Girl in Snow(43)

The words surprised them both. They watched the street like maybe it would change, reveal something remarkable about itself. Nothing happened. The rosebushes Cynthia had planted years before were still dead. There was nothing beyond the smooth white sidewalk, clean because the snow had dried and the rain would never come. And the feeling in Russ’s chest: a tight constriction, pulsing weight. Stricken.

You’re cheating, Russ said again.

The bottle whistled past Russ’s ear, shattering against the siding of the house. Upstairs, Cynthia’s voice. The Heineken bottle lay in shards by Russ’s work boots and Lee put an elbow over his eyes. He shielded himself, arms in a triangle around his face, like a child counting through a game of Hide and Seek.

I’m sorry, Lee said, face still buried in the crook of his arm. Just keep it between us, okay? I trust you.

Russ left without saying good-bye to Cynthia or Cameron. Fitting. Walking home, he wondered if it was warranted, this wretched, mammoth trust. What had he done to deserve it? Through the following months, Russ would nod uncertainly when Cynthia asked about the drinks at Dixie’s Tavern that had never happened, or the overtime shift Lee hadn’t worked. Russ felt he owed Cynthia the truth, as a human, a friend, a near part of her crumbling family. But he was enthralled by these words—I trust you—so he lied for Lee, even as Lee’s absence made Russ’s own world six shades darker. On the nights that Lee was supposedly at Russ’s house, or on a weekend fishing trip, Russ himself would sit on his couch and think, What am I, without this scheming, cheater friend of mine? The television, no consolation.

Later, Russ met Hilary Jameson. She was Broomsville pretty. She wore tight jeans low on her hips, flared and slightly too long. The bottoms were ripped and dirty from catching beneath her shoes. Brunette. Wide-set eyes. Her hair was straight, her teeth were straight, but something was missing. Shape. Color. She had a tattoo, the first thing Russ noticed about her. Miniature blue hearts followed one another up her neck, like regretful little ducks.

When Russ met Hilary Jameson, he was embarrassed for Cynthia. Cynthia: supple thighs and aging curves, a mane of wild gray hair she never thought about. And then there was Hilary, with perky breasts and a clean-shaved pussy, which Russ imagined she spread with her fingers like a porn star.

Russ hates to think about Lee now, because he should have known that night, as he kicked bits of jagged green glass into an empty planter at the edge of the porch. He should have paid more attention to the way Lee cowered as the bottle hit the house, as if his own hand had not just thrown it. A prophecy.

After that night on the porch, Lee became two people at once. One: a man with a family and an entry-level job in law enforcement. Lee supplemented this colossal disappointment with Hilary Jameson, hurried and messy, in the car on the side of the road. Two: a man with a friend who would do anything to protect him, blindly and without question. Two: a man capable of hurting someone. Two: No one’s hero.

Despite all this, Russ so gravely misses him.



Every Tuesday night, Ines goes to Bible study. She comes home late, so gloomy she’ll hardly speak. You shouldn’t think so much about sin, Russ advises. It’ll tear you up for no reason at all.

Thursdays, she’s better. Thursdays, Ines kisses the crook of Russ’s neck when his alarm goes off in the morning. Get up, sleepyhead. By Friday, Ines melts back into herself. Quiet Ines is inevitable. Ines, his solemn wife, unreadable as the walls of their perpetually unfinished home.

Russ doesn’t ask Ines about her life in Guadalajara, and she doesn’t offer it up. She had followed Ivan to Broomsville a year after he’d come, because Mamá had urged and Ivan told her it was good here. America was fine, all fine. He didn’t tell Ines about the drugs—an occasional break from his under-the-table work at the church, basic tasks for some extra cash—until she arrived, alone, with a copy of Lorca’s Canciones tucked in her pocket and a bundle of handwritten letters from the rest of the family. An emissary.

Russ didn’t ask for these things, and he doesn’t want any more. He cannot picture this Ines, and it seems she doesn’t want him to. Russ’s Ines lives in Broomsville, Colorado. His Ines knits so intensively she’s filled the upstairs linen closet with lumpy blankets and sweaters and socks. Russ does not need to know about exotic fruits or the inimitable temperature of a Mexico sun—the unspoken world of old Ines, a woman not forgotten, only folded and stored away. Russ and Ines are all right like this. They are skating.

The day Russ realized Ines was unhappy, he went to the run-down mall on the outskirts of town. Bought her a diamond necklace he couldn’t afford.

Russ almost begged her then—Tell me about home. Tell me how you got here. All the stories Russ had heard through work about the border—none of them specifically belonging to Ines, whose journey he had never heard. A plane, a train, a car, a bus? He wanted to ask her why, why would she leave what she’d known? Perhaps it was her brother. The amount of time Ines spent worrying about Ivan made Russ think that maybe, yes—it was Ivan, the reason she’d been imprisoned in this country. In this house.

But Russ knew what happened when you bared your insides to someone else. He had been there—maybe was still there—in the squad car with Lee, sharing the things that thrashed and squirmed. Unprotected. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. So Russ gave Ines the necklace and said, I want to make you happy; I’ll keep trying. Ines clasped the diamond around her neck. Smiled.