The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [110]
Al didn’t speak for a while. “I’ve heard of things like that,” he said at last. “I’ve heard those kinds of stories, on the road. You were brave, Caroline. You did the right thing. It’s hard to think of Phoebe growing up in a place like that.”
Caroline nodded, tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Al. I should have told you years ago.”
“Caroline,” he said. “It’s okay. It’s water under the bridge.”
“What do you think I should do?” she asked. “I mean, about this letter. Should I answer it? Let him meet her? I don’t know, it’s been tearing at me all week. What if he took her away?”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said, slowly. “It’s not for me to decide.”
She nodded. That was fair, the consequence of having kept this to herself.
“But I’ll support you,” Al added, pressing her hand. “Whatever you feel is best, I’ll support you and Phoebe one hundred percent.”
“Thank you. I was so worried.”
“You worry too much about the wrong things, Caroline.”
“It doesn’t touch us, then?” she asked. “The fact that I didn’t tell you this before—it doesn’t touch you and me?”
“Not with a hundred-foot pole,” he said.
“Okay, then.”
“Okay.” He stood up, stretching. “Long day. You coming up?”
“In a minute, yes.”
The screen door squeaked open, fell shut. The wind moved through the place where he’d been sitting.
It began to rain, softly against the roof at first, and then a drumming. Caroline locked the house—her house, now. Upstairs, she paused to check on Phoebe. Her skin was warm and damp; she stirred and her mouth worked around unspoken words, and then she settled back into her dreams. Sweet girl, Caroline whispered, and covered her. She stood for a minute in the rain-echoing room, moved by Phoebe’s smallness, by all the ways she would not be able to protect her daughter in the world. Then she went to her own room, slipping between the cool sheets next to Al. She remembered his hands on her skin, the press of his beard against her neck, and her own cries in the darkness. A good husband to her, a good father to Phoebe, a man who would get up on Monday morning and shower and dress and disappear in his truck for the week, trusting her to do whatever she felt was best about David Henry and his letter. Caroline lay for a long time, listening to the rain, her hand resting on his chest.
She woke at dawn, Al thundering down the stairs to take the rig in early for an oil change. Rain cascaded from the gutters and the downspouts, teemed in puddles, and poured downhill in a stream. Caroline went downstairs and made coffee, so absorbed in her own thoughts, in the strangeness of the silent house, that she didn’t hear Phoebe until she was standing in the doorway behind her.
“Rain,” Phoebe said. Her bathrobe hung loosely around her. “Cats and dogs.”
“Yes,” Caroline said. They’d spent hours once, learning this idiom, working with a poster Caroline made of angry clouds, cats and dogs teeming from the sky. It was one of Phoebe’s favorites. “More like giraffes and elephants today.”
“Cows and pigs,” Phoebe said. “Pigs and goats.”
“Do you want some toast?”
“Want a cat,” Phoebe said.
“What do you want?” Caroline asked. “Use your sentences.”
“I want a cat, please,” Phoebe said.
“We can’t have a cat.”
“Aunt Doro went away,” Phoebe said. “I can have a cat.”
Caroline’s head ached. What will become of her?
“Look, Phoebe, here’s your toast. We’ll talk about the cat later, okay?”
“I want a cat,” Phoebe insisted.
“Later.”
“A cat,” Phoebe said.
“Damn it.” The palm of Caroline’s hand came down flat on the counter, startling them both. “Don’t talk to me anymore about a cat. Do you hear?”
“Sit on the porch,” Phoebe said, sullen now. “Watch the rain.”
“What do you want? Use your sentences.”
“I want to sit on the porch and watch the rain.”
“You’ll get cold.”
“I want—”
“Oh, fine,” Caroline interrupted, waving one hand. “Fine. Go out, sit on the porch. Watch the rain. Whatever.”
The door opened and swung shut. Caroline looked out to see Phoebe sitting on the porch swing