The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [113]
The bus rounded the corner and roared to a stop. The doors folded open and Caroline climbed in and took a window seat, trees flashing as they roared over the bridge and the hollow below. Flying past the cemetery, lurching through Squirrel Hill, then lumbering on through the old neighborhoods to Oakland, where Caroline got off. She stood before the Carnegie Museum for a moment, collecting herself, looking up at the grand stone building with its cascading steps and ionic columns. A banner strung along the top of the portico fluttered in the wind: MIRROR IMAGES: PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID HENRY.
Tonight was the opening: he would be here to speak. Hands trembling, Caroline slid the newspaper clipping from her pocket. She had carried it for two weeks, her heart surging every time she touched it. A dozen times, perhaps more, she had changed her mind. What good could come of it?
And then, in the next breath, what harm?
If Al had been here, she would have stayed home. She would have let the opportunity slip away unremarked, glancing at the clock until the opening was over and David Henry had disappeared back into whatever life he now led.
But Al had called to say he’d be away tonight, and Mrs. O’Neill was home to keep an eye on Phoebe, and the bus had been on time.
Caroline’s heart was roaring now. She stood still, taking deep breaths, while the world moved around her, the squeal of brakes and the scent of spent fuel, and the faint stirrings of the feathery new leaves of spring. Voices swelled as people drew near, then receded, scraps of conversation drifting like bits of paper borne on the wind. Streams of people, dressed in silk and heels and dark expensive suits, flowed up the museum’s stone steps. The sky was a darkening indigo and the streetlights had come on; the air was full of the scent of lemon and mint from the festival at the Greek Orthodox Church one block down. Caroline closed her eyes, thinking of black olives, which she had never tasted until she reached this city. Thinking of the wild mosaic of Saturday morning market at the Strip, fresh bread and flowers and fruits and vegetables, a riot of food and color for blocks along the river, something she would never have seen except for David Henry and an unexpected snowstorm. She took one step and then another, merging with the crowd.
The museum had high white ceilings and oak floors, polished to a dark, gleaming gold. Caroline was given a program of thick creamy paper with David Henry’s name across the top. A list of photos followed. “Dunes at Dusk,” she read. “A Tree in the Heart.” She walked into the gallery room and found his most famous photo, the undulating beach that was more than a beach, the curve of a woman’s hip, then the smooth length of her leg, hidden among the dunes. The image trembled, on the edge of being something else, and then it suddenly was something else. Caroline had stared at it for a good fifteen minutes the first time she saw it, knowing that the swell of flesh belonged to Norah Henry, remembering the white hill of her belly rippling with contractions, the powerful force of her grip. For years she had consoled herself with her disdainful opinion of Norah Henry, a bit imperial, used to ease and order, a woman who might have left Phoebe in an institution. But this image exploded that idea. These photos showed a woman she had never known.
People milled in the room; the seats filled. Caroline sat down, watching everything intently. The lights dimmed once and went on again, and then suddenly