Cover of Snow
Advance Reader's Copy â Not for Sale
COVER OF SNOW
A Novel
Jenny Milchman
Ballantine Books
This is an uncorrected eBook file.
Please do not quote for publication
until you check your copy against the finished book.
Tentative On-Sale Date: January 15, 2013
Tentative Publication Month: February 2013
Tentative Print Price: $26.00
Tentative eBook Price: $12.99
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Ballantine Books
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This is an uncorrected eBook file. Please do not quote for publication until you check your copy against the finished book.
Cover of Snow
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Jenny Milchman
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
[Permissions acknowledgments, if any, go here.]
ISBN 978-0-345-53421-7
eISBN 8-0-345-53423-1
[CIP Information]
Book design by Caroline Cunningham
This one is for my mother and father,
who in their different ways gave me the gift of story.
And for Josh, who gave me everything.
I can hardly believe it's come down to this: a cool, rainy day in June, when I am writing the acknowledgments for my debut novel. I began composing these words a decade ago.
My deepest thanks go to three women I call the Dream Team. My editor, Linda Marrow, has a visionary view of fiction that made this novel into the book you are holdingâand the one I always meant to write. My agent, Julia Kenny, is passionate, dedicated, and unflagging in her enthusiasmâtraits every writer needs to rely on. And Nancy Pickard started out as one of my favorite authorsâsomeone to whom I wrote a letter of admirationâand became the reason I got published at all.
The people at Ballantine have dazzled me from the minute I was lucky enough to land there. I look forward to meeting many more to thank, but for now want to single out Junessa Viloria, for her constant contact and attention to details; Dana Isaacson, for his sage advice on the tiniest turn of plot; Denise Cronin, Rachel Kind, Joelle Dieu, and Donna Diverglas, for the magic of overseas sales; the awe-inspiring art department, who took a story and crafted it into a single image; and Jennifer Rodriguez and the entire eagle-eyed team in production, who went way beyond usage to make suggestions I never would've thought of on my own, yet still managed to catch the fact that granola bars don't melt.
There are authors whose books I love and who became literary angels along the way. I hesitate to write this list because it will be incomplete the moment I send it off. A few mentions include John Searlesâauthor of the literary angel phraseâand Jacquelyn Mitchard, Louise Penny, Sophie Hannah, Timothy Hallinan, Leighton Gage, Lisa Tucker, Craig Holden, Karen McQuestion, Stefanie Pintoff, Debra Galant, David Harris Ebenbach, and Colleen Thompson, who went out on many different limbs for me. Laura Lippman, Chris Bohjalian, Harlan Coben, Linwood Barclay, and Jodi Picoult offered inspiration, in part by telling me to come find them when my book soldâwhich I did.
If you want to be a writer, join a writers organization. Three of the best I've found are International Thriller Writersâthank you, Carla Buckley, for your book and the invitationâMystery Writers of America, and New York Writers Workshop.
After you join an organization, become part of a listserv. Without the good hearts and avid mystery lovers of DorothyL and MurderMustAdvertise, I would've had a much harder time not giving up.
I have mixed feelings about writers groups, but three have been essential on my journey. To Dorothy from the Little Professor writing groupâif you hadn't talked about
The Deep End of the Ocean
almost fifteen years ago, it literally wouldn't have occurred to me to try to get published. Stumps Sprouts lasted an idyllic five days but resulted in friends I'll never forget: Karina, Colin, Sandy, Jessica, Teeta, Bridget, Nina, Becky, and Barbara. If the only thing to come out of the Somerset Hills Writers Salon was meeting Lauren Sweet and her mother, it would've been worth attending a thousand meetings.
Some writers hone their craft at the knees of teachers; I was lucky enough to have literary agents poke and prod me into learning how to put a novel together. If Barney Karpfinger hadn't written a single-spaced rejection letter back in 1999, my work would still be laden with unnecessary interior monologue. Anne Hawkins and Anna Stein believed in me enough to put their very capable skills to work, and I am always excited to see the books they usher into the world.
The community of bookstores is a grand and noble one. There are too many to name, but Margot Sage-El, Marina Cramer, and the crew at Watchung Booksellers deserve credit for giving life to a certain literary series; and Greg and Mary Bruss of Mysteries and More in Nashville, and Becky Chapin of Calico Books in Colorado helped kick off Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day back in 2010. Thank you, booksellers across the world, and to paraphrase Neil Young, long may you thrive.
Libraries were my place of respite and salvation from the childhood woes to which writers seem especially prone. My hat is off to librarians worldwide.
The world of bloggers is made up of writers, readers, reviewers, thinkers, essayists, and at least one former bookseller. Thank you, Lelia Taylor, Kaye Barley, and many, many others for the creative work you put out there for people to be inspired by.
I'm not a writer who does a lot of research, but I found it necessary to call upon the husband of a dear friend for one certain detail in the book you're about to read. Thank you, Greg Fox, for the consult on concrete.
When it takes a long time to get published, it's easy to start believing it will never happen. That's when you need your writing kindred spirits, not to mention a little chocolate. Judy Walters, Karyne Corum, Maryann McFadden, Savannah Thorne, and the whole Cozy Café family all deserve great success.
Thanks to friends who've been interested and invested along the way: Lynda Wolf, Tracy Fox, Susan Ezell, Jen Grigsby, Deborah McKinley, Tulasi and Eric Jordan-Freedman, Denise Wendorff, Becky Rubenstein, Leah Hatley, Kimberly Kirstein, Jana Karam, Annaliese Silivanch, Anne Nedelka, and the members of the Tuesday night book club!
I feel lucky to call two women mother-in-law. My thanks go to Shirley Frank, for reading manuscripts in a way that made me feel like a real writer, and her special flair with pitches, and to Amy Small, for her support and introductions over the years.
Last because they're not least, thank you to my family.
You already know about my husband: support when things looked bleakest, cook when I got hungry, and a mean editor to boot. To truly thank him would take a novel of its own.
Thanks to my daughter and son, Sophie and Caleb, for carrying a flagâa literal one, in this case, for a parade around the houseâimploring Mommy to âgat publisht.'
My father knew when I was ready for
Jane Eyre,
and my mother began many a childhood bedtime story with, “Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Benjy.”
Thank you to my brother, Ezra, for being my number one fan (an intentionally weird, freaky one who hides behind beds), and to my brother-in-law, James, for sending me news of interest in a world he isn't even part of, and for always asking about details.
To my sister, Kari, who comes first in so many ways. Thank you for seeing the dream.
My husband wasn't in bed with me when I woke up that January morning. The mid-winter sky was bruised purple and yellow outside the window. I shut bleary eyes against light that glared and pounded.
A second later I realized my toes weren't burrowing into the hollows behind Brendan's knees, that when I flung out my arm it didn't meet his wiry chest, the stony muscles gone slack with sleep. I slid my hand toward the night table, fingers scrabbling around for our alarm clock.
Seven-thirty.
It was late. As if drugged, my brain was making sense of things only after a dull delay. But it was a full hour past the time I always woke up.
We
always woke up. Brendan slept a cop's sleep, perpetually ready to take action, and I had been an early riser all my thirty-five years.
Bits of things began to take shape in my mind.
The morning light, which entered so stridently through the window.
Brendan not in bed with me. He must've gotten up already. I hadn't even felt him move.
But Brendan had been working late all week; I hadn't yet found out why. My husband had good reason to sleep in. And if he had risen on time, why didn't he wake me?
I felt a squeezing in my belly. Brendan knew I had an eight o'clock meeting with a new client this morning, the owner of a lovely but ramshackle old saltbox in need of repair. My husband took my burgeoning business as seriously as I did. He would never let me miss a meeting.
On the other hand, Brendan would know that if I slept late, then I must be worn out. Maybe getting Phoenix off the ground had taken more out of me than I realized. Brendan probably figured he'd give me a few extra minutes, and the morning just got away from him.
He must be somewhere in his normal routine now, toweling off, or fixing coffee.
Except I didn't hear the shower dripping. Or smell the telltale, welcome scent of my morning fix.
I pushed myself out of bed with hands that felt stiff and clumsy, as if I were wearing mittens. What was wrong with me? I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror and noticed puddles of lavender under my eyes. It was like I hadn't slept a wink, instead of an extra hour.
“Brendan? Honey? You up?”
My words shattered the air, and I realized how very still our old farmhouse was this morning.
Padding toward the bathroom, one explanation for the weight in my muscles, not to mention my stuporous sleep, occurred to me.
Brendan and I had made love last night.
It had been one of the good times; me lying back afterward, hollow, cored out, the way I got when Brendan was able to focus completely on me, on us, instead of moving so fiercely that he seemed to be riding off to some distant place in the past. We'd even lain awake for a while in the waning moments before sleep, fingers intertwined, Brendan studying me in a way that I felt more than saw in the dark.
“Honey? Last night tired me out, I guess. Not that it wasn't worth it.”
I felt a smile tease the corners of my mouth, and pushed open the bathroom door, expecting a billow of steam. When only brittle air emerged, I felt that grabbing in my gut again. Cold tile bit my bare feet.
“Brendan?”
My husband never started the day without a shower, claiming that a night's sleep made him ache. But there was no residue of moisture filming the mirror, nor fragrance of soap in the air. I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around my shoulders for warmth, and trotted toward the stairs, calling out his name.
No answer.
Could he have gone to the station early? Left me sleeping while my new client waited at his dilapidated house?
“Honey! Are you home?” My voice sounded uncertain.
No answer. And then I heard the chug of our coffeepot.
Relief flowed through me, thick and creamy as soup. Until that moment, I hadn't let myself acknowledge that I was scared. I wasn't an over-reactor by nature usually.
I headed downstairs, feet more sure now, but with that wobbly, airless feeling in the knees that comes as fear departs.
The kitchen was empty when I entered, the coffee a dark, widening stain in the pot. It continued to sputter and spit while I stood there.
There was no mug out, waiting for its cold jolt of milk. No light was turned on against the weak morning sunshine. Nobody had been in the icy kitchen yet today. This machine had been programmed last night, one of the chores accomplished as Brendan and I passed back and forth in the tight space, stepping around each other to clean up after dinner.
That thing in my belly took hold, and this time it didn't let go. I didn't call out again.
The sedated feeling was disappearing now, cobwebs tearing apart, and my thinking suddenly cleared. I brushed past the deep farm sink, a tall, painted cabinet.
With icy hands, I opened the door to the back stairs, whose walls I was presently laboring over to make perfect for Brendan. Maybe, just maybe, he'd skipped his shower and called in late to work in order to spend time in his hideaway upstairs.
The servants' stairs were steep and narrow, with a sudden turn and wells worn deep in each step. I climbed the first two slowly, bypassing a few tools and a can of stripper, then twisted my body around the corner. I took in the faded wallpaper I'd only just reached after months of careful scraping.
Perhaps I didn't have enough momentum, but I slipped, solidly whacking both knees as I went down. Crouching there, gritting my teeth against the smarting pain, I looked up toward the top of the flight.
Brendan was above me, suspended from a thick hank of rope.
The rope was knotted around a stained glass globe, which hung in the cracked ceiling plaster.
Brendan's neck tilted slightly, the angle odd. His handsome face looked like it was bathed entirely in red wine.
Suddenly a small cyclone of powder spilled down, and I heard a splitting sound. There was a rip, a tear, the noise of two worlds cracking apart, and then a deafening series of thuds.
The light fixture completed its plummet, and broke with a tinkling sprinkle of glass. A tangle of ice-cold limbs and body parts slugged me, heavy as lead blankets.
And I screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until the warble my voice had been before became no more than a gasping strain for air.