The Cinderella Hour (12 page)

“But . . .”

“Hell, Snow, you were my best prop. You made my story about
being a widow from Atlanta totally plausible. It’s a story, by the way, that
everyone still believes. The men who’ve given me all these boxes of hundred-dollar
bills are convinced I was forced to turn to them when my wedding business
failed. The money is yours. If you don’t believe you’ve earned it already, you
can earn it now by helping me pack.”

Leigh didn’t tell Snow where she
was going. She didn’t know. And once she settled somewhere, she wouldn’t be
giving Snow a call. She couldn’t run the risk, she explained, of the man she
was fleeing from being led to her by Snow.

Leigh hadn’t planned to let that man know she was leaving.
But that was when she believed Snow would be coming with her, that they would
both disappear. Now she would call him from the airport and tell him the same
coma-miracle-in-California story she had told her paying customers. She would
also tell him, as she had told them, that she was never coming back.

“I won’t say anything about you unless he asks,” Leigh said
as she waited for her limousine to arrive. “The less mention of you, the
better. It’s always best to avoid nonessential lies. He’ll assume you’re with
me. The phone company’s disconnecting my phone first thing tomorrow. If it
rings tonight, don’t answer. If I need to get a message to you, I’ll call on
your line. I doubt he’d call here, once he knows I’m gone, much less come by.
But if he does come looking for me, Snow, if anyone does, anyone
ever
,
tell him you don’t know where I am and never expect to hear from me again. That’s
the truth. It has to be. It’s safest for both of us. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And in the future, whenever you have to give your birth
date, make it sometime in July or August instead of February.”

The first snowflake fell an hour
after Leigh left.

By ten, the airport was closed.

Snow felt certain her Scarlett O’Hara mother had made it out.
Leigh was a survivor, and tomorrow was another day.

As the storm raged outside, Snow faced her own storm within.

She had been conceived, in Leigh’s words, in a blizzard of
cocaine—slang name snow.

Had Leigh chosen her daughter’s name to be cruel? Or as a
cautionary reminder to herself? Snow would never know. So she made a choice of
her own. She would believe that Leigh fashioned a beautiful fairy tale—making
love with her cop husband in a snowstorm—to go with what she had always said
was a beautiful name . . . as if there had been a time, once upon a time, when
Leigh imagined happy endings, too.

Like mother, like daughter.

Luke had known from the start, she realized, that her romanticized
version of her name couldn’t be true. He had asked her where her parents
traveled to before she was born and whether her mother had ever used drugs.
Eight-year-old Snow hadn’t known that nine months passed between when a baby
was “made” and its birth. But Luke had. A Valentine’s Day baby couldn’t have
been conceived in a snowstorm in Chicago—unless it was the kind of snow her
mother had been high on that Friday night in June.

And so it began. Luke’s pity for her.

Had he confided the truth of her name to Vivian?

No. Vivian would not have been shy about using it to make her
case. How are you going to explain to your baby, she would have demanded, that
your prostitute mother named you after a drug?

All the more reason, she would have said, to do the right
thing.

Twenty-four hours after Snow felt
Wendy flutter for the first time, she felt her flutter for the last.

It was a frantic fluttering and a bloody one. And it was so
far from joy that she wondered if what she had felt last night had been her
baby’s happy kicks at all.

Had Wendy ever fluttered with joy?

And when, oh when, had she died?

Perhaps death for Wendy had come when Luke knelt on the
terrace and kissed her goodbye.

Or when he fled to be with Vivian, at midnight, at the ball.

Or confessed to Vivian that he wished the baby was hers.

Or gave Vivian the money from the jar and implored her to
implore Snow to do what was best for all concerned—except his unwanted
daughter.

It took Snow a while to find her baby in the ocean of
blood—and islands of placenta—on the bathroom floor. She was such a tiny
swimmer. And she was not the joyful mermaid Snow had envisioned frolicking in
an amniotic fluid sea, swimming lap after lap as her daddy—who didn’t want her—did.

She was far too young, too undeveloped, to move her arms and
scissor her legs.

But she was a she. She
was
Wendy.

And how had Wendy died?
Why
?

Maybe she had died, as Snow felt herself dying, of a broken
heart.

Snow held her baby, kissing her,
whispering to her, making promises it was far too late to keep.

I’ll keep you safe. I will always keep you safe
.

A distant corner of Snow’s mind knew she was in trouble. She
wasn’t thinking clearly. It was
difficult
to think. And her limbs, like
her brain, moved in slow motion.

But where was the rush?

She could hold Wendy forever, rock her forever.

Unless . . . what if Wendy didn’t want to be held by the
mother who hadn’t kept her safe? What if the dread she had felt had been
Wendy’s
dread—because she had discovered the womb that should have protected her was
damaged—perhaps due to the blizzard of cocaine in which Snow herself had been
conceived?

Once the notion that she couldn’t provide sanctuary for Wendy
took hold in Snow’s disordered mind, she became obsessed with finding a place
that would, a place where her baby could sleep in eternal peace.

A cemetery would be such a place. Snow tested the thought and
retested it—for hours—before looking for cemetery listings in the Quail Ridge
phone book. There were several. Was there a cemetery name, she wondered, that
Wendy would prefer? And what about the views each had to offer?

What view would Wendy like?

And how would Snow decide?

And what if she was
wrong
?

She would have to see all the cemeteries and all the
available gravesites before deciding. She and Wendy would see them. She had better
call first, to set up times for their visits.

There was no dial tone when she lifted the receiver.

Or when she replaced it and lifted it again. And again.

She was using Leigh’s phone, she eventually realized. It was disconnected,
as Leigh told her it would be.

But Snow’s phone, too, was dead.

Because of the storm.

She would call the cemeteries later. Or not. The cemeteries
might reject Wendy. She was so young. Snow wondered where Mrs. Evans had laid
her miscarried babies to rest. She reached for the phone again before
remembering the line was down.

She couldn’t call Mrs. Evans. She could, however, walk the
four long blocks in the falling snow. She would cradle Wendy close and keep her
warm.

In the end, she decided against a snowy visit. Mrs. Evans
might not have searched through the clumps of tissue in the pools of blood when
she lost her babies. She might have been hospitalized when she miscarried. Or,
at home and unable to look, she might have flushed the tissue away.

Besides, as Wendy’s mother, Snow should find a place for
Wendy on her own.

The place had, of course, already been found.

Wendy would sleep in the forest where she had been conceived.

“Let’s be quiet as a mouse and build a lovely little house
for Wendy.”

The lyric became a mantra as Snow searched for the house, the
coffin, in which Wendy would dwell.

One of Leigh’s wedding-paper boxes was a possibility. Snow
could remove the money and find some pretty tissue paper, or a soft pretty
scarf. The box would be huge for Wendy, a mansion not a little house.

And yet it would be too small. There had to be room for Wendy’s
first and last baby blanket—the gown Snow had worn to the Glass Slipper Ball.
Snow’s decision came with certainty. Wendy would be happy in her billowy pink
cloud.

Uncertainty returned when Snow set about wrapping Wendy. She
folded the ball gown, and unfolded it, and folded and unfolded time and again.
She wanted it to be beautiful for Wendy, and to be sure that the silk, as soft
as it was, would feel comfortable to her.

Remembrance of the ball tripped another memory. The sapphire
Cinderella charm had to be placed within the folded silk. Her baby girl might
want to dance one day. And what was it that Vivian—
Luke’s
Vivian—had
said about the charm and dreams? Snow couldn’t recall. But for dancing, and
perhaps for dreaming, Wendy needed the charm that had been in Luke’s tuxedo
pocket next to his heart.

Snow began the wrapping and unwrapping process anew.

And when she realized that one of the cosmetic cases from
Main Street Luggage would make the ideal little house for the gown, the charm,
and Wendy, she began again.

The case
was
ideal once its precious contents were
nestled within.

But there were new worries.

Should she lock the case? She wanted Wendy to feel safe. But
what if, one day, Wendy wanted to get out?

With that thought, a distant corner of Snow’s mind sent a
message that managed to get through. She had lost track of time, and hadn’t
eaten or slept, and she was thinking crazy things.

She shoved away the bright flicker of clarity.

The cosmetic case had two keys. Snow put one inside with
Wendy, to use if she liked. And, to protect Wendy from anyone who might disturb
her sleep, she locked the case from outside.

Then it was time to take Wendy to the forest.

After getting a small shovel from the garage, Snow made the
familiar walk. The storm had relented for the moment, although more flakes were
on the way. What had fallen was deep, to her thighs.

But it would be warm for Wendy in the meadow where she and
Luke had made love. Warm despite the frozen ground.

Snow dug, for hours, until the grave for Wendy was exactly
right. Then she laid the case—and her baby—in their final resting place.

“I love you, my Wendy. Forever and always. Please be happy.
Please
.
And dance, sweet girl. And dream.”

She used her hands to fill the hole, scooping handful after
handful of dirt as, on that Christmas Day, Luke had scooped handful after
handful of snow.

She moved rhythmically. Methodically.

She scooped snow, too, to cover the dirt-filled grave. And,
like a mother tucking her child into bed, she flattened the lumps, making the
fluffy comforter snug and smooth.

“This is Snow. Please tell Luke I
had a miscarriage and that my mother and I have left Quail Ridge and won’t be
coming back. Thank you.”

Fifteen minutes after leaving the message on Vivian’s
answering machine, Snow’s phone rang.

“Hello?”

“At last.”
The relieved voice paused. Waited. “Snow? It’s Luke.”

“Yes. I know.”

“I’ve been calling for three days.”

“Three days.”

“And nights. Since eight, your time, Sunday evening.”

“I was here.”

“But the phones weren’t working. Not for Quail Ridge. Or most
of Chicago, for that matter. Are you all right?”

“Yes. Did you hear about the baby?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you hear what happened to Wendy?”

“No. How could I hear anything? Snow, what’s wrong? You
sound—”

“She died.”

“Died?”

“Yes. Wendy died.”

“I don’t understand. Snow, talk to me. Please. What’s going
on?”

“I had a miscarriage. I couldn’t keep her safe.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“Now you can live your life.”

“What?”

“You don’t have to take care of Wendy and me.”

“I
want
to.”

“I have to go now.”

“Go? Where?”

“I’m not sure. No, wait. California.”

“To be with me.”

“To be with my mother. My father’s alive.”

“He is?”

“Yes. Alive—and violent. You knew that, didn’t you?”

“That your father is alive?”

“And violent.”

“You’re talking about my father, Snow. And he’s dead.
Remember?”

“Of course I remember. I’m not talking about him.”

“Okay. Tell me about your father.”

“It doesn’t matter. But you knew about my name, didn’t you?
That I was named for cocaine.”