Free Snow Angels by James Thompson Page A

receptionist pretends like I’m not there and keeps talking to her current client. I slap my hand on the desk. “Now.”
    She starts to get angry, then puts on a bureaucratic face and checks her computer. “Katherine Vaara is in room 207. Officer.”
    I find Kate in a hospital bed, her left leg in a cast that goes from the bottom of her foot to high up on her hip. Her already pale skin is waxen, her lips are pursed tight. She holds out her arms for me to hug her. When I do, her mouth presses against my ear and I hear her suppress a whimper. “I want to go home,” she says.
    “Tell me what happened.”
    “Later.”
    I can’t ask the next question, but she reads my thoughts and lets go of me. “They did an ultrasound.” She pauses, manages a demure smile. “There’s not just one baby, there are two.”
    “Two?”
    “We’re having twins, and they’re both fine.”
    I lay a hand on her belly, overwhelmed by joy and relief. “Kate, that’s wonderful.”
    She doesn’t say anything. I can’t tell if she thinks it’s wonderful or not.
    I ask a stupid question. “Are you okay?”
    Kate’s trying hard to keep herself under control. “No.”
    “Are you in a lot of pain?”
    She shakes her head. “Not now.”
    “Are they going to let you go home?”
    “I don’t know.”
    I find her doctor. “She’s lucky,” he says. “She fractured her femur, but it’s not that bad. If it were closer to the hip or a deeper fracture, she’d have to stay here in traction for the next couple months. She already has a pin in that hip. If she’d broken it again, she might have been permanently disabled. I’m putting her on sick leave.”
    “Can I take her home?”
    He shrugs. “Sure.”
    They give Kate crutches and we get her checked out of the hospital. She has a hard time fitting into the back of the Saab with the cast. I try to talk to her on the way home, but she’s not ready.
    When we pull up to the house, she won’t let me help her, says she has to learn to get around by herself. She pushes herself out of the car. I put an arm around her, but she shrugs it off and manages to hobble inside. Because of the cast, she can’t negotiate the couch and starts to tip over. I scoop her up and lay her down, take off her shoe.
    She starts to cry. “I fell. I took a steep back trail down the mountain, full of rocks and trees, and I hit an ice patch and I fucking fell.”
    This has to be traumatic for her. A reminder of how she shattered her hip as a teenager and had her dreams of becoming an alpine ski champion destroyed. I sit on the floor beside her so I can stroke her hair while I listen.
    “I went ass over end and barreled into a big rock and broke my leg and I couldn’t move and I was afraid I killed the baby and I lay there for forty-five minutes before another skier came by and another thirty before they came with a snowmobile and got me.”
    I try to hold her hand, but she shakes it free.
    “And I got to the hospital and the nurses wouldn’t speak English to me and I didn’t know what was happening or if the baby was alive, and while they examined me they shoved me around like I’m an animal. And then I found out there are two babies.”
    “Kate, they probably just don’t speak English.” In truth, they probably just deal with everybody that way. Sometimes Finns are like that.
    “They shouldn’t have treated me that way.”
    “You’re right, they shouldn’t have, but aren’t you happy about having twins?”
    “Of course I am, but that’s not the point.”
    She squeezes her eyes shut and tears of frustration slide down her cheeks.
    “Damn it.” She slams the glass top of the coffee table with her fist. “Damn it.” She hits it again. The next time she screams. “Goddamn it!” Pound. “God fucking damn it!” Pound.
    “Stop it Kate-that’s dangerous.”
    Now she’s yelling for all she’s worth. “And now I can’t go skiing!” Pound. “And I can’t go to work!” Pound.
    “Stop it