The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [142]
Paul nodded. His hands were trembling; he shoved them in his pockets. They all watched as the officer tore a paper off his clipboard, handed it to David, and walked slowly back to the desk.
“I called the Bolands,” David explained, folding the paperwork and tucking it into his breast pocket. “They were reasonable. This could have been much worse, Paul. But don’t think you won’t be paying back every red cent of what it will cost to get that car repaired. And don’t think your life is going to be very happy for quite a while. No friends. No social life.”
Paul nodded, swallowing.
“I have to rehearse,” he said. “I can’t just drop the quartet.”
“No,” David said. “What you can’t do is steal a car from our neighbors and expect life to go on as usual.”
Norah felt Paul, so tense beside her and so angry. Leave it, she found herself thinking, seeing the muscle move in David’s jaw. Leave it alone, both of you. That’s enough.
“Fine,” Paul said. “Then I’m not coming home. I’d rather go to jail.”
“Well, I can certainly arrange that,” David answered, his tone dangerously cool.
“Go ahead,” Paul said. “Arrange it. Because I’m a musician. And I’m good. And I’d rather sleep in the streets than give it up. Hell, I’d rather be dead.”
There was a moment, a heartbeat. When David didn’t respond, Paul’s eyes narrowed.
“My sister doesn’t know how good she’s got it,” he said.
Norah, who had been holding herself very still, felt the words like shards of ice, a harsh, bright, piercing grief. Before she knew what she’d done, she’d slapped Paul across the face. The stubble of his new beard was rough against her palm—he was a man, no longer a boy, and she’d hit him hard. He turned, shocked, a red mark already rising on his cheek.
“Paul,” David said, “don’t make things worse than they are. Don’t say things you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”
Norah’s hand was still stinging; her blood rushed. “We’ll go home,” she said. “We’ll settle this at home.”
“I don’t know. A night in jail might do him good.”
“I lost one child,” she said, turning to him. “I will not lose another.”
Now David looked stunned, as if she’d slapped him too. The ceiling fan clicked, and the revolving door spun with rhythmic thunks.
“All right,” David said. “Maybe that’s right. Maybe you’re right to pay no attention to me. God knows I’m sorry for the things I’ve done to fail you both.”
“David?” Norah said, as he turned away, but he didn’t respond. She watched him walk across the room and enter the revolving door. Outside, he was visible for an instant, a middle-aged man in a dark jacket, part of the crowd, then gone. The ceiling fan clicked amid smells of sour flesh and French fries and cleaning fluid.
“I didn’t mean—” Paul began.
Norah held up her hand. “Don’t. Please. Don’t say another word.”
It was Bree, calm and efficient, who got them to the car. They opened the windows against Paul’s stench, and Bree drove, her thin fingers steady on the wheel. Norah, brooding, paid little attention, and it was nearly half an hour before she realized that they were no longer on an interstate but were traveling more slowly, on smaller roads, through the vivid spring countryside. Fields, barely greening, flashed in the windows, and branches with their just-opening buds.
“Where are you going?” Norah asked.
“On a little adventure,” Bree said. “You’ll see.”
Norah didn’t want to look at Bree’s hands, so bony, the blue veins visible. She glanced at Paul in the rearview mirror. He sat, pale and sullen, arms folded, slouching, clearly furious, clearly in pain. She had done the wrong thing back there, lashing out at David like that, slapping Paul; she had only made things worse. His angry eyes met hers in the mirror, and she remembered his soft plump infant hand pressed against her cheek, his laughter trilling through the rooms.