Girl in Snow(71)

“What?”

“That ballerina. It belonged to the baby Lucinda and I used to watch. Ollie Thornton.”

When I go to touch it, to examine the figurine, he lifts the hand that isn’t holding the ballerina. It rests, palm up, on a rock wedged between our two bodies.

His pointer finger is laced lazily through the trigger of a small black handgun.

I’ve never seen a gun before. It occurs to me that we are children.





Cameron





The ballerina figurine belonged to Ollie Thornton.

As February fifteenth came pouring over Cameron—the last time he would ever live his Collection of Statue Nights—he wished he could stop the wave of memory, the lost chunk of time he’d spent the last three days reluctantly trying to retrieve.

As he remembered February fifteenth, Cameron allowed himself to think only of Hum. Lucinda would be sitting on the edge of the bed. The sheets would be white and crisp. She would tuck her hair behind her ear with one of those thin, gorgeous hands. Cameron’s favorite hands in the world. Outside, the birds would whistle their welcome.

Finally, he imagined Lucinda would say. She would smile. A ghost. Sublime. You’re home.



The day she died, Lucinda left her diary on top of the drinking fountain in the art hallway.

The purple suede book sat on the cool, vibrating metal. When Cameron found it, he felt both ecstatic and horribly average. Ecstatic because it was the key to her, and average because he knew he would not open it. The diary belonged to Lucinda and only her; he would not take that away.

Most everyone had left school, except a few teachers who graded quizzes in empty classrooms. A group of girls rounded the corner and faded out of sight—they laughed like girls, shrill voices echoing off linoleum and trophy cases.

Two nights earlier, Lucinda had seen him in the yard and raised one slender hand in solidarity. For over a year, Cameron had watched, a presence that didn’t partake in her existence. Steadfast observer, devoted spectator. But the diary would change this—she’d left it on purpose. Cameron was sure. She was raising her hand to him. This time, she was beckoning him in.

He slipped the diary into his backpack and walked home like usual.



“Well, don’t you look happy,” Mom said that night, smiling at Cameron, curious but wary. She’d cooked dinner from a sealed bag, one of those pasta packets you emptied into boiling water. “Any particular reason?”

Cameron couldn’t tell her how it felt to be loved back.

It felt like a seed in a pot.

It felt like the right shade of yellow.

The last stroke of paint on an exquisite masterpiece.



By nine fifteen that night, Lucinda had curled in the fetal position on her bed, spine facing Cameron. He clenched the diary tight in his hand. He hadn’t opened it, of course. He wouldn’t betray her.

Lucinda’s family watched television in the living room—Lex was sprawled on the floor with a bowl of ice cream. The house was dim.

He had practiced what he would say when her mother answered the door. Is Lucinda home? I have something of hers. Lucinda would pad barefoot down the stairs and she would lean on the doorframe. They would be two people facing one another in shaky, unpredictable conversation.

Cameron hated the thought. He wanted to leave her like this, perfect on top of the blankets, with a sheet of glass between them. Cameron clutched the diary to his stomach, thinking that he loved Lucinda most when she was just far away enough to exist tenderly, unaware of her audience. He loved Lucinda most on these quiet Statue Nights.

Tonight was different. Lucinda unspooled her limbs. Stepped gingerly from her bed. She put on her winter coat (yellow, like a down comforter), and walked to the window.

She cranked the window open, peering out at Cameron with green almond eyes. Pulled out the screen and slid one leg through. She breathed heavily—from fifty feet away, it could have been crying or panting. She climbed from the bedroom window onto the roof of the porch. Wrung her hands. Gathered her nerves. Jumped.

Lucinda landed on the frozen ground with a delicate thud, feet away from Cameron. Up close, she looked different. Much older than fifteen. She walked much older than fifteen, with a showgirl swing in her hips.

He could have reached out. He could have touched her. He could have said, Come be with me.

But Lucinda glided across the lawn and through the back gate, inching it carefully shut behind her. Cameron counted, as slowly as he could, blowing on his hands for warmth. Sixty-three. Sixty-four. She was not turning around; she was not coming back to him.

He followed.



Cameron tracked her all the way down the block: a fairy under the occasional streetlamp. The glow of her cell phone light blue in her hands.

Lucinda wore her favorite skirt with a pair of sparkling black-and-silver tights. The skirt was purple—the one from school-picture day. Golden hair trailed down her back, a swaying sheet that danced with Cameron. He followed her until they reached the elementary-school playground.

Cameron stopped at the edge of the playground, but Lucinda kept walking: to the far back fence, near the Thorntons’ yard. She gazed up. She had stopped beneath the big oak tree where Cameron stood on Tuesdays, watching Lucinda rock baby Ollie to sleep.

Cameron lingered by the tennis courts, clasping the diary, as Lucinda reached up to the lowest branch of the tree.