The Snow Child: A Novel (49 page)

“She should have had the baby at the hospital. We should have taken her to Anchorage,” Jack said.

“She didn’t want to go,” Mabel reminded him. She went to the bedroom and got dressed by candlelight. When she returned, Garrett was sitting in a kitchen chair with his head in his hands. The clock said it was just after midnight.

“Where’s the baby?”

“I left him at home, sleeping in his cradle. I didn’t know what to do. It seemed too cold to bring him.”

“You did fine.”

“In the morning, we’re taking her straight to Anchorage,” Jack said as he laced his boots.

“If the train’s running. If the tracks are clear,” Mabel said, but then she saw Garrett’s frightened face. “We’ll do everything we can. If we can’t get her to Anchorage tomorrow, at least we can send a telegram to the hospital and get some advice from a doctor. It’s going to be all right, Garrett. Now, let’s go take care of her and that baby of yours.”

On the way, Mabel tried to prepare herself for what she would find, and the same kind of calm determination settled over her as when Jack had injured his back. When they arrived, the baby was still asleep in his cradle, and Faina was in bed. Garrett was right to be concerned. She was curled up on her side, arms wrapped around her middle as she moaned softly, and then she rolled over onto her back and Mabel could see her face. Droplets of perspiration ran down her temples and dampened her hair, and her skin was flushed and blotchy. Mabel went to her bedside and put a hand to her forehead. It was hot to the touch. She closed her eyes, her hand still on Faina’s forehead, when she felt burning fingers around her wrist and heard a dry-throated whisper.

Mabel? You are here?

She opened her eyes and Faina was holding on to her. At first she thought rivulets of sweat were gliding down her cheeks, but then she saw that they were tears. Faina was crying.

What is happening to me?

Shhh. Don’t be frightened, child. We will get you well again.

What sickness is this?

An infection in your blood. That is what causes the fever. But there is a medicine you can take that will make you better.

I won’t go to the hospital. I won’t leave my baby.

Mabel was relieved to see that defiant jut of the chin, the flash in the blue eyes.

Let’s not fret about that now. Here, I brought you water. You must drink it. It will cool you, and it will help you make milk for the baby.

Mabel held the glass to Faina’s chapped lips, and she drank and drank until it was empty. Then Mabel dabbed a washcloth at her forehead, wiping away the sweat. When Garrett came to the bedroom door, she asked for a basin of snow. She dipped the wet cloth into the cold snow and wrapped a clump inside it. When she pressed this to Faina’s skin, the girl gasped and then sighed in relief. Again and again, until her cheeks began to cool and lose their ruddy coloring. With her bare hands, Mabel picked up a handful of snow and slid it across Faina’s brow, then put another clump to her lips. Faina opened her mouth, and Mabel broke off a small piece for her to eat. It melted as it touched her tongue.

There. There. Is that better?

Faina nodded and took Mabel’s cold, damp hand and held it to her cheek.

Thank you.

She closed her eyes and rested her head against Mabel’s arm. Only after Mabel was certain she was asleep did she slide her hand out from under her cheek. She smoothed back Faina’s hair, gently pulled it away from her sweat-dampened neck, and brought the bedsheet up over her shoulders.

It was three in the morning when she heard Jack putting more wood into the stove. The two men had alternated sleeping in chairs and busying themselves with contrived chores. The baby woke for his feeding then, and Mabel carried him in to Faina.

Your little one is hungry, dear.

Faina rolled to her side but never seemed completely awake, even as she slid her breast from her nightgown and held the baby against her. Once again her skin was hot and blotchy, and she brought her knees up in pain as the baby nursed.

Not until the baby was back in his cradle, fed and changed and fast asleep, did Faina awake and begin to plead with Mabel.

Please, she whispered. Take me outside.

No, child. You must stay in bed and rest.

Mabel spoke without conviction. Perhaps there was hope there, in the winter night. But what would Garrett and Jack say?

I am so hot, and I feel as if I can’t catch my breath. Please?

“She wants to go outside.”

“What? Now? In the middle of the night?” Jack said.

“She’s so warm, and it’s so stuffy in here. I think she feels as if she’s suffocating. She just wants to take in some of the cold night air.”

“We could prop the door open,” Garrett suggested.

“She wants to be outside, under the night sky,” Mabel said, and Garrett nodded, understanding.

“OK,” he said finally. “We’ll take her outside.”

“Are you two mad?” Jack said. “It’s twenty below zero out there. She’ll freeze to death.”

“No she won’t,” Garrett said. Then he turned to Mabel. “Will you help her dress?”

Mabel eased Faina into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. She laced the girl’s moccasin boots and pulled her blue wool coat on over her nightgown. Then she took the red scarf
and mittens Garrett had handed her, and as she wrapped the scarf around Faina’s neck she recognized her sister’s dewdrop-lace stitch.

I’ve always meant to ask you…

But she stopped herself and slipped the mittens over Faina’s hands.

You must promise me, child, you won’t go wandering off into the night. We’ll bring a chair outside, and you can sit in it for a few minutes.

It hurts too much.

Sitting?

The girl nodded.

Mabel helped her lie back on the bed. When she explained to Garrett about the pain, he said he knew what to do. A short while later he returned to the bedside and he and Mabel helped Faina to her feet. Garrett put her marten hat on her head and tied the straps beneath her chin.

Come and see the bed I’ve made for you under the stars.

Faina smiled up at her husband as he helped her walk outside. Not far from the cabin, he had laid several logs side by side, and on top of these he had piled caribou hides and beaver pelts until they formed a thick mattress.

The night was calm and cold, perhaps the coldest Mabel had ever known. The snow squeaked beneath her boots, and the air was sharp. It was the kind of deep freeze that penetrates the thickest wool and strangles the lungs, and Mabel hesitated. Perhaps this was a mistake. But then she heard Faina’s long, easy breaths and imagined the cold air against her feverish brow. With each of them holding one of her arms, Mabel and Garrett led her the short way from the cabin to the makeshift bed, where Garrett helped her lie down. She let out a long sigh
as he spread a beaver-pelt blanket over her. Mabel had brought the wedding quilt from their bed, and she laid this on top, too.

Look at the stars, Garrett whispered. Do you see them all?

Yes. They’re beautiful.

He stayed with her, sitting in a kitchen chair at her side, while Mabel went into the cabin. A short time later, when the baby awoke wanting to be held, Mabel asked Garrett if he would like to come indoors for a while. She could sit with Faina.

Do you want me to stay? he asked Faina. Maybe you should come in now, anyways?

No, she said gently. Go inside. Hold our son.

Mabel leaned over Faina and tucked the wedding quilt around her sides and pressed the fur flaps of her hat against her cheeks. Then she wrapped herself in a blanket she had brought from the cabin and sat in the chair.

Are you well, child?

Oh, yes. Out here, with the trees and the snow, I can breathe again.

It was like an extraordinary dream: Faina’s quiet sighs and the occasional pop and crack of river ice and tree branches snapping in the cold; the stars everywhere in the broad, deep night, broken only by the jagged horizon of the mountain range. Illumination behind the peaks shot up into shards of light, blue-green like a dying fire, rippled and twisted, then spun circles into ribbons of purple that stretched up and over Mabel’s head until she heard an electric crackle like the sparks from a wool blanket in a dry cabin at night. She looked directly up into the northern lights and wondered if those cold-burning specters
might not draw her breath, her very soul, out of her chest and into the stars.