Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman Page B

nurses were shocked that he was away working, leaving the new mother on her own, Arlie herself was grateful. She would have felt guilty if John had been standing by.
    "My snow girl," she said to the baby in such a pure voice that the infant turned her head to hear more. "My darling, my daughter, my pearl."
    When Arlie brought the baby home, Sam was waiting in the driveway. The taxi stopped and Arlie got out and there he was, waiting, no coat, no hat. Diana came running out.
    "He refuses to come inside. He's been standing here all day. I was about to call the police. I thought he'd freeze to death!"
    Arlyn smiled at her little boy. Snow was falling onto his shoulders. His lips were blue with cold. "Is that her?" Sam asked.
    Arlie nodded and brought the baby over. "Blanca," Sam said. "She's beautiful." Diana had had enough. She'd seen to it that John was taking the evening flight from Cleveland. Mother, this is business, he'd said when she'd phoned to tell him to get home. Diana had made a lot of excuses in her time; she was an expert, really, but she wasn't making excuses now. As a husband and a father, John was lacking. Diana looked at Arlyn and her children and she remembered how lonely she'd been as a young mother in this same house. She wanted to say, Run away. Run as fast as you can.
    Instead she reached for the baby. "I'll bring Blanca inside."
    Arlyn and Sam stayed in the driveway a while longer.
    "Now we're all here," Arlyn said. "My dreams came true. I wanted a son just like you and a daughter just like Blanca."
    It was getting even colder and they needed to go inside. They walked along the driveway toward the door, but at the last moment Arlyn pulled on Sam's sleeve, holding him back. Arlyn lay down in the drive; she flapped her arms, making a snow angel. He watched her for a moment, then followed suit. They were so cold and wet, it no longer mattered how much snow they got into.
    They stood up and studied their angels. "There," Arlie said, sounding satisfied. "That's for good luck."
    Sam was shivering now. He went up to his room. He was supposed to take off his wet clothes, but he let the damp sink into his bones. The angels they'd made in the driveway were beautiful, but they were sad, too. They made Sam think of heaven and of the end of the world. He couldn't bear to think of anything bad happening to his mother or to Blanca. He had a bad feeling, as though he were sinking. The truth was, Sam had a secret, one he hadn't told. His mother had been so excited about the baby; she was too happy for him to tell her why he'd been standing outside in the driveway in the snow, refusing to come inside.
    It wasn't because Blanca was coming home. He'd been out there all day because William had died. That morning Sam had opened the closet to give the squirrel his favorite meal — an apple with peanut butter — and there William had been, curled up in his nest, unmoving. Sam closed the door and went out to the driveway. He kept a pin in his pocket and stabbed at his fingertips, but that sort of pain wasn't enough to get rid of what he felt. When he went to bed that night, instead of crying, he counted to a hundred. One, nothing could touch him. Two, he was miles away. Three, he was flying high above houses and treetops, one of those rare Connecticut people his mother told him about, people who belonged to a strange and little-known race. He might be one of them; a boy who could fly away from danger and heartbreak and never feel a thing.
    ARLIE FELT THE LUMP WHEN BLANCA WAS THREE MONTHS old, while she was breast-feeding. Her breasts had been bumpy and engorged with milk, but this was something else entirely. Just what she'd always feared. Something in the shape of a stone.
    John Moody had finished his building in Cleveland — it had been dubbed the Glass Mountain and people in that city were highly critical of its height. Now John was back. The baby had softened him a bit; maybe it was all right to coo and fuss over a daughter