Daphne turned her head away, refusing to look at him. Abigail did the same thing when she was mad. “I’m not taking the blanket.”
“Yourfather put it in the car foryoursafety, not mine.”
“Dad would want you to have it,” she said. This was probably true, as Buddy would weigh out each party’s potential for survival and then award the blanket to whoever was weaker.
“Okay, Daphne, okay, I didn’t want to do this.”
“Then don’t,” Daphne said.
“I’m the grown-up here. I’m telling you.”
It was a terrible breach of the trust between them, but it also made Daphne realize that all she had to do was leave without the blanket. She didn’t have to win the argument. What was he going to do about it? Follow her? Make her take it? She rested the cup of ice and the bucket of disgusting chicken and their pee cup up against him.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving.” When she’d climbed into the backseat, she leaned over and gave him a hard kiss on the top of the head. The space blanket discussion was finished. “I love you,” she said.
“I love you, Duck.”
She climbed up and cranked the window open, leaning back as the shelf of new accumulation dumped into the car. “I’m not going to be able to close this behind me.”
“That’s okay,” he said.
She lifted her torso through the window with the strength in her arms. For a moment her lower half dangled there, coat, tights, boots. He knew she was taking in the enormity of the forest. “Daphne?”
“Yeah,” she called.
“When you find someone to help us, tell them I’m your father, okay?”
They both knew what he was saying. “Okay!” she called.
“Be careful!”
One leg pulled up and then the other. Then, after another second, her face appeared in the open frame. “I’m coming back to save you,” she said.
“Whistler,” he said, and waved. Oh, he was terrified. He didn’t want her to leave. He wanted to hold her again, the two of them curled up together. Come back. Don’t go, don’t go.
Daphne smiled hugely, like the hard job had already been finished. Then she was gone.
7
Leda’s forehead rested on the heels of her hands, her fingers buried in her hair. Maybe she was thinking of her own children wandering around in the snow, or maybe she was thinking of me. We were back on the couch in her living room. “You were nine,” she said finally.
“Funny to think my bravest moment would come at nine.”
“You saved Eddie’s life.”
I shook my head. “Eddie wouldn’t have died.”
“Why not? Were there enough chicken tenders to last until spring? You saved Eddie’s life, you saved your own life, and no one ever said a thing about it.”
“Well, there was a lot going on. You’d had surgery, and then Eddie had surgery, and then Mom threw Eddie out.”
Leda raised her finger to her lips and I remembered to keep my voice down. Our mother was still asleep in Henry’s room.
It was late September. All three of Leda and Steve’s kids were off at school now. I was back at school, teaching my favorite AP British survey, two sections of American lit, and the perennially oversubscribed creative writing workshop. Jonathan was still the hospital administrator in Bronxville. Our mother had come to New York to see all of us, or she had come to New York to see Eddie and so we provided the backdrop. Eddie’s white count had dropped to reasonable levels after his last round of chemo.Eventually it would come back up, but it hadn’t yet. These were the good days. He was unsteady, but he held on to his cane. He had invited all of us to lunch at his apartment, even though Leda said that she would have the lunch at her apartment. I offered, too.
“Catering,” he said. “All I’m doing is paying for it.”
