Foster was born the next March during a storm that began with a foot of wet snow before turning to frozen rain that glazed over the snow and then the temperature dropped and three more feet of fine soft powder fell and on the third day the sky cleared and the world was white, crystalline, placid and heaped. Somewhere during those three days there had been a terrible eighteen hours with no hope of help and Jamie stood at one point in the kitchen beating his head with his fists as the thought came that he should reenter the soiled awful room and choke her with his hands to end it all. Then went back in and knelt for some period of time and took from her bloodied thighs and bedclothes a wet child into his arms also soaked with blood and a clear slime and the child cried once, only a soft mewl, and then went happy to suck. And Jamie then washed Joey and cleared the bed and slipped under her fresh bedclothes and went to the kitchen and used the last of the heated water to clean himself. Finally at the end of that day stepped outside, forcing the door against the piled snow and stood gazing at the storm around him. From the barn he heard the hungry horses and thought he could do no more and turned to go back to the house and then turned back and went through waist-high snow to the barn, each step breaking through the hidden crust and bruising his legs. By the time the storm cleared, the next day or the one after, he was never sure, he no longer wanted to go anywhere, wanted nothing more than to stay right where he was.

Foster was named for no one. It was a name they liked. She had suggested only once his father’s name. Then days later out of the blue asked how he liked Foster as a name. Three years after that a girl was born to them. Without question or conflict they named her for Joey’s mother. Claire.

Six