The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [125]
Not here. Here there was only the sound of the wind fluttering the old leaves and, distantly, the soft murmuring of water in the stream beneath the ice. A branch tapped on the exterior wall. Cold, he lifted himself up, rising on his heels and the upper part of his back so he could tug the quilt free and pull it more fully over him. The photos in his pocket poked his chest as he turned, pulling the quilt closer. Still, he shivered for a few minutes longer, from the cold and the residue of travel, and when he closed his eyes he thought of the two rivers meeting, converging, and the dark waters swirling. Not to fall but to jump: that was what had hung there in the balance.
He closed his eyes. Just for a few minutes, to rest. There was, beneath the mustiness and mildew, the scent of something sweet, sugary. His mother had bought sugar in town, and he could almost taste the birthday cake, yellow and dense, so rich and sweet it seemed to explode in his mouth. Neighbors from below, their voices carrying all the way up the hollow, the dresses of the women multicolored and joyous, brushing against the tall grass. The men in their dark trousers and their boots, the children scattering wildly, shouting, across the yard, and later they all gathered and made ice cream, packed in salty brine beneath the porch, freezing hard, until they lifted the icy metal lid and scooped the sweet cold cream high into their bowls.
Maybe that was after June was born, after her baptism maybe, that day with the ice cream. June was like other babies, her small hands waving in the air, brushing against his face when he leaned down to kiss her. In the heat of that summer day, ice cream cooling under the porch, they celebrated. Fall came, and winter, and June did not sit up and did not, and then it was her first birthday and she was too weak to walk far. Fall came again and a cousin visited with her son, almost the same age, her son not only walking but running through the rooms and starting to talk, and June was still sitting, watching the world so quietly. They knew, then, that something was wrong. He remembered his mother watching the little boy cousin, tears sliding silently down her face for a long time before she took a deep breath and turned back into the room and went on. This was the grief he had carried with him, heavy as a stone in his heart. This was the grief he had tried to spare Norah and Paul, only to create so many others.
“David,” his mother had said that day, drying her eyes briskly, not wanting him to see her cry, “pick up those papers from the table and go outside for wood and water. Do it right now. Make yourself useful.”
And he had. And they had all gone on, that day and every day. They had drawn into themselves, not even visiting people except for the rare christening or funeral, until the day Daniel Brinkerhoff had shut himself in the refrigerator. They came home from that wake in the dark, working their way up the streamside path by feel, by memory, June in his father’s arms, and his mother had never left the mountain again, not until the day she moved to Detroit….
“Don’t suppose you’re anyways useful,” the voice was saying, and David, still half asleep, not sure if he was dreaming or hearing voices in the wind, shifted at the tugging at his wrists, at the muttering voice, and ran his dry tongue against the roof of his mouth. Their lives were hard, the days long and full of work, and there was no time and no patience for grief. You had to move on, that was all you could do, and since talking about her would not bring June back, they had never mentioned her again. David turned and his wrists hurt. Startled, he half woke, his eyes opening and drifting over the room.
She was standing at the stove, just a few feet away, olive fatigues tight around her slim hips, flaring fuller around her thighs. She wore a sweater the color of rust shot through with luminous strands