Light On Snow

By Anita Shreve

Before Christmas nineteen years ago, Nicky Dillon and her father, Robert, are snowshoeing in the woods when they find an abandoned baby girl in the snow. They rush her to the hospital and her life is saved. Subsequently, the police begin an investigation to locate the mother of the baby.

Three years prior, Nicky's mother and baby sister, Clara, were killed in a car accident. This caused Robert to withdraw from the world and with only a few personal possessions move with his eldest daughter from Westchester, New York to settle in a remote area of New Hampshire. The farmhouse they live in is isolated from an intrusive world, with no television or newspaper, and located at the end of a long, badly rutted road. Nicky goes to school, reads, knits and makes bead jewellery and her father makes furniture, which he sells to the very few costumers who make their way to the house.

A week or so after they find the baby, a young woman, Charlotte, comes to the house claiming to be a customer for Robert's furniture, but soon confesses that she is the mother of the baby. A blizzard traps Charlotte in the house and gradually we learn the truth behind the horrifying discovery in the snow. Simultaneously, in a series of flashbacks, we also become acquainted with the Dillon family, before and after the death of Nicky’s mother and sister.

Nicky, longing for a woman to confide in, quickly bonds with Charlotte. For Nicky it is an emotional connection she has not experienced since her mother died. Their relationship is a complicated blend of mother/friend, where Nicky is torn between concern for Charlotte and the knowledge of what the young woman has done. With Charlotte as their silent witness, Robert and Nicky must also confront their long months of loss and grief.

It is a touching story of three people tormented by grief and loss, and of how they come to terms with the tragedy they left behind, but also a story about the power of forgiveness.