Mary Cassidy lives and writes in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, where it snows nine months of the year.

Snowed Under (March 20, 2009. Issue 15. The DirtyDirty.)

They named her Neva, Spanish for “falling snow.” A nod to the blizzard that boiled beyond their windows the night she was born. Marge was brave, letting her body tell them what to do. Nate fussed and sputtered and begged to shovel snow from the driveway, take her to the hospital. Marge laughed at him – the snow falling in feet rather than inches. A wisp of a thing, Neva squalled red-faced and angry. They huddled together on life-stained sheets, until at last the baby gave in to sleep. Marge and Nate lay in silence and watched her, while the snow drifted against the window, peaceful and pristine.

She never learned to speak. Neither coaxing nor the tumble against the wood stove freed her tongue. The doctors assured them it had nothing to do with the unexpected home birth – that distant, tempestuous affair of snow and blood and screaming.

Like every child, she had many firsts, though never quite the same as other kids or in the proper order. First steps, first meltdown, first time she used the potty. First diagnosis, first smile and first time she cut an electrical cord with scissors. They learned, too. No candles, no matches. Make sure to hide the knives. Hyper-vigilant on little sleep, they learned how to bury hurt under a blanket of frozen smiles.

At puberty the tantrums stopped, their passing marked by a spike of interest in men. She touched herself in public, made kissing sounds and sidled up to strangers. She missed the bus home one day, and they rushed to school to find her sitting on Jimmy Fielding’s lap, his hands wrestling in her bosom. Jimmy’s own disabilities the only thing keeping them from pressing charges.

Marge called Nate overprotective, but he kept Neva home after that or made sure one or the other of them accompanied her wherever she went. A woman grown, his little girl.

Nate lost Marge last winter. She slipped on the ice where the light kiss of snow slickened the steps. Neva, now forty-two, took little notice. The oblivious smile and unchanging ‘ghee, ghee, ghee’ of her speech unleashed an avalanche of pain that tumbled him and spun him sideways.

With Marge gone, Nate planned for Neva’s future. Without him, she’d have no shelter from the wintery mix outside – an unchanging climate of icy looks and friendships lost. He visited group homes, but in the soiled linens and smoke-filled apathy he saw nothing close to homey.

He gave her pills, tiny ones that sparkled like gemstones in the fading light. A missed dose here and there – hoarded for the past year – gave him a quantity large enough, he hoped, to kill them both. She took them, a half dozen at a time, urged on by him, not wanting them to melt against the moistness of her palm.

Nate lay beside her when she grew sleepy. When he was sure, he swallowed the rest and watched the snow drift against the window, peaceful and pristine.