Chapter 11: Blade Down

Every camera in the rotunda turned to my sister.

Karin's smile stayed on her face for one second too long.

"Marit," she said, very quietly.

Marit didn't look at her.

"I found the test in her bathroom trash," she said into the nearest microphone. "January 6. Three days before. I didn't tell anyone."

Then she put the folder down on the podium, on top of Karin's notes, and walked out through the crowd.

Nobody stopped her.

The cameras were all on Anders, who was looking at his mother, who was looking at me.

"This press conference is over," Karin said.

It had been over for a while.

The clip ran on every station that night.

The map passed a hundred thousand visits.

People stood in their blue streets in Duluth Heights holding signs.

Plowed at 7:12. Knee deep.

On Friday the city dropped Jens's suspension.

The letter said it had been "an administrative error."

Tova taped it to the fridge under the plow chart, upside down.

The next storm came that Tuesday night, a fast one off the lake, six inches in four hours.

Jens was back on Route 14.

"You can't ride along," he said, putting on his orange jacket at nine. "You're on leave."

"I'm a member of the public observing city services."

"You're pregnant."

"The cab has a seat belt and a heater. My carpet upstairs is a mustard-colored crime."

He looked at me for a long time.

"Tova," he called down the hall. "Who's the boss of the plows?"

"Me!" Tova called back from her bed.

"Can Signe ride?"

A pause.

"Only if she sits in the middle so she can see the map!"

So I rode.

The cab of a city plow at night is the warmest small room in Minnesota.

The heater roars. The wipers knock. The amber lights wash around and around through the snow.

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