Shelby watches the books burn. She wonders if words are pouring down on other people’s houses, sad words, like beast and mourn and sorrow and mother. She pokes at the cinders as the paper turns black and flaky. A few sparks fly up. There goes her childhood, nothing but ashes. Shelby slips out of the backyard with Buddy curled up near her breastbone inside her coat, then walks along the path that sparkles with snowflakes. She’s reminded of the time when she would get lost on purpose and her mother would look for her, shouting her name as though calling for a lost dog. Now she burns with regret when she thinks that she hid from her own mother. She should have leapt up and waved her arms. She should have gotten into her mom’s car and said, Thank you for rescuing me.
On a whim she stops at the mailbox before she heads off. It is a Sunday evening, there’s been no delivery, but she opens the box. Inside is a postcard. It’s blue and it looks like a piece of ice. Shelby reaches for it. The front of the card is an illustration of heaven in blues and black and silver. There are constellations she recognizes: the archer, the crab, the fish, the lion. There is a shooting star in the sky and a tiny photograph of her mother from a yearbook back when she was the school librarian. Shelby’s eyes smart with tears. It is so cold they feel frozen. She flips the postcard over. Remember someone.
She folds the postcard into her coat pocket and heads off. She has a trembling feeling. She wants to believe in faith and trust, but she doesn’t think she can. The snow is starting to collect, and it crunches under her boots. She heads over to the 7-Eleven. When she steps inside, the heat of the store is overwhelming. There’s loud music playing. Elvis’s “Blue Christmas.” It’s almost Christmas, not that Shelby cares. She hasn’t even noticed that decorations are going up or that most of the houses on her block are strung with colored lights. At the counter there is an electronic Santa who cries out Ho Ho Ho every time someone passes by. He does it when Shelby asks for a pack of Marlboro and a Bic lighter. She hasn’t smoked for some time, but what’s the difference now? At the last minute she buys a pair of striped gloves displayed beside the counter. They’re purple and black and look like they’d fit a toddler, but the fabric stretches and shapes to each individual’s hand. There’s a No Dogs sign, but the guy at the register doesn’t notice the bump under Shelby’s coat. Or maybe he thinks she has a tumor and is too polite to ask.
Shelby lights up in the parking lot. The smoke and the cold air hurt her lungs. Her father won’t notice her gone. He never came to search for her when she was missing as a teenager, calling her name like a dog’s. Shelby perches on the concrete stoop outside the store. If Helene were here she’d do something silly to cheer Shelby—she’d throw her arms out and spin in a circle, she’d tell a joke, or just sit beside Shelby and sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” or some other nursery song. Shelby opens her coat so Buddy can see out. He doesn’t seem to want to go anywhere. He’s probably the kind of dog who doesn’t like to get his feet wet. Shelby leans up against the brick wall and blows the smoke away from Buddy’s head. When she was in high school the wild kids hung out here. Shelby never came here. She was a good girl with a 3.8 average who planned to go to NYU and study history. Now the past is the last thing she wants to remember.
There’s one lone teenager in the parking lot tonight. He has a gold ring in his nose and his hair is long and messy. He’s stomping his feet against the cold. He wears a light jacket, no gloves, no hat.
“Hey,” he says to Shelby.
“Hey.” She nods dismissively.
“Cold out,” the kid says.
Great, Shelby thinks darkly. A conversationalist.
“What you got there?” He nods to Buddy.
“A dinosaur,” Shelby says. “Tyrannosaurus.”
“Hah. Looks like a dog to me.”
“A poodle.”
Shelby hopes this bit of information will be enough to satisfy this lurking kid. He’s just about the last person on earth she wants to talk to.
“My friends are late,” he tells her. “They were supposed to pick me up.”
As if Shelby cares.
“Are you twenty-one?” he asks.
So that’s the reason for all this friendly conversation. He wants something.
“Do you really think I’m going to buy you beer and put myself in criminal jeopardy because you’re too young and stupid to get yourself a fake ID?”
“I’ll take that as a no,” the kid says.
Shelby laughs. She hadn’t expected a sense of humor.
“Well, I had to try,” the kid tells her.
“Leave me alone,” Shelby says. “My mother’s dead.”
She’s started to cry, so she turns her head away. The snow is really coming down now. Everything is white. Buddy has settled and his breathing is more even; maybe he fell asleep. He’s a teacup poodle, which means he weighs less than six pounds.
“I believe in reincarnation,” the kid informs her. He just doesn’t get that Shelby wants him to leave her alone. Clearly, he’s not going anywhere till his friends come for him.
“Good for you,” Shelby says. “What are you, a Buddhist?”
“Nah, it’s common sense. We’re too fucking complex to just disappear. We get recycled. We do it all over again, only different. Better.”
The thing about crying is, once you start it’s not easy to stop. Shelby sits there crying, while the kid goes into the 7-Eleven. He comes out with two steaming cups and gives one to Shelby.
“So we don’t freeze to death. The coffee looked like crap, so I got us green tea.”
The tea in the foam cup warms Shelby’s hands through her gloves. She takes a sip. It tastes fresh, like grass or new leaves.
“Want me to walk you home?” the kid asks.
“Yeah, right. I want a stranger to walk me home. Maybe you’re a psycho mass murderer. And by the way, I’m twenty-six, practically old enough to be your mother. So I hope you’re not hitting on me.”
“My mother’s dead, too. Lung cancer. I was three.”
“Sorry.” Just what she needs, to feel bad for him.
The kid sits down with his back against the wall. He lights a cigarette. Camel. No filter.
“Do you get the irony in your smoking?” Shelby says.
The kid doesn’t answer. He just smokes.
“Do you think your mother came back?” Shelby asks him.
“Definitely. She’s a cardinal who lives in my backyard.”
Shelby snorts and sips her tea.
“I don’t care if you don’t believe me,” the kid says.
“How do you know it’s her?”
“How do you know it’s snowing? Some things are what they are.”
A car pulls up; the headlights are blinding. Snow falls in the streams of light. The flakes are big and wet, and they’re sticking when they hit the cement.
“Are these your friends?” Shelby asks.
“Nah. My friends don’t drive Volvos.”
It is indeed a Volvo.
Ben Mink, Shelby’s ex-boyfriend, gets out. It’s the kind of car he always said he would buy, the safest model on the road. “Shelby?” he says.
Shelby’s eyes are still aglow from the bright headlights even though they’ve been turned off. Maybe she’s going blind. Is it really Ben Mink? They haven’t seen each other since their nonexistent blind date. Shelby never contacted the dating service again, but she should have. She should have asked for her money back.
“What are you doing here, Shelby?” Ben asks.
“I couldn’t stand all the good intentions of the neighbors who came to honor my mother,” she tells him.
“So instead you’re sitting here in the cold with Aaron Feinberg?”
Shelby looks at the kid.
“Hey, Ben,” the kid says. “How about buying me a six-pack?”
“Yeah. Right,” Ben remarks. �
�In your dreams. I’m not getting arrested for you, Feinberg.”
Shelby is confused. “You know each other?”
“He lives on Western Avenue,” Ben says. It’s around the corner from Ben’s parents’ house. “My sister used to babysit him.”
“Could you please not mention that?” Aaron huffs. “It’s humiliating.”
“I came to the funeral,” Ben tells Shelby. “You left so fast I didn’t get to talk to you. I thought I’d see you at the house, but by the time my mom had finished the pot roast to bring over, you’d split. I’ve been driving around looking for you for close to an hour.” Ben puts his hand out to help Shelby up. Inside her coat, Buddy starts moving around. The dog sticks his head out. “What the hell is that?” Ben asks.
“A poodle,” Aaron tells him.
“My mother’s,” Shelby says.
“Let’s get out of here, Shelby,” Ben says.
They head for the Volvo with Aaron following them. “Could you give me a ride home? My friends didn’t show up and I’m freezing my ass off.”
“I don’t think so,” Ben says.
“It’s not out of our way,” Shelby murmurs.
Ben gives her a look.
Shelby shrugs. “He’s a kid.”
“Get in the back, Feinberg.”
Aaron hops in the back. Shelby slides into the passenger seat. She takes Buddy out of her coat and deposits him on the floor near her feet. He just sits there, like he’s afraid to move.
Aaron Feinberg leans forward, one arm on the back of Shelby’s seat, the other around Ben’s seat. “You wouldn’t happen to have any weed, would you?”
“What the hell are you doing with this guy?” Ben asks Shelby. “He’s bad news.”
“The hell I am,” Aaron says.
“I saw you at the funeral,” Shelby admits to Ben. “I just couldn’t talk to anyone.”
“Except for this idiot?” Ben says of Aaron. “Here we are, Feinberg,” he tells the kid as they turn onto Western Avenue. “Now get the hell out.”
It’s a pretty nice house, big, brick, with a double lot.
“Thanks, Ben Mink the big Stink,” Aaron says as he opens the door.
Shelby laughs despite herself, but covers her mouth with her gloved hand when Ben throws her a look.
“Get going,” he growls at Aaron.
“Look for cardinals,” Aaron reminds Shelby as he gets out of the car. “She’ll be there.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ben asks as they watch Aaron lope toward his house.
“He thinks that when his mother died she came back as a cardinal,” Shelby informs Ben.
“His mother’s not dead. She’s a psychologist. Marian Feinberg. My parents made me go to her a couple of times when I was a teenager and they found drugs in my room.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I told you he was bad news.”
Shelby laughs. She nearly doubles over.
“You think it’s funny? He’s a liar and a bullshit artist looking for sympathy,” Ben says.
“I think he just wanted me to feel better.”
“Did you?”
“I kinda did.”
“Sucker. How about I sell you the Verrazano Bridge or the Eiffel Tower?”
Ben is the kind of person who can put aside the way Shelby betrayed him in a time of sorrow. By now, Shelby knows she was an idiot to dump him. Ben could say I told you so, but he doesn’t. They can almost act as if they were friends. Maybe he’s been her angel all along.
“Are you leaving me postcards?” she asks.
“Postcards?”
“With advice. Suggestions for life.”
“Nope. You never listened to my advice,” Ben says. “I hope whoever it is doing it is faring better than I did.”
There are very few cars on the road and it’s slippery, but Ben doesn’t mind driving. Shelby has yet to drive in the snow. She’s afraid of flashbacks. The sound of Helene hitting the windshield. The broken charm bracelet. How Shelby howled and couldn’t get up off the ice. She’s afraid of ruining someone else’s life. She wonders if there’s some sort of poisonous antibody in her blood that hurts anyone she’s close to. Maybe she should live on an island, like lepers were made to do. Ben says he doesn’t mind going back to the cemetery so that Buddy can say good-bye. Shelby thinks that’s the dog’s problem, the reason he’s so quiet and depressed. He wasn’t at the funeral, so he doesn’t know where his beloved owner is. Maybe he thinks she’s coming back.
They park on a side road. Ben climbs over the fence first. Shelby hands Buddy to him, then scrambles over.
“How are we supposed to find it?” Ben asks.
“There was an angel nearby.”
Ben laughs. “This place is filled with angels. Maybe one of them is sending you messages.”
“I’m not crazy,” Shelby says.
“I know that.” Ben looks at her, hard. “I’m the one who told you that.”
They walk on, Shelby carrying Buddy. They actually have to trudge.
“There are more dead people in the world than there are alive people,” Ben says. “I never realized that before.”
“Is that supposed to be comforting?” Shelby asks.
Shelby’s mom had told her months ago that Ben had a great job; he makes over a hundred thousand a year. Still, it’s a surprise when he informs Shelby that he’s bought a house out here, in Dix Hills.
“You’re moving back?” When they were young they couldn’t wait to get out of town; it was all they talked about.
The snow is shin-deep, and Shelby has to blink in order to see.
“Yeah, well, I’m getting married,” Ben says. “That’s what the new house is all about. She’s a pharmacist, too.”
“Aha,” Shelby says. Her heart has dropped. She just keeps breathing.
They walk on. Ben is obviously waiting for more of a response. He doesn’t get it.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Congratulations?” Shelby tries.
What is she supposed to do? Tell him she ruined their relationship like she ruined everything else and she doesn’t wish him luck for a single second even though he’s walking with her through a cemetery in a snowstorm?
“What’s she like?” Shelby says, hoping her jealousy doesn’t rise through her skin in green puffs.
“Her name is Ana. Her family is from Cuba, but she grew up in Northport. We met at a conference and it turned out we had mutual friends.”
Shelby didn’t know Ben had friends. She doesn’t. Only Maravelle. She can’t imagine who else would put up with her.
Now that Ben has started talking about his intended he can’t seem to stop. He has a dreamy expression. “She has long black hair. She calls me Benny.”
“Great,” Shelby says. “Perfect. Don’t tell me any more. Okay?”
“Sorry,” Ben says. “I didn’t think you’d care.”
Shelby walks faster. She’s afraid she’s crossing over graves because it’s impossible to tell where the paths end under all the snow. Finally there is the angel near her mother’s grave site; Shelby is sure of it. Her wings are feathered stone. It’s hard to tell where the fresh graves are because of the new cover of snow, but Shelby finds the spot.
“You’ve got a natural sense of direction,” Ben says.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? And did you have to tell me how beautiful Ana was?”
“I wanted to tell you I was getting married before someone else did. And I didn’t say she was beautiful.”
But Shelby can tell from Ben’s tone that she is. He just doesn’t want to wound Shelby any more than he already has with another woman’s beauty. The dog starts to whimper, so Shelby puts him down in the snow.
“Here you are,” Shelby tells Buddy. �
��So now you know, she’s not coming back. Not if you wait for a hundred years. She’s left you and you’re all alone, so get used to it.”
Buddy stands there shivering.
Shelby doesn’t even know she’s crying until Ben puts his arms around her. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Shelby.”
She sobs until she can’t breathe. When she pulls herself together, she backs away from him. She takes off one of the gloves she bought at the 7-Eleven and blows her nose in it.
“Lovely,” Ben jokes.
Shelby laughs. Then she looks down. She doesn’t see the dog.
“Oh, no,” she says. Everything is white. Blindingly white. “Damn it, Ben, the dog is missing!”
Shelby is in a panic. She starts clapping her hands together and calling for the dog. She wanders blindly through the snow. “Buddy,” she calls. Her mother will never forgive her. It was the one thing she asked of Shelby, and she can’t even do that right.
Ben comes up behind Shelby and takes her arm. “Over there,” he says.
Shelby turns. There is the poodle sitting beside the angel. Shelby’s sobbing must have scared him. He’s too afraid to move. Shelby runs and picks him up. He’s soaked with snow.
“Buddy,” she says. She feels about ten years old and so lost no one will ever find her.
Ben Mink is there. “It’s okay,” he tells her.
“Is it?” Shelby says. How could she ever have thrown him away?
“It will be,” Ben says.
They walk back following the tracks they left. Soon those tracks will be gone. A foot of snow will fall by midnight. Shelby climbs the fence first. Ben hands the dog over, and follows. Once they get into the car, they turn up the heat and Shelby towels the dog dry with a blanket Ben keeps in the backseat.
Ben gets out and goes around to the trunk. When he gets in again and sits behind the wheel, he’s got a large, fancy box. “I bought you something. I knew I’d see you. I just didn’t think it would be at a 7-Eleven.”
“It’s not my birthday or anything,” Shelby says.
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