying to tell me something? Or did he just want to spare me?

  “I need to know as much as I can about how Brendan was doing. This medication is something he didn’t tell me about. And I can’t stand that right now.”

  Vern’s face became even softer. “Okay. All right. But I’m gonna have to insist you take care of that taillight first.”

  A sudden swirl of snow momentarily blocked out sight of the Chief.

  I glanced at the clock on my dashboard. “My taillight? Now?”

  Vern Weathers was smiling, jowls lifted so they wrinkled his eyes. “Now, honey, there’s already been one tragedy for the Hamilton family this year, and it’s just a baby year yet. No more, all right?”

  I nodded in resignation.

  “In this weather it’s not safe for you to be driving around one backlight down. You go on over to Al’s, and he’ll fix you up. When he’s done you can play yourself a little detective. Heck, if you do a good job, maybe we’ll hire you on.” The Chief went silent for a second. “Don’t mean to make jokes. The wife would have my head.”

  I had trouble picturing tiny Mrs. Weathers even reaching the top of her tree trunk husband, let alone doing anything to his head. Vern must’ve seen it on my face, for he chuckled in agreement.

  I raised my window, pushed down to trigger the blinker, and reentered the Northway, scattering snow in front of my tires. Behind me, Vern pulled out, too, red lights twirling in an onslaught of flakes.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I made my way through empty streets, still but for the snow, toward the outskirts of town. They had turned slushy with salt and as I glanced in my rearview mirror, half expecting to see the police chief still behind me, I saw caramel-colored splashes instead.

  Stopping at a red light, I peered through the foggy windshield.

  A bait and ammo store sat directly in front of me, and just beyond it, my destination. Al’s Gas & Service occupied one corner of Water Street, across from a new Mobil. I favored the latter, where I could grab a cup of coffee after pumping my gas, but Al Meter serviced the cop cars and so I obeyed Vern’s order. For all I knew, he might check.

  Things like the two stations could make Wedeskyull a tough place sometimes. The town—whose ominous-sounding name, spoken as if someone were killing weeds, stood in stark contrast to its physical beauty—was not an entirely peaceful place. It was divided between newcomers and natives, the Mobil half and the Al’s half. As the émigré bride of a man whose family had lived here for a hundred years, and elsewhere in the Adirondacks for a hundred before that, I didn’t fit into either group.

  But I loved Wedeskyull—and not only because of Brendan. There was a wealth of antique houses for me to pore over, all in differing degrees of dilapidation. Even if I’d never made many friends of my own here—any, came Teggie’s voice, any friends of your own—the architecture made a surprisingly rich substitute.

  It was Brendan who’d pointed out how many city expats poured fortunes into those places, and soon after that observation was made, my business was born. You can do it, Chestnut. Ask for twenty percent commission.

  Memories. Reams of memories assailed me.

  Like Chestnut.

  I’d once asked Brendan why he called me that, and he answered dreamily, “Because you’re my Christmas treat.” But his face held something more.

  It was true that we met during finals back in school in the city, just before winter break. Brendan had bought me a bag of nuts off a cart to celebrate the end of exams.

  “One step closer to lawyerdom,” he announced.

  Brendan had settled on the profession because he wanted to deal with all the people who played games with the law. At least that’s what he’d told me when we started dating, and he’d been filling out applications, and taking the LSATs. But when the time came to choose between law schools, something had radically changed. Brendan proposed. And then he suggested we return to his hometown, where he had gotten an offer to join the force. Being a cop gave Brendan good benefits, long-term security, and something else. A call to his heritage.

  I stare
d up at the traffic light. It was the only one in town. Chance Carson, the owner of the bait and ammo store, had paid for that light. Made access to his parking lot easier.

  Wedeskyull was a big small town, if that made sense. It had its own schools, jail, police force, and there were enough residents—especially with the newcomers coursing in—that no one could really claim to know or even recognize everybody. You could drive twenty miles and still be contained by the borders of Wedeskyull, but within its spread-out confines stood one central stalk, a deeply rooted tree, the branches of which went back to the town’s inception and had witnessed its growth.

  The now green light blurred before my eyes.

  An engine gunned behind me.

  I jolted forward, putting my hand up in apology, and turned into Al’s lot.

  Grimacing at the salt chunks that broke beneath my boots as I got out, I tugged open a smeared glass door. The temperature inside and out differed by about sixty degrees, which led to condensation. Across the empty street, the Mobil lot was clear beneath a brightly lit overhang.

  Now that I was inside, I could see that this place was more modern than its age and position in town would suggest. I’d been expecting something out of Andy Griffith. Instead there was a high bank of gleaming machines with buttons that lit up, tools that more closely resembled thermostats or telephones than wrenches, and some blue thing on wheels that looked like a friendly robot.

  But no one to use all of this equipment. I was alone except for a crackling radio, set to the police channel. I backed away from its buzz of familiar voices.

  “Can I help you, Missus?”

  I had no idea where the voice had come from.

  “Um, yes,” I began.

  The sole occupant of the dim interior showed himself. He was dressed in camouflage, the white kind for winter, and as I studied him, I realized he couldn’t possibly help me. He was just a kid.

  He moved out from behind a grimy desk, blue eyes squinting.

  I tried a smile.

  “What can I do you for?”

  The boy had a dazzling smile to go along with those bright eyes. He was on the small side—not much taller than I was—and his light hair was tangled. The smile faltered when I didn’t say anything. “What can I do you for. That’s what my boss always says.”

  Now that he was standing in the open, I thought he looked vaguely familiar, like someone I might’ve seen around but never really met.

  “Well,” I began, “my car’s outside and it’s got a light out?”

  The boy’s smile broadened. “Let’s have a look.”

  I found myself smiling back as we walked across the slushy lot.

  “Messy out here,” he said. And then to my amazement, the boy drew his camouflage-patterned sweatshirt over his head, and laid it on the asphalt. He hadn’t bothered with a jacket back in the shop; now he stood unflinching in the air, which was cold enough to shatter, wearing only shirtsleeves.

  I glanced down at the cloth.

  “Stand on that, why don’t you? Then your feet won’t get as wet.”

  “Um,” I mumbled. “No, that’s all right …”

  The boy turned an injured gaze on me, and I saw in that moment that I’d been wrong. He wasn’t a child, he might be as old as twenty, twenty-five even. A faint scruff of beard on his jaw showed in the light, and his eyes also held more than anyone very young could’ve seen.

  I stepped onto the white cloth, rapidly liquefying in the slush, and the boy’s chunks of teeth showed again. “Think I got this one in stock. You stay right here.”

  I was trying to tease out the branches of his mind. Kindness paired with a lack of understanding about basic physical realities, such as what happens when cotton gets wet, or the fact that my boots would’ve protected me much better than his flimsy shirt.

  The temperature was starting to wear on me by the time he returned with a small box. He crouched by my car, fiddling while I wrapped my arms around myself, wondering at his lack of response to the burning cold.

  Why was I standing out here? It wasn’t as if my help was needed. I started to turn and go inside—deliberating over whether to provide any explanation or excuse—when he spoke up.

  “I’m awful sad about Brendan.”

  The cold took hold of me then, and didn’t let go. “Did you know Brendan?” Then I paused. “Do you know me?”

  “Know,” he echoed, and I was about to pose another question when he went on, his tone making the words freeze on my lips. “Go, slow, row to hoe.”

  “Rhymes,” I said senselessly, wanting to get out of there. Why hadn’t I gone to the Mobil? I didn’t know if this person was brain-injured or mentally retarded or some other variation of differentlyabled—all deserving of equal rights and fair treatment and anything else they might want, only not by me, not right now anyway. I had to get to the pharmacy.

  “Want to turn ’em on?”

  “What?” It came out more of a cry. I didn’t understand anything anymore.

  “Your lights.” He gestured to where he’d been working.

  “Oh.” My face grew hot despite the chill. “Sure.” I stepped off the sodden sweatshirt, drowned now in the lot, and went to sit down on the front seat.

  “Works real well!” the boy-man said with delight. “Visible even in broad daylight.” A pause. “Risible is the only one.”

  “What?”

  “Miserable—no, that’s cheating …”

  Another rhyme, I realized belatedly. I leaned forward, but didn’t close my door. “Thanks for taking care of this.”

  “Ms. Hamilton …” he said, and I frowned again.

  “Yes?”

  “That’ll be sixteen dollars. Just the cost of the light. Labor’s on the house.”

  “Oh,” I said, starting to reach for my bag. “Right. Thank you.”

  “That was his. Long time ago,” he said, and I followed his gaze to the sack I used as both briefcase and purse, a castoff of Brendan’s when he decided against law school.

  So this person had indeed known my husband, in which case my uppermost guess about his age was probably closest to the truth. As I trailed him back to the garage to pay, I wondered if he knew anything else.

  “I used to watch him skate,” he said, opening the cash register.

  Relief, which I didn’t entirely understand, sank into me, weighing me down. Brendan couldn’t have known this person, then, nor vice versa. In the eight long winters we’d lived up here, Brendan had never once set foot on a lake. He wouldn’t join the hockey team the cops all played on. Brendan felt clumsy on ice, a standing he couldn’t abide. He liked to be good at things—taking double-black-diamond trails easily, expert with a pickax and ropes—and consequently had always seemed to display an aversion to skating.

  “Boy, did they have fun.”

  “Who?” I burst out. “Who are you?” I added, hoping my rudeness might pass unnoticed amongst all the other things this person didn’t seem to understand.

  He trudged over to the dirty desk, pulling open a drawer that protested with a metallic shriek. He handed me a business card, the kind torn from a perforated sheet.

  Dugger Mackenzie. Al’s Gas & Service. Tender, loving care for your automobile.

  “Dugger?” I said, and he grinned.

  “Not like that.” The grin washed away. His face looked almost unrecognizable without it. “Rhymes with cougar.”

  I almost missed it when his hands started to curl into fists, and had to hurry to scare up a response as he started to pummel his own hips.

  “Gotcha,” I said in a deliberately easy tone. “You say your name with two ‘o’s.”

  The tension in his posture began to loosen.

  I dropped the flimsy card into my sack. “Well, Dugger, it was nice to—”

  “They kept us little guys off the lake. Not all the time then, not yet, but me they did almost always,” Dugger said, as I began to walk toward the cloudy glass door. “That didn’t matter. I liked standing on the
sidelines.”

  I turned halfway back.

  “I could make out Brendan, even way off on the bank. Red, you know, his strings. They called out from real far away. Called, lolled. Don’t spell ’em the same, but they still work.”

  A car drove into the lot on a wave of slush.

  My reply took a moment to form. Because that last thing Dugger had said made a strange sort of sense. “Are you talking about laces? Skate laces?”

  The car honked, a rude blast, and Dugger, still coatless, turned toward it.

  “Dugger? Do you mean that Brendan wore red—”

  “Sorry, Missus,” Dugger said breathlessly. He flung open the door. “I got to see to this customer. The boss gets mad if anyone has to wait.”

  I was left to stare after him, and try to untwist his words.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The pharmacy would have to wait for another morning. Right now there was something more pressing I needed to check on at home.

  Dugger’s words, slow and precise, were still trickling through my head.

  Go, slow, row to hoe. Was it wrong—paranoid of me again—to take that as some kind of message? Wasn’t the word tough usually inserted in front of the last three? It was as if Dugger had been warning me about what I might be in for.

  The wipers slapped snow back and forth across the windshield, and I blinked to clear my vision, trying to make sense of the road amidst the churning flakes.

  I was behaving as if I’d come in contact with some kind of seer, when in fact Dugger was probably just an eccentric character about town, compromised in intellect or sanity.

  Did Vern know Dugger? He must. I could ask the Chief about him.

  In the meantime, something even wackier than this morning’s encounter was waiting to be resolved: the notion that once upon a time Brendan had skated.

  “It’s a box. A yellow flannel box,” I told Teggie when she came upon me in the bedroom, not having bothered to remove my coat and hat.

  The box had been an inheritance from Brendan’s father, and he always kept it in his dresser drawer. The fabric covering was worn as soft as rose petals, and the lid caught a bit as I lifted it off. My gaze skidded over the objects inside. Brendan never encouraged me in looking at these things, although he hadn’t exactly stopped me, either, and so even though I was wont to give his past some privacy, I had caught glimpses of certain items from time to time.