“These aren’t going to work,” she says with a shrug.
Finch giggles, slipping into her snow boots. “You look like a cowboy, the way you’re walking.”
“Hang on,” I tell Marie. I grab my belt from the drawer in the bedroom and bring it out. Kneel down, my face level with her waist. She holds her parka up and I loop it through the belt holes for her, elbows grazing her rear. When I reach around the back, my face presses to her abdomen. I cinch the belt and stand up. “See? They’re perfect.”
She looks away.
“I thought maybe we could go down to the valley,” Finch says, tugging her hat over her ears. “See if the river’s freezing up.”
Marie smiles. “Sounds fun.”
“No need to trek all the way over there,” I say. “I can guarantee you it’s not frozen yet.”
Finch holds my gaze. “But maybe there would be something else to see. Something interesting or unusual.”
I glare at her. “Not today. Too much snow.”
“It’s light, though. The snow. We could get there.”
“Marie doesn’t want to go trekking all the way over there,” I say.
“Don’t cancel your plans on my account,” Marie pipes in.
Finch grins. “See?”
“I said no.”
She kicks the leg of the table, sloshing the last of my coffee. Marie’s eyes grow wide. “I need to,” Finch snaps. “I need to go there today.”
“Excuse us for a minute,” I tell Marie. I motion for Finch to follow me to the bedroom, and she follows, moping, walking slowly. “Is this about that girl?” I whisper, closing the door. “Because if it is, I can assure you: she’s long gone.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “You don’t know that.”
“Of course I do.” We saw her leave. Two days later, a foot of snow.
“But it wouldn’t hurt to go back down there. Just to be sure.”
“The only thing I need to be sure of is that you’re going to let this thing go.”
“But—”
“Drop it,” I hiss. “Don’t bring it up again. You hear me?”
She makes her bear face then bursts out of the room, stomping past Marie and right out the front door.
Marie looks at me. “Everything all right?”
I shrug. “You know how it is. Kids.”
She steps toward the door, tucking her gloves into her jacket. “I’m heading out.”
“I’m right behind you.”
I get dressed. Long johns and jeans and thick wool socks that are thinning in the heels. Jacket, hat, scarf, gloves. For the second time this morning, I step onto the porch, the snow still falling but lighter now, the flakes sailing down, slow and gentle. Footprints everywhere, my own, covered in a layer of snow already, and also two sets of smaller ones, but no sight of Finch and Marie. I follow the prints around the side of the house. Nothing. Look to the woods. Swing back to the front of the house. Heart beating fast now.
“Finch?”
Smack. Something hard hits me square in the face. Knocks me back a step. Cold cold cold, and I nearly lose my balance.
“Gotcha!”
Laughter that flits up and up.
I wipe my face with the sleeve of my jacket. A snowball. Marie shuffles closer, wading through the snow in my pants. “That’s for copping a feel,” she says, looking up at me.
“I didn’t—”
“Close enough,” she says, pointing at me with her gloved finger. She signals to Finch. “Fire away!”
From the ditch at the edge of the yard, Finch pops up and launches another snowball that hits me in the chest. Marie plucks a snowball from her pocket and hits me again in the head. She runs toward Finch and ducks into the ditch.
“Two against one. No fair!” I squat and ball some snow and hurl it at Finch. Miss, which gets her laughing. Make another one, fling it at Marie, hit her on the head, the ball crumbling down over her beanie.
On and on the morning goes, the hours flitting past. Snowballs and snow angels and sledding up and down the little dip just beyond the yard: a short run, nothing too thrilling but fun all the same, especially since it’s Finch’s first time on a sled, ever. We take turns, the three of us, sometimes doubling up, sometimes headfirst. We build a ramp for one of the runs. Heap the snow up and pack it down so that the sled lifts off and then slams down hard and sometimes, whoever is riding topples over. I haven’t laughed so much in years.
The whole morning, I don’t think of Cindy at all, not once. I keep an eye on the woods—instinct—but I don’t worry. I don’t fret about Scotland, either, although when Finch and Marie go in for lunch, I wonder if he is watching with his spotting scope and so I turn in the direction where he says he lives, take off my glove, and flip him the bird, just in case.