The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [112]
“Avery!” She squatted down beside the girl, touched her wet shoulder. “Where’s Phoebe?”
“She went to get the cat,” Avery said, pointing into the pipe. “It went in there.”
Caroline swore softly and knelt in the edge of the pipe. Cold water rushed against her knees, her hands. Phoebe! she cried, and her voice echoed in the darkness. It’s Mom, honey, are you here?
Silence. Caroline inched her way inside. The water was so cold. Already her hands were numb. Phoebe! she shouted, her voice swelling. Phoebe! She listened hard. A sound then, faint. Caroline crawled a few feet farther in, feeling her way through cold invisible rushing water. Then her hand brushed fabric, cold flesh, and Phoebe, trembling, was in her arms. Caroline held her close, remembering the night she’d carried Phoebe in the damp purple bathroom, urging her to breathe.
“We have to get out of here, honey. We have to get out.”
But Phoebe wouldn’t move.
“My cat,” she said, her voice high, determined, and Caroline felt the squirming beneath Phoebe’s shirt, heard the small mewing. “It’s my cat.”
“Forget the cat,” Caroline shouted. She pulled Phoebe gently in the direction she had come. “Come on, Phoebe. Right now.”
“My cat,” Phoebe said.
“Okay,” Caroline said, water rushing higher now, around her knees. “Okay, okay, it’s your cat. Just go!”
Phoebe began to move, inching slowly toward the circle of light. Finally they emerged, cold water streaming around them in the concrete ditch. Phoebe was soaked, her hair plastered against her face, the kitten wet too. Through the trees Caroline glimpsed her house, solid and warm, like a raft in the dangerous world. She imagined Al, traveling some distant highway, and the familiar comfort of these rooms that were her own.
“It’s all right.” Caroline put her arm around Phoebe. The kitten twisted, thin claws scratching the backs of her hands. The rain fell, dripping off the dark, vivid leaves.
“There’s the mailman,” Phoebe said.
“Yes,” Caroline said, watching him climb the porch and slide the bills she’d put out into his leather bag.
Her letter to David Henry sat unfinished on the table. She had stood at the back door watching the rain, thinking only of Phoebe’s father, while Phoebe wandered into danger. It seemed like an omen suddenly, and she let herself turn the fear she’d felt at Phoebe’s disappearance into anger. She wouldn’t write to David again; he wanted too much from her, and he wanted it too late. The mailman walked back down the steps, his bright umbrella flashing.
“Yes, honey,” she said, stroking the kitten’s bony head. “Yes. There he is.”
1982
April 1982
I
CAROLINE STOOD AT THE BUS STOP NEAR THE CORNER OF Forbes and Braddock, watching the kinetic energy of the children on the playground, their happy shouts lifting up over the steady roar of the traffic. Beyond them, on the baseball field, figures in blue and red from competing local taverns moved with silent grace against new grass. It was spring. Evening was gathering. In a few minutes the parents sitting on the benches or standing with their hands in their pockets would start calling the children to go home. The grown-ups’ game would continue to the edge of darkness, and when it ended the players would slap each other on the back and depart too, settling in for drinks at the tavern, their laughter loud and happy. She and Al saw them there when they made it out for an evening. An early show at the Regent, then dinner and—if Al wasn’t on call—a couple of beers.
Tonight he was gone, however, speeding far away through the gathering night, south from Cleveland to Toledo, then Columbus. Caroline had his routes hung on the refrigerator. Years ago, in those strange days after Doro left, Caroline had hired someone to watch Phoebe while she traveled with Al, hoping to bridge the distance between them. Hours slid away; she slept and woke and lost track of time, the road spinning out beneath them forever, a dark ribbon bisected by the steady flashes of white, seductive and mesmerizing. Finally Al, bleary himself,