Cover of Snow by Jenny Milchman Page B

in the Adirondacks. Or even that he lied about it later. It’s that for some reason he …”
    Teggie’s loosened-up shoulders suddenly tensed. “Stopped.”
    Later that night, after we’d failed to eat much dinner, I crept back upstairs, where I’d abandoned the keepsake box. I’d noticed several items when I looked for the skate laces earlier. Now I was looking for something I hadn’t seen, but knew should’ve been there.
    Bill Hamilton’s wedding present to us had been a small, homemade album. The album itself was pretty, with a hand-tooled leather cover, but what made the gift really special was that it contained the only collection of pictures of Brendan as a little boy. My father-in-law had brought us to his sister’s house for the presentation.
    It was an older home, built around the turn of the last century, and Jean tended this property with care. Unlike the non-attention Eileen had given her twin house across the road, Jean had lavished framed daguerreotypes, antimacassars, and needlepoint benches upon all of the rooms, decorating in a fussier way than suited the house, but still obviously taking pains.
    â€œOkay,” she had wheezed during that visit. Jean was a heavy woman, for whom just talking sometimes took effort. “If she stops by, you’re not here.”
    It took me a second to realize whom Jean was referring to, and it was then that I began to get a sense of how close the two women were. Linked through Bill, they were the sisters-in-law Sprat: one no fat, the other no lean.
    â€œJust for this once,” Bill told his sister, leading us into a spare room, and handing Brendan a paper bag.
    The little album that was in the bag contained no more than a dozen pictures, all taken before Brendan was eight. But my husband loved that narrow, almost barren scrapbook, studying the shots far more frequently than twelve photographs required.
    I figured Brendan loved the album especially because it was the last thing his father ever gave him. One Saturday morning, two months after our wedding, Bill went out to the garage for something and never returned. Eileen found him there at the end of the day, dead of a heart attack. Sadder even than my father-in-law’s premature demise was the fact of how long it had gone unnoticed.
    Dropping my gaze back to the yellow box, I attempted to take in each item of my husband’s collection.
    The leather photo album was gone.

Chapter Eleven
    Teggie left for her audition the next day. I took her to the bus station amidst the swirl of another winter storm, this one heavier and more lasting. The snow must’ve begun hours ago, for everything was buried by the time we woke up.
    I had to lean close to the dash as I drove, squinting between flakes on the windshield.
    The station appeared behind a curtain of snow, a long, low-lit building, nearly invisible in the blizzard. I rotated the wheel, and my back tires skidded before I gained control.
    The bus was heaving in the lot, billows of exhaust combining with the clouds of snow.
    Teggie got out of the car and went around to the trunk, picking her way carefully over the ice. She didn’t have boots equal to the climate; the ones she wore were fashionable but flimsy.
    â€œBus is about to leave,” I murmured, hefting the duffel out for her.
    â€œTeggie standard time,” she said, and I smiled rotely.
    â€œCan’t risk a turned ankle,” she went on. “Here in the great frozen north.”
    I smiled again.
    She peered closely at me, snow flying about her face. Her knit cap was already covered in white. “Hey, Nor, are you going to be all right?”
    I jerked my elbow toward the bus, whose gears I could now hear grinding.
    Teggie stood her ground.
    â€œYes.” I heaved a sigh. “I’ll be fine. Reassure Mom and Dad that I’ve gotten on with the business of living.”
    â€œWhoa, mocking Mom and Dad now, are we,”