Snowfall at Willow Lake: Lakeshore Chronicles Book 4 by Susan Wiggs Page B

murmured. “I’m trying to find the lavatory.”
    She followed signs to the ladies’ room. Passing through the antechamber, she smiled briefly at the attendant, a sleepy-looking older woman reading a copy of a Dutch gossip magazine.
    Sophie used the restroom, then went to a sink to freshen up. From one of the stalls came the unmistakable sound of someone being sick. Lovely. What idiot would get drunk at an event like this? Sophie wondered. She had no evening bag, so she had to pat her hair with a damp hand and dab at her makeup with a tissue.
    A girl came out of the stall. It was Fatou, the girl who had sung so beautifully earlier. Despite her dark skin, she looked pallid, yet her eyes were clear, not bleary from drinking or drugs. She stood at one of the sinks, hands braced on the countertop, her hair falling forward. She turned on the water and rinsed her face and mouth but somehow looked even worse when she finished.
    â€œYou seem ill,” Sophie said to her in French. “Should I try to get some help for you?”
    â€œNo thank you, madame, ” Fatou replied. “I’m not ill.” She touched her stomach.
    Sophie wasn’t sure what to say to that. The girl was clearly too young to be starting a family, yet there was something about her that Sophie recognized. A tiny gleam of excitement mingling with desperation. Sophie recognized it because she had been there, too, and so had her own daughter, Daisy, for that matter. “You’re expecting a baby,” she said quietly.
    Fatou stared at the floor.
    â€œDo you have someone to look after you?” Sophie asked.
    She nodded. “I am a student intern. I live with a family in Lilles. I suppose, under the circumstances, that is fortunate. But my hosts are not going to be happy about this.”
    â€œThey will be. Not right away, but…perhaps eventually.” Sophie spoke from experience. At the same time, she felt a welling of sadness and regret. She hadn’t been there for Daisy, the way her own mother hadn’t been there for her.
    Fatou stepped back and straightened her dress, a traditional garment made beautiful by the girl’s youth.
    â€œBetter?” Sophie asked.
    â€œFor now.”
    Sophie placed two euros on the attendant’s tip plate and stepped out into the colonnaded hallway. Through a window in the high-ceilinged corridor, she caught a glimpse of fat white snowflakes coming down fast and thick, illuminated by the floodlights outside. Soon, the courtyard and gardens would be a panorama of winter white.
    â€œWhat does it feel like?” Fatou asked softly over her shoulder.
    â€œThe snow?” Sophie made a snap decision. A very un-Sophie-like decision. She took Fatou by the hand and tugged her toward the exit to the courtyard. “Come. You can find out now.”
    Sophie was aware that it was risky to disappear even for a few minutes from a professional event. But she was feeling strange and reckless tonight. The case that had consumed her was officially over. Her children were half a world away in the sunny Caribbean, watching their father remarry. Never had she felt so disconnected yet also aware of how fleeting and tenuous some things were, such as snowfall in coastal Holland. A greeting from a queen. An anthem sung by war orphans. Or the youth of a girl who was pregnant before she was done with childhood herself.
    The arched doorway, shadowed by a pair of brooding security cameras, framed a world transformed. Fatou gasped and said something in her native tongue. Then she balked under the dagged canvas awning. Sophie stepped out into the fast-falling snow, turning her face up to feel the soft flakes on her cheeks.
    â€œSee, it’s harmless,” she said. “Much more pleasant than rain.”
    Fatou joined her in the stone-paved courtyard. Her face lit up with pure wonder, reflecting the glow of the sodium vapor floodlights. She laughed in amazement at the sensation of