Read Online A fine and bitter snow by Dana Stabenow - Free Book Online

climate.
     
    Zoya and Stephan had wanted a house full of children, and instead they got Kate, just about the time they had given up hope of any children at all. This might have explained why first Zoya and then Stephan began drinking. Or it might not. They died so early in Kate's life that there was much she didn't know about them. She remembered her father more than she did her mother. He'd taught her to hunt, to use tools to construct and repair buildings and machinery, to chop wood, and to fish. They had built a wooden skiff together, more or less, in the garage the winter she turned five. He'd gotten two bears that winter, too, and they'd tanned the skins.
     
    He hadn't taught her anything about love. Neither had Abel, Ethan's father, her guardian after Stephan died. That, she was still struggling to figure out on her own.
     
    A mirror hung on the wall over the sink, and the grave woman reflected there, with the narrow, tilted hazel eyes and the very short dark hair beginning to go a little shaggy around the edges looked tired. Her summer tan had faded, too, leaving her skin looking sallow and stretched over her high cheekbones. Her wide mouth was unsmiling, a tight-lipped line of repudiation and denial. Ruthe and Dina had made that woman laugh. When was the last time she had laughed out loud?
     
    A discordant jangle interrupted her reverie, and she looked over at the couch to see a frustrated expression on Johnny's face. "Here," she said, crossing the room and extending a hand. "I'll show you."
     
    The guitar was in serious need of tuning, and she got out the tuning fork. It was a tedious process, but Johnny stuck with it. Afterward, she took him through the C and G chords, threw in a little practice on B7 just to keep things interesting. He liked the song "Scotch and Soda," and she located the Kingston Trio tape and played it for him so he'd know how it was supposed to sound. She tried him on "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," but although he liked the tune, he made a face at the lyrics. "Blowin' in the Wind" was okay, and so was "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," which he misplayed with gusto.
     
    "Okay, enough," Kate said at nine o'clock. "You going to Ethan's or you bunking here?"
     
    "Here," he replied, which meant she didn't have to roll out the Arctic Cat again to follow him home, and she was grateful. She made more mugs of cocoa with Nestle's, evaporated milk, and hot water from the kettle, but no marsh-mallows.
     
    "My fingers hurt," he said.
     
    She took his left hand and looked at the tips of his fingers. They were red and felt warm to the touch. "If you keep it up, they'll hurt worse. And then you'll work up calluses and they won't hurt anymore."
     
    Unexpectedly, he took her left hand and looked at the tips of her fingers. "You don't have any."
     
    "Not anymore."
     
    "Because you quit playing."
     
    "Yeah."
     
    "Why?"
     
    "I couldn't sing anymore, so there didn't seem to be much point."
     
    His eyes went to her throat, to the scar that bisected it almost from ear to ear. "Because of that?"
     
    "Yeah."
     
    "How did you get it?"
     
    "A guy had a knife. I took it away from him."
     
    "But he cut you before you did."
     
    "Yeah."
     
    "When you were working for Dad."
     
    "Yes."
     
    "Does it still bother you?"
     
    "The scar, or not being able to sing?"
     
    "Both."
     
    "Both," she replied, "although not as much as they used to." She put down the mug and picked up the guitar from where it was leaning against the coffee table. The weight of the body on her thigh felt familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, and the neck settled into her left palm with a tentative feeling. She gave the strings a few experimental strums, and without stopping to think about it, launched into "Molly Malone." Mutt, stretched out on the bearskin in front of the woodstove, raised her head, her ears going up, and fixed Kate with a steady gaze.
     
    Kate's voice sounded husky to her hypercritical ears and she had to