Left in the Blizzard: My Twin Stole My Husband, I Rule the City novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: The Banquet

The ad ran twice more before midnight.

By morning it had a million views across the state.

Most of the comments said what Karin wanted them to say.

Drunk. Pregnant. Unfit.

I sat in the recliner with my laptop and the freeze frame open.

My sister's face, laughing, a shot glass in her right hand.

Our birthday, last August, before either of us was pregnant.

She'd sent me a picture from that bar at midnight. Wish you were here, with a heart.

I still had it.

I didn't post the picture.

I posted the freeze frame, flipped, next to a photo Jens took of me that morning, holding a glass of milk in my left hand.

Under it I wrote: This is my sister on our birthday last August. She's allowed to have a birthday. The mayor isn't allowed to put my name on her face. Again.

Jens read it over my shoulder.

"Again," he said. "That's mean."

"It's accurate."

"I said it was mean. I didn't say stop."

By supper the post had more views than the ad.

Two TV stations ran the frames side by side, the shot glass in one hand and the milk in the other.

The mayor's campaign took the ad down at seven and said nothing.

Marit didn't call.

I didn't expect her to.

On Saturday the drivers' wives came over with a dress.

They'd pooled it from three closets: dark green, soft, a wrap that tied at the side, with room for me and three passengers.

"It's a maternity dress," the woman with the frost-burned cheeks said. "My sister wore it for twins."

"I'm having triplets."

"So we let it out."

Jens came out of his room in a gray suit jacket that was tight across the shoulders and a white shirt with a tie he'd borrowed from the Route 6 driver.

He stopped in the hallway when he saw me.

He didn't say anything for so long that Tova poked him.

"Dad. Say something."

"You look," he said, and then he had to start over. "You look like the first clear road after a storm."

Tova groaned. "That's a plow thing."

"It's a good plow thing," I said.

The union hall in West Duluth smelled like Swedish meatballs and floor wax.

There were paper snowflakes on the ceiling and a DJ who played polkas between pop songs without any warning.

Every driver who'd stood up in that council chamber was there, with their families.

They gave me a chair at the head table with two pillows on it.

Tova ran with a pack of drivers' kids under the tables until she disappeared.

At nine the head of the union stood up with the hubcap trophy.

"Plow of the year," he said. "This year we're giving it to somebody who doesn't drive one."

The room started stamping its feet.

"She drew our routes. We hated her for it. Then she got left in a ditch and came out swinging." He held up the hubcap. "Map Lady."

The driver from Route 6 cried.

He always cried, Jens told me later. Every year. He'd cried for the union's new snow tires once.

I held the hubcap up over my head with both hands and the room roared.

Then the DJ played a slow song.

Jens stood up from the table and held out his hand.

"One hour on your feet," he said. "I've been keeping track. You've used fifteen minutes."

"You've been keeping track?"

"I made a chart."

I took his hand.

We danced in the middle of the union hall floor, between the buffet and the coat racks, very slowly.

My belly was between us.

He had to hold me a little to the side, his hand flat and warm on the small of my back through the green dress.

I put my face against his borrowed tie.

He smelled like soap and cold air and a little like diesel, even in a suit.

"Everybody's watching," I said.

"Everybody's been watching since January."

The drivers did a toast when the song ended.

Every glass in the room went up, beer and pop and coffee, and they said, "To the plows," and I didn't know if they meant the trucks or the three in me.

Near eleven, we found Tova asleep under the coat pile in the corner.

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