The Memory Keeper's Daughter Part 26

Together, they crossed back to her bench, causing a cl.u.s.ter of pigeons, their feathers iridescent, to burst into flight. She picked up her book, fingering her bookmark.

"Paul, I have bad news. Your father died nine days ago. A heart attack."

His eyes widened in shock and grief and he looked away, staring without speaking at the path he'd walked to reach her, to reach this moment.

"When was the funeral?" he asked at last.

"Last week. I'm so sorry, Paul. There was no time to find you. I thought about contacting the emba.s.sy to help me track you down, but I didn't know where to start. So I came here today, hoping you'd show up."

"I almost missed the train," he said, pensive. "I almost didn't make it."

"But you did," she said. "Here you are."

He nodded and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped between them. She remembered him sitting just this way as a child, struggling to hide his sadness. He clenched his fists, then released them. She took her son's hand in hers. His fingertips were calloused from years of playing. They sat for a long while, listening to the wind rustling through the leaves.

"It's okay to be upset," she said at last. "He was your father."

Paul nodded, but his face was still closed like a fist. When he finally spoke, his voice was on the edge of breaking.

"I never thought he'd die. I never thought I'd care. It's not like we ever really talked."

"I know." And she did. After the call from Bree, Norah had walked down the leaf-canopied street, weeping freely, angry with David for leaving before she'd had a chance to settle things with him, once and for all. "But before, at least talking was always an option."

"Yes. I kept waiting for him to make the first move."

"I think he was waiting for the same thing."

"He was my father," Paul said. "He was supposed to know what to do."

"He loved you," she said. "Don't ever think he didn't."

Paul gave a short, bitter laugh. "No. That sounds pretty, but it's just not true. I'd go over to his house and I'd try; I'd hang out and talk with Dad about this and that, but we never went any further. I could never get anything right for him. He'd have been happier with another son altogether." His voice was still calm, but tears had gathered in the corners of his eyes and were slipping down his cheeks.

"Honey," she said. "He loved you. He did. He thought you were the most amazing son."

Paul pushed the tears roughly off his cheeks. Norah felt her own grief and sadness gather in her throat, and it was a moment before she could speak.

"Your father," she said at last, "had a very hard time revealing himself to anyone. I don't know why. He grew up poor, and he was always ashamed of that. I wish he could have seen how many people came to the funeral, Paul. Hundreds. It was all the clinic work he did. I have the guest book; you can see for yourself. A lot of people loved him."

"Did Rosemary come?" he asked, turning to face her.

"Rosemary? Yes." Norah paused, letting the warm breeze move lightly over her face. She'd glimpsed Rosemary when the service ended, sitting in the last pew in a simple gray dress. Her hair was still long but she looked older, more settled. David had always insisted there had never been anything between them; in her heart, Norah knew this was true. "They weren't in love," Norah said. "Your father and Rosemary. It wasn't what you think."

"I know." He sat up straighter. "I know. Rosemary told me. I believed her."

"She did? When?"

"When Dad brought her home. That first day." He looked uncomfortable, but he went on. "I'd see her at his place sometimes. When I stopped in to visit Dad. Sometimes we'd all have dinner together. Sometimes Dad wasn't home, so I'd hang out for a while with Rosemary and Jack. I could tell there wasn't anything between them. Sometimes she'd have a boyfriend there. I don't know. It was a little weird, I guess. But I got used to it. She was okay, Rosemary. She wasn't the reason I couldn't ever really talk to him."

Norah nodded. "But Paul, you mattered to him. Look, I know what you're saying, because I felt it too. That distance. That reserve. That sense of a wall too high to get over. After a while I gave up trying, and after a longer while I gave up waiting for a door to appear in it. But behind that wall, he loved us both. I don't know how I know that, but I do."

Paul didn't speak. Every now and then he brushed tears from his eyes.

The air was cooler, and people had begun to stroll through the gardens, lovers holding hands, couples with children, solitary walkers. An elderly couple approached. She was tall, with a flash of white hair, and he walked slowly, stooping slightly, with a cane. She had her hand tucked around his elbow and was leaning down to speak to him, and he was nodding, pensive, frowning, looking across the gardens, beyond the gates, at whatever she wanted him to note. Norah felt a pang to see this intimacy. Once she had imagined herself and David moving into such an old age, their histories woven together like vines, tendril around shoot, leaves meshed. Oh, she'd been so old-fas.h.i.+oned; even her regret was old-fas.h.i.+oned. She had imagined that, married, she would be some sort of lovely bud, wrapped in the tougher, resilient calyx of the flower. Wrapped and protected, the layers of her own life contained within another's.

But instead she had found her own way, building a business, raising Paul, traveling the world. She was petal, calyx, stem, and leaf; she was the long white root running deep into the earth. And she was glad.

As they pa.s.sed, the couple spoke in English, arguing about where to have dinner. Their accents were from the south-from Texas, Norah guessed-and the man wanted to find a place with steak, with food that was familiar.

"I'm so tired of Americans," Paul said, once they were out of earshot. "Always so glad to find another American. You'd think there weren't two hundred and fifty million of us. You'd think they'd want to be seeking out some French people, since they're in France."

"You've been talking to Frederic."

"Sure. Why not? Frederic is right on the mark when it comes to American arrogance. Where is he, anyway?"

"Away on business. He'll come tonight."

It rushed through her again, the image of Frederic walking through the door of the hotel room, dropping his keys on the dresser and patting his pockets to make sure he had his wallet. He wore bright white s.h.i.+rts that caught the last light, with crisp b.u.t.ton-down collars, and each evening he came in and tossed his tie over a chair, his low voice shaping her name. Perhaps it was his voice she had loved first. They had so much in common-grown children, divorces, demanding jobs-but because Frederic's life had happened in another country, half in another language, it felt exotic to Norah, familiar and unknown at once. An old country and a new.

"Has your visit been good?" Paul asked. "Do you like France?"

"I've been happy here," Norah said, and it was true. Frederic felt congestion had ruined Paris, but for Norah the charm was infinite, the boulangeries and the patisseries, the crepes sold from street stands, the spires of ancient buildings, the bells. The sounds, too, of the language flowing like a stream, a word here and there emerging like a pebble. "How about you? How's the tour? Are you still in love?"

"Oh, yes," he said, his face easing a little. He looked straight at her. "Are you going to marry Frederic?"

She ran her finger around the sharp corner of the brochure. This was the question, of course, woven through all her moments: Should she change her life? She loved Frederic, she had never been happier, though she could see through that happiness to a time when his endearing habits might get on her nerves, and hers on his. He liked things just so; he was meticulous about everything from mitered corners to tax forms. In that way, though in no others, he reminded her of David. She was old enough now, experienced enough, to know that nothing was perfect. Nothing stayed the same, herself included. But it was also true that when Frederic walked into a room the air seemed to s.h.i.+ft, grow charged, to pulse straight through her. She wanted to see what might happen next.

"I don't know," she said slowly. "Bree's willing to buy the business. Frederic has two more years on his contract, so we don't have to make any decisions for a while. But I can imagine myself in a life with him. I suppose that's the first step."

Paul nodded. "Is that how it was last time? You know, with Dad?"

Norah looked at him, wondering how to answer this.

"Yes and no," she said at last. "I'm much more pragmatic now. Then, I just wanted to be taken care of. I didn't know myself very well."

"Dad liked to take care of things."

"Yes. Yes, he did."

Paul gave a short, sharp laugh. "I can't believe he's dead."

"I know," Norah said. "Neither can I."

They sat for a time in silence, air moving lightly around them. Norah turned her brochure, remembering the coolness in the museum, the echo of footsteps. She'd stood for nearly an hour before this painting, studying the swirls of color, the sure and vivid brushstrokes. What was it Van Gogh had touched? Something that s.h.i.+mmered, something elusive. David had moved through the world, focusing his camera on its smallest details, obsessed with light and shadow, trying to fix things in place. Now he was gone and the way he'd seen the world was gone as well.

Paul was standing up, waving across the park, the sadness on his face giving way to a joyous smile, intense, clearly focused, and exclusive. Norah followed his gaze across the dry gra.s.s to a young woman with a long delicate face and skin the color of ripe acorns, her dark hair in dreadlocks to her waist. She was slender, wearing a soft print dress; she carried herself with a dancer's grace and reserve.

"It's Mich.e.l.le," Paul said, already standing. "I'll be right back. It's Mich.e.l.le."

Norah watched him move toward her as if pulled by gravity, Mich.e.l.le's face lifting at the sight of him. He cupped her face lightly in his hands as they kissed, and then she raised her hand and their palms touched briefly, lightly, a gesture so intimate that Norah looked away. They crossed the park then, heads bent, talking. At one point they paused, and Mich.e.l.le rested her hand on Paul's arm, and Norah knew he had told her.

"Mrs. Henry," she said, shaking hands when they reached the bench. Her fingers were long and cool. "I am so sorry about Paul's father."

Her accent, too, was faintly exotic: she had spent many years in London. For a few minutes they all stood in the garden, talking. Paul suggested that they go for dinner, and Norah was tempted to say yes. She wanted to sit with Paul and talk long into the night, but she hesitated, aware that between Paul and Mich.e.l.le there was a warmth, a radiance, a restlessness to be alone. She thought of Frederic again, perhaps already back in their pension, his tie falling across the back of a chair.

"How about tomorrow?" she said. "What if we meet for breakfast? I want to hear all about your trip. I want to know all about the flamenco guitarists in Seville."

On the street, walking to the metro, Mich.e.l.le took Norah's arm. Paul walked just ahead of them, broad-shouldered, lanky.

"You raised a wonderful son," she said. "I'm so sorry I won't get to know his father."

"That would have been hard in any case-to get to know him. But yes, I'm sorry too." They walked a few steps. "Have you enjoyed your tour?"

"Oh, it's a wonderful freedom, traveling," Mich.e.l.le observed.

It was a soft evening, the bright lights of the metro station a shock as they descended. A train clattered in the distance, echoed through the tunnel. There were mingled scents: perfume and, underneath, the sharper tang of metal, oil.

"Come by around nine tomorrow," Norah told Paul, raising her voice over the noise. And then, as the train came nearer, she leaned forward, close to his ear, shouting.

"He loved you! He was your father, and he loved you!"

Paul's face opened for an instant: grief and loss. He nodded. There was no time for more. The train was rus.h.i.+ng now, rus.h.i.+ng toward them all, and in its sudden wind she felt her heart fill up. Her son, here in the world. And David, mysteriously, gone. The train stopped, squealing, and the hydraulic doors burst open with a sigh. Norah got on and sat by the window, watching a flash, a final glimpse of Paul, walking, his hands in his pockets, his head down. There, then gone.

By the time she reached her stop, the air had filled up with the grainy light of dusk. She walked across cobblestones to the pension, painted pale yellow and faintly luminous, its window boxes spilling flowers. The room was quiet, her own strewn things undisturbed; Frederic had not arrived. Norah went to the window overlooking the river and stood there for a moment, thinking of David carrying Paul on his shoulders through their first house, thinking of the day he had proposed, shouting at her over the rush of water, the cool ring slipping down her finger. Thinking of Paul's hand and Mich.e.l.le's, palm to palm.

She went to the little desk and wrote a note: Frederic, I am in the courtyard. Frederic, I am in the courtyard.

The courtyard, lined with potted palms, overlooked the Seine. Tiny lights were woven into the trees, the iron railings. Norah sat where she could see the river and ordered a gla.s.s of wine. She'd left her book somewhere-probably in the garden at the Louvre. Its loss filled her with a vague regret. It was not the sort of book one bought twice, just something light, something to pa.s.s the time. Something about two sisters. Now she would never know how the story ended.

Two sisters. Maybe someday she and Bree would write a book. The thought made Norah smile, and the man who was sitting at an adjacent table, dressed in a white suit, a tiny aperitif gla.s.s by his hand, smiled back. So these things began: there was a time when she would have crossed her legs or pushed back her hair, small gestures of invitation, until he rose and left his table and came to ask if he might join her. She had loved the power of this dance and the sense of discovery. But tonight she looked away. The man lit a cigarette, and when it was finished he paid his bill and left.

Norah sat watching the flow of people against the dark s.h.i.+mmer of the river. She did not see Frederic arrive. But then his hand was on her shoulder, she was turning, and he was kissing her, one cheek, and then the other, and then his lips on hers.

"h.e.l.lo," he said, and sat down across the table. He was not a tall man, but he was very fit, with strong shoulders from years of swimming. He was a systems a.n.a.lyst, and Norah liked his sureness, his ability to grasp and discuss the larger whole and not get bogged down in the minutiae of the moment. Yet it was the very thing that sometimes irritated her too-his sense of the world as a steady and predictable place.

"Have you waited long?" he asked. "Have you eaten?"

"No." She nodded at her winegla.s.s, nearly full. "Not long at all. And I'm famished."

He nodded. "Good. Sorry to be late. The train was delayed."

"It's all right. How was your day in Orleans?"

"Humdrum. But I had a nice lunch with my cousin." He began to talk and Norah sat back, letting the words wash over her. Frederic's hands were strong and deft. She remembered a day when he'd built her a set of bookshelves, working in the garage all weekend, curls of fresh wood falling off his planer. He was not afraid to work or to stop her in the kitchen while she cooked, sliding his hands around her waist and kissing her neck until she turned and kissed him back. He smoked a pipe, which she did not like, and worked too hard, and drove too fast on the highway.

"You told Paul?" Frederic asked. "Is he all right?"

"I don't know. I hope so. He's meeting us for breakfast. He wants to complain to you about arrogant Americans."

Frederic laughed. "Good," he said. "I like your son."

"He's in love. And she's quite lovely, this young woman he adores: Mich.e.l.le. She'll come tomorrow too."

"Good," Frederic said again, weaving his fingers through her own. "It's good to be in love."

They ordered dinner, brochettes of beef on rice pilaf, more wine. The river moved below, darkly, silently, and as they talked Norah thought how lovely it was to sit quietly anch.o.r.ed in one place. To sit drinking wine in Paris, watching the birds burst into flight from the silhouetted trees, the river moving calmly below. She remembered her wild drives to the Ohio as a young woman, the strangely iridescent skin of the water, the sheerness of the limestone banks, the wind lifting her hair.

But now she sat still, and the birds flew up darkly against the indigo sky. She smelled water, and exhaust, and meat roasting, and the dank mud of the river. Frederic relit his pipe and poured more wine and people strolled by on the sidewalk, moving through this evening that was giving way to night, the nearby buildings fading slowly into the darkening air. One by one lights came on in windows. Norah folded her napkin and stood up. The world wheeled away; she was dizzy from the wine, the height, the scent of food after this long day of grief and joy.

"Are you all right?" Frederic asked, from far away.

Norah touched the table with one hand, caught her breath. She nodded, unable to speak above the sound of the river, the smell of its dark banks, the stars roaring everywhere, swirling, alive.

November 1988 HIS NAME WAS ROBERT AND HE WAS HANDSOME, WITH A shock of dark hair that fell across his forehead. He went up and down the aisle of the bus, introducing himself to everyone and commenting on the route, the driver, the day. He reached the end of the row, turned around, and went through the whole thing again. "I'm having a great time here," he announced, shaking Caroline's hand on his way. She smiled, patient; his grip was firm and confident. Other people would not meet his eye. They studied their books, their newspapers, the scenes slipping by outside the window. Yet Robert went on, undaunted, as if the people on the bus were as much to be remarked upon, and no more expected to respond, than trees, rocks, or clouds. Within his persistence, Caroline thought, watching from the last seat, deciding again every second not to intervene, was some deep desire to find a person who would really see him. shock of dark hair that fell across his forehead. He went up and down the aisle of the bus, introducing himself to everyone and commenting on the route, the driver, the day. He reached the end of the row, turned around, and went through the whole thing again. "I'm having a great time here," he announced, shaking Caroline's hand on his way. She smiled, patient; his grip was firm and confident. Other people would not meet his eye. They studied their books, their newspapers, the scenes slipping by outside the window. Yet Robert went on, undaunted, as if the people on the bus were as much to be remarked upon, and no more expected to respond, than trees, rocks, or clouds. Within his persistence, Caroline thought, watching from the last seat, deciding again every second not to intervene, was some deep desire to find a person who would really see him.

That person, it appeared, was Phoebe, who seemed to brighten, awash in some internal light, when Robert was around, who watched him move up and down the aisle as if he were some marvelous new creature, a peac.o.c.k perhaps, beautiful and showy and proud. When he finally settled down in the seat next to her, still talking, Phoebe simply smiled up at him. It was a radiant smile; she held nothing back. No reserve, no caution, no waiting to make sure he felt the same surging love. Caroline closed her eyes at her daughter's naked expression of emotion-the wild innocence, the risk! But when she opened them again Robert was smiling back, as pleased by Phoebe, as wonderstruck, as if a tree had cried out his name.

Well, yes, Caroline thought, and why not? Wasn't such love rare enough in the world? She glanced at Al, who sat next to her, nodding off, his graying hair lifting as the bus traveled over b.u.mps, around curves. He'd come in late last night and would leave again tomorrow morning, earning overtime to pay for the new roof and gutters. These last months, their days together had been mostly consumed with business. Sometimes a memory of their early marriage-his lips on hers, the touch of his hand on her waist-swept through Caroline, a bittersweet nostalgia. How had they become so busy and careworn, the two of them? How had so many days slipped away, one after another, to bring them to this moment?

The bus sped across the ravine, up the incline to Squirrel Hill. Headlights were already on in the early winter dusk. Phoebe and Robert sat quietly, facing the aisle, dressed for the Upside Down Society's annual dance. Robert's shoes were polished to a high s.h.i.+ne; he wore his best suit. Beneath her winter coat, Phoebe wore a flowery white and red dress, a delicate white cross from her confirmation on a slender chain around her neck. Her hair had darkened and grown thinner and was cut in a short flyaway cap around her skull, clipped here and there with red barrettes. She was pale, with light freckles on her arms and face. She stared out the window, smiling faintly, lost in her thoughts. Robert studied the billboards above Caroline's head, ads for clinics and dentists, maps of the route. He was a good man, prepared in every moment to be delighted by the world, though he forgot conversations almost as soon as they were finished and asked Caroline for her phone number every time they met.

Still, he always remembered Phoebe. He always remembered love.

"We're almost there," Phoebe said, tugging on Robert's arm as they neared the top of the hill. The day facility was half a block away, its lights spilling softly across the brown gra.s.s, the crusts of snow. "I counted seven stops."

"Al," Caroline said, shaking his shoulder. "Al, honey, it's our stop."

They stepped off the bus into the damp chill of the November evening and walked in pairs through the dusky light. Caroline slid her hand around Al's arm.

"You're tired," she said, seeking to break the silence that, more and more, had come to be their habit. "You've had a long couple of weeks."

"I'm okay," he said.

"I wish you didn't have to be away so much." She regretted her words the moment she said them. The argument was old by now, a tender knot in the flesh of their marriage, and even to her own ears her voice sounded strident, shrill, as if she were deliberately picking a fight.

Snow crunched under their shoes. Al sighed heavily, his breath a faint cloud in the cold.

"Look, I'm doing the best I can, Caroline. The money's good just now and I have some seniority built up. I'm pus.h.i.+ng sixty. I have to milk it while I can."

Caroline nodded. His arm beneath her hand was firm and steady. She was so glad to have him here, so tired of the strange rhythms of their lives that kept him away for days at a time. What she wanted, more than anything, was to have breakfast with him every morning and dinner every night; to wake with him in bed beside her, not in some anonymous hotel room a hundred or five hundred miles away.

"It's just that I miss you," Caroline said softly. "That's all I meant. That's all I'm saying." Phoebe and Robert walked ahead of them, holding hands. Caroline watched her daughter, wearing dark gloves, a scarf Robert had given her wrapped loosely around her neck. Phoebe wanted to marry Robert, to have a life with him; lately this was all she talked about. Linda, the day facility director, had warned, Phoebe's in love. She's twenty-four, a bit of a late bloomer, and she's starting to discover her own s.e.xuality, We need to discuss this, Caroline. Phoebe's in love. She's twenty-four, a bit of a late bloomer, and she's starting to discover her own s.e.xuality, We need to discuss this, Caroline. But Caroline, unwilling to admit that anything had changed, had put the discussion off. But Caroline, unwilling to admit that anything had changed, had put the discussion off.

Phoebe walked with her head slightly bent, intent on listening; now and then her sudden laughter floated back through the dusk. Caroline inhaled the sharp cold air, feeling a surge of pleasure at her daughter's happiness, taken back, in the same moment, to the clinic waiting room with its drooping ferns and rattling door, Norah Henry standing by the counter, pulling off her gloves to show the receptionist her wedding ring, laughing in this same way.

A lifetime ago, that was. Caroline had put those days from her mind almost completely. Then last week, while Al was still away, a letter had arrived from a law firm downtown. Caroline, puzzled, had ripped it open and read it on the porch, in the chill November air.