The Memory Keeper's Daughter Part 28

Phoebe shrugged. "I don't know. I see him on the bus."

"Every day?"

"Uh-huh. Can I go? I want to see his bird."

"Well, what if I come too?" Caroline said carefully. "What if we take the bus together tomorrow? That way I can meet Mike, and I'll come with you to see the bird. How's that?"

"That's good," Phoebe said, pleased, and finished her milk.

For the next two days, Caroline took the bus with Phoebe to and from her job, but Mike never showed up.

"Honey, I'm afraid he was lying," she told Phoebe on Thursday night as they washed the dishes. Phoebe was wearing a yellow sweater, and her hands sported a dozen little paper cuts from work. Caroline watched her pick up each plate and dry it carefully, grateful that Phoebe was safe, terrified that some day she would not be. Who was this stranger, this Mike, and what might he have done to Phoebe if she had gone with him? Caroline filed a report with the police, but she had little hope that they'd find him. Nothing had actually happened, after all, and Phoebe couldn't describe the man, except to say that he'd worn a gold ring and blue sneakers.

"Mike is nice," Phoebe insisted. "He wouldn't lie."

"Sweetheart, not everyone is good or wants what's best for you. He didn't come back to the bus, like he promised. He was trying to trick you, Phoebe. You have to be careful."

"You always say that," Phoebe responded, throwing the dish towel on the counter. "You say that about Robert."

"That's different. Robert isn't trying to hurt you."

"I love Robert."

"I know." Caroline closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Look, Phoebe, I love you. I don't want you to get hurt. Sometimes the world is dangerous. I think this man is dangerous."

"But I didn't go with him," Phoebe said, picking up on the sternness and fear in Caroline's voice. She put the last plate on the counter, suddenly near tears. "I didn't go."

"You were smart," Caroline said. "You did the right thing. Never go with anyone."

"Unless they know the word."

"Right. And the word is a secret, you don't tell anyone."

"Starfire!" Phoebe whispered loudly, beaming. "It's a secret."

"Yes." Caroline sighed. "Yes, it's a secret."

On Friday morning, Caroline drove Phoebe to work. That evening, she sat in her car, waiting, watching Phoebe through the window as she moved behind the counter, binding doc.u.ments or joking with Max, her co-worker, a young woman with her hair pulled back in a ponytail who went out to lunch with Phoebe every Friday, and who was not afraid to take her to task if she messed up an order. Phoebe had worked here for three years now. She loved her job and she was good at it. Caroline, watching her daughter move behind the pane of gla.s.s, thought back to the long hours of organizing, all the presentations and the fights and paperwork it had taken to make this moment possible for Phoebe. Yet so much remained. The incident on the bus was just one concern. Phoebe didn't earn enough to live on, and she simply could not stay by herself, not even for a weekend. If a fire broke out or the electricity failed, she would be frightened and would not know what to do.

And then there was Robert. On the drive home, Phoebe chatted about work, about Max, and about Robert, Robert, Robert. He was coming over the next day to make a pie with Phoebe. Caroline listened, glad it was almost Sat.u.r.day and Al would be back. One good thing about the stranger on the bus: he had given her an excuse to take Phoebe back and forth, thus limiting the time she spent with Robert.

When they walked in the door, the phone was ringing. Caroline sighed. It would be a salesman, or a neighbor collecting for the heart fund, or a wrong number. Rain mewed in welcome, weaving around her ankles. "Scat," she said, and picked up the phone.

It was the police, the officer on the other end clearing his throat, asking for her. Caroline was surprised, then pleased. Perhaps they had found the man on the bus, after all.

"Yes," she said, watching Phoebe pick up Rain and hug him. "This is Caroline Simpson."

He cleared his throat again and began.

Later, Caroline would remember this moment as being very large, time expanding until it filled the whole room and pressed her down into a chair, though the news was simple enough and could not have taken very long to say. Al's truck had left the road on a curve, breaking through a guardrail and flying into a low hill. He was in the hospital with a broken leg; the same trauma center where, so many years ago, Caroline had agreed to marry him.

Phoebe was humming to Rain, but she seemed to sense that something was wrong and looked up, questioning, the minute Caroline hung up the phone. Caroline explained what had happened as she drove. In the tiled hospital corridors, she found herself swimming in memories of that earlier day: Phoebe's lips swelling, her breathing labored, Al stepping in when she was so angry with that nurse. Now Phoebe was a grown woman, walking beside her in her work vest; she and Al had been married for eighteen years.

Eighteen years.

He was awake, his dark and silver hair standing out against the whiteness of the pillow. He tried to sit up when they came in but then grimaced in pain and lay back down slowly.

"Oh, Al." She crossed the room and took his hand.

"I'm okay," he said, and he closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. She felt herself going very still inside, for she had never seen Al like this, so shaken he was trembling slightly, a muscle twitching in his jaw up near his ear.

"Hey, you're starting to scare me," she said, trying to keep her tone light.

He opened his eyes then, and for an instant they were looking straight at each other, everything between them falling away. He reached up and touched one large hand lightly against her cheek. She pressed it with her own hand, felt tears in her eyes.

"What happened?" she whispered.

He sighed. "I don't know. It was such a sunny afternoon. Bright, clear. I was moving right along, singing with the radio. Thinking about how great it would be if you were there, like we talked about. The next thing I knew, the truck was sailing through the guardrails. And after that I don't remember. Not until I woke up in here. I totaled the truck. The cops said another dozen yards either way down the road, and I'd have been history."

Caroline leaned forward and put her arms around him, smelling his familiar smells. His heart beat steadily in his chest. Just days ago, they had moved together on the dance floor, worried about the roof, the gutters. She fingered his hair, grown too long at the base of his neck.

"Oh, Al."

"I know," he said. "I know, Caroline."

Beside them, wide-eyed, Phoebe started to cry, pressing the sobs back into her mouth with her hand. Caroline sat up and put an arm around her. She stroked Phoebe's hair, felt the st.u.r.dy warmth of her body.

"Phoebe," Al said. "Look at you here, just getting off work. Did you have a good day, honey? I didn't get to Cleveland, so I didn't get those rolls you like so much, sorry to say. Next time, okay?"

Phoebe nodded, wiping her hands across her cheeks. "Where's your truck?" she asked, and Caroline remembered the times Al had taken them both for a ride, Phoebe sitting high up in the cab and pulling her fist down when they pa.s.sed other trucks to make them blow their horns.

"Honey, it's broken," Al said. "I'm sorry, but it's really smashed up."

Al was in the hospital for two days, and then he came home. Caroline's time pa.s.sed in a blur of getting Phoebe to work and going to work herself, tending to Al, making meals, trying to make a dent in the laundry. She fell into bed exhausted each night, woke in the morning, and started all over again. It didn't help that Al was an awful patient, ornery at being so confined, short-tempered and demanding. She was reminded, unhappily, of those early days with Leo in this same house, as if time were not traveling in a straight line but circling around instead.

A week pa.s.sed. On Sat.u.r.day, Caroline, exhausted, put a load in the washer and went into the kitchen to get something made for dinner. She pulled a pound of carrots out of the refrigerator for a salad and rummaged in the freezer, hoping for inspiration. Nothing. Well, Al wouldn't like it, but maybe she'd order a pizza. It was five o'clock already, and in a few minutes she would have to leave to pick Phoebe up from work. She paused in the peeling, looking past her own faint reflection in the window to the Foodland sign flashing red through the bare branches of the trees, thinking of David Henry. She thought of Norah too, so objectified in his photographs, her flesh rising like hills and her hair filling the frame with unexpected light. The letter from the lawyer was still in the desk drawer. She'd kept the appointment she'd made before Al's accident, visiting the substantial oak-paneled office and learning the details of David Henry's bequest. The conversation had been in her mind all week, though she'd had no time to think about it or talk with Al.

There was a noise outside. Caroline turned, startled. Through the window in the back door she glimpsed Phoebe outside, on the porch. She'd gotten home on her own, somehow; she wasn't wearing her coat. Caroline dropped the peeler and went to the door, drying her hands on her ap.r.o.n. There she saw what had been hidden from inside: Robert, standing next to Phoebe, his arm around her shoulders.

"What are you doing here?" she asked sharply, stepping outside.

"I took the day off," Phoebe said.

"You did? What about your job?"

"Max is there. I'll work her hours on Monday."

Caroline nodded slowly. "But how did you get home? I was about to come and get you."

"We took the bus," Robert said.

"Yes." Caroline laughed, but when she spoke her voice was sharp with worry. "Right. Of course. You took the bus. Oh, Phoebe, I told you not to do that. It's not safe."

"Me and Robert are safe," Phoebe said, her lower lip protruding slightly, as it did when she got angry. "Me and Robert are getting married."

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Caroline said, pushed to the limit of her patience. "How can you get married? You don't know the first thing about marriage, either one of you."

"We know," Robert said. "We know about marriage."

Caroline sighed. "Look, Robert, you have to go home," she said. "You took the bus here, so you can take the bus home. I don't have time to drive you anywhere. It's too much. You have to go home."

To her surprise, Robert smiled. He looked at Phoebe, and then he walked into the shadowy part of the back porch and leaned under the swing. He came back carrying a sheaf of red and white roses, which seemed to glow slightly in the gathering dusk. He handed these to Caroline, the soft petals brushing her skin.

"Robert?" she said, taken aback, a faint perfume infusing the cold air. "What's this?"

"I got them at the grocery store," he said. "On sale."

Caroline shook her head. "I don't understand."

"It's Sat.u.r.day," Phoebe reminded her.

Sat.u.r.day-the day Al came home from his trips, always with a present for Phoebe and a bunch of flowers for his wife. Caroline imagined the two of them, Robert and Phoebe, taking the bus to the grocery store where Robert worked as a stocker, studying the prices of the flowers, counting out the exact change. There was a part of her that still wanted to scream, to put Robert back on the bus and out of their lives, a part of her that wanted to say, It's too much for me. I don't care. It's too much for me. I don't care.

Inside, the little bell she'd left with Al rang insistently. Caroline sighed and took a step back, gesturing to the kitchen, the light and warmth.

"All right," she said. "Come inside, the two of you. Come in before you freeze."

She hurried up the stairs, trying to pull herself together. How much was one woman supposed to do? "You're supposed to be patient," she said, walking into their room, where Al was sitting with his leg propped on an ottoman, a book in his lap. "Patient. Where do you think the word comes from, Al? I know it's exasperating, but healing takes time, for heaven's sake." Where do you think the word comes from, Al? I know it's exasperating, but healing takes time, for heaven's sake."

"You're the one who wanted me home more," Al retorted. "Be careful what you wish for."

Caroline shook her head and sat down on the edge of the bed. "I didn't wish for this."

He looked out the window for a few seconds. "You're right," he said at last. "I'm sorry."

"Are you okay?" she asked. "How's the pain?"

"Not so bad."

Beyond the gla.s.s, wind stirred the last leaves of the sycamore against the violet sky. Bags of tulip bulbs were under the tree, waiting to be planted. Last month she and Phoebe had put in chrysanthemums, bright bursts of orange and cream and dark purple. She had sat back on her heels to admire them, brushing dirt off her hands, remembering times when she had gardened like this with her mother, connected by their tasks though not by words. They had rarely talked about anything personal. There was so much, now, that Caroline wished she had said.

"I'm not going to do it anymore," he said, blurting the words out without looking at her "Drive a truck, I mean."

"All right," she said, trying to imagine what this might mean for their lives. She was glad-something in her had just shut down every time she imagined him driving away again-but she was suddenly a little apprehensive too. Not once since they were married had they spent more than a week together.

"I'll be getting in your hair all the time," Al said, as if reading her mind.

"Will you?" She looked at him intently, taking in his pallor, his serious eyes. "Are you planning to retire completely, then?"

He shook his head, still studying his hands. "Too young for that. I was thinking I could do something else. Transfer into the office, maybe; I know the system inside out. Drive a city bus. I don't know-anything, really. But I can't go out on the road again."

Caroline nodded. She'd driven out to the accident sight, seen the hole torn in the guardrail, the scarred piece of earth where the truck had fallen.

"I always had a feeling," Al said, glancing at his hands. He was letting his beard grow in; it stubbled his face. "Like this was bound to happen, one day or another. And now it has."

"I didn't know that," Caroline said. "You never said you were scared."

"Not scared," Al said. "I just had a feeling. It's different."

"Still. You never said anything."

He shrugged. "Wouldn't have made any difference. It was just a feeling, Caroline."

She nodded. Another few yards and Al would have died, the officers had said more than once. All week she'd kept herself from imagining what hadn't happened. But the truth was, she could be a widow, facing the rest of her life alone.

"Maybe you should retire," she said slowly. "I went down to the lawyer, Al. I'd already made the appointment, and I kept it. It's a lot of money that David Henry left for Phoebe."

"Well, it's not mine," Al said. "Even if it's a million dollars, it's not mine."

She remembered, then, how he'd responded when Doro had given them the house: this same reluctance to accept anything he hadn't earned with his own hands.

"That's true," she said. "The money is for Phoebe. But you and I, we raised her. If she's taken care of financially, we can worry less. We can have more freedom. Al, we've worked hard. Maybe it's time for us to retire."

"What do you mean?" he asked. "You want Phoebe to move?"

"No. I don't want that at all. But Phoebe wants it. She and Robert are downstairs now." Caroline smiled a little, remembering the sheaf of roses she'd left lying on the counter by the pile of half-peeled carrots. "They went to the grocery store together. On the bus. They bought me flowers because it's Sat.u.r.day. So, I don't know, Al. Who am I to say? Maybe they will will be okay, more or less, together." be okay, more or less, together."

He nodded, thinking, and she was struck by how tired he looked, how fragile all their lives were, in the end. All these years she had tried to imagine every possibility, to keep everyone safe, and yet here was Al, grown a little older, with a broken leg-an outcome that had never crossed her mind.

"I'll make a pot roast tomorrow," she said, naming his favorite meal. "Will pizza be okay tonight?"

"Pizza's fine," Al said. "Get it from that place on Braddock, though."

She touched his shoulder and started down the stairs to make the call. On the landing she paused, listening to Robert and Phoebe in the kitchen, their low voices punctuated by a burst of laughter. The world was a vast and unpredictable and sometimes frightening place. But right now her daughter was in the kitchen, laughing with her boyfriend, and her husband dozed with a book in his lap, and she didn't have to cook dinner. She took a deep breath. The air held the distant scent of roses-a clean scent, fresh as snow.

1989.

July 1, 1989 THE STUDIO OVER THE GARAGE, WITH ITS HIDDEN DARKROOM, had not been opened since David moved out seven years ago, but now that the house was going up for sale Norah had no choice but to face it. David's work was in favor again, worth quite a lot of money; curators were coming tomorrow to view the collection. So Norah had been sitting on the painted floor since early morning, slicing through boxes with an X-Acto knife, lifting out folders full of photographs and negatives and notes, determined to remained detached, to be ruthless, in this process of selection. It should not have taken long; David had been so meticulous, and everything was neatly labeled. A single day, she'd thought, no more.

She hadn't counted on memory, the slow lure of the past. It was early afternoon already, growing hot, and she had only made it through one box. A fan whirred in the window and a fine sweat gathered on her skin; the glossy photos stuck to her fingertips. They seemed at once so near and so impossible, those years of her youth. There she was with a scarf tied gaily in her carefully styled hair, Bree beside her in sweeping earrings, a flowing patchwork skirt. And here was a rare photo of David, so serious, with a crew cut, Paul just an infant in his arms. Memories rushed up, too, filling the room, holding Norah in place: the scents of lilacs and ozone and Paul's infant skin; David's touch, the clearing of his throat; the sunlight of a lost afternoon moving in patterns on the wooden floors. What had it meant, Norah asked herself, that they had lived these moments in this particular way? What did it mean that the photos did not fit at all with the woman she remembered being? If she looked closely she could see it, the distance and longing in her gaze, the way she always seemed to be looking just beyond the photo's edge. But a stranger wouldn't notice, Paul wouldn't; from these images alone no one could suspect the intricate mysteries of her heart.