The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [139]
Bree knocked on the glass, then opened the door a few inches.
“Everything okay? Because Neil’s here, from IBM.”
“I’m fine,” Norah said. “How are you doing? Are you okay?”
“It’s good for me to be here,” Bree said brightly, firmly. “Especially with everything else that’s going on.”
Norah nodded. She had called Paul’s friends, and David called the police. All night and into this morning she had paced the house in her bathrobe, drinking coffee and imagining every possible disaster. The chance to come to work, to put at least part of her mind on something else, had felt like sanctuary. “I’ll be right there,” she said.
The phone started ringing again as she stood, and Norah let a rush of weary anger push her through the door. She would not let Sam rattle her, she would not let him ruin this meeting, she would not. Her other affairs had ended differently, swiftly or slowly, amicably or not, but none with this element of uneasiness. Never again, she thought to herself. Let this be finished, and never again.
She hurried through the lobby, but Sally stopped her at the reception desk, holding out the phone. “You’d better take this, honey,” she said. Norah knew at once; she took the receiver, trembling.
“They found him.” David’s voice was quiet. “The police just called. They found him in Louisville, shoplifting. Our son was caught stealing cheese.”
“He’s okay, then,” she said, releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding all this time, blood rushing back into her fingertips. Oh! She’d been half dead and hadn’t known it.
“Yes, he’s fine. Hungry, apparently. I’m on my way to get him. Do you want to come?”
“Maybe I should go. I don’t know, David. You might say the wrong thing.” You stay here with your girlfriend, she almost added.
He sighed. “I wonder what would be the right thing to say, Norah? I’d really like to know. I’m proud of him, and I told him that. He ran away and stole a car. So what, I wonder, would be the right thing to say?”
Too little, too late, she wanted to say. And what about your girlfriend? But she said nothing.
“Norah, he’s eighteen. He stole a car. He has to take responsibility.”
“You’re fifty-one,” she snapped. “So do you.”
There was a silence then; she imagined him standing in his office, so reassuring in his white coat, his hair alive with silver. No one seeing him would imagine the way he’d come back home: unshaven, his clothes torn and filthy, a pregnant girl in a shabby black coat by his side.
“Look, just give me the address,” she said. “I’ll meet you there.”
“He’s at the police station, Norah. Central booking. Where do you think, the zoo? But sure, hang on. I’ll give you the address.”
As Norah was writing it down, she looked up to see Bree closing the front door behind Neil Simms.
“Paul’s okay?” Bree asked.
Norah nodded, too moved, too relieved, to speak. Hearing his name had made the news real. Paul was safe, maybe in handcuffs but safe. Alive. The office staff, hovering in the reception room, began to clap, and Bree crossed the room to hug her. So thin, Norah thought, tears in her eyes; her sister’s shoulder blades were delicate and sharp, like wings.
“I’ll drive,” Bree said, taking her arm. “Come on. Tell me as we go.”
Norah let herself be led down the hall and into the elevator, to the car in the garage. Bree drove through the crowded downtown streets while Norah talked, relief rushing through her like a wind.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I was awake all night. I know Paul’s an adult now. I know in a few months he’ll be off to college, and I won’t have a clue where he is at any given moment. But I couldn’t stop worrying.”
“He’s still your baby.”
“Always. It’s hard, letting him go. Harder than I thought.”
The were passing the low dull buildings of IBM, and Bree waved at them. “Hey, Neil,” she said. “Be seeing you soon.