The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [143]
“What kind of adventure?” Paul asked.
“Well, actually I’m trying to find the Abbey of Gethsemani.”
“What for?” Norah asked. “Is it nearby?”
Bree nodded. “It’s supposed to be. I’ve always wanted to see it, and on the way here I realized how close we were. I thought, Why not? It’s such a pretty day.”
It was pretty, the sky a clear blue, pale at the horizon, the trees vivid and alive, fluttering in the breeze. They drove along the narrow roads for another ten minutes, and then Bree pulled over to the side of the road and started rummaging under the seat.
“I guess I didn’t bring a map,” she said, sitting up.
“You never bring a map, “Norah replied, realizing in that moment that this had been true of Bree all her life. Yet it didn’t seem to matter. She and David had started off with all sorts of maps, and look where they were now.
Bree had stopped near two farmhouses, modest and white, the doors shut tight and no one in sight, the tobacco barns, weathered silver, standing open on the far hills. It was planting season. Distantly, tractors crawled across the newly plowed fields, and people followed, reaching to set the bright green tobacco seedlings into the dark earth. Down the road, at the far end of the field, there was a small white church, shaded by old sycamores, bordered with a row of purple pansies. At the side of this church was a graveyard, the old stones tilting behind a wrought-iron fence. It was so like the place where her daughter was buried that Norah caught her breath, remembering that long-ago March day, damp grass beneath her feet, the low clouds pressing down, and David silent and distant beside her. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and the known world had shifted under their feet.
“Let’s go to the church,” she said. “Someone there might know.”
They drove down the road, and she and Bree got out of the car by the church, feeling citified and out of place in their work clothes. The day was very still, almost hot, sunlight flickering through the leaves. The grass against Bree’s yellow shoes was dark green and lush. Norah put her hand on Bree’s thin arm, the yellow linen both soft and crisp.
“You’re going to ruin those shoes,” she said.
Bree looked down, nodded, and slipped them off. “I’ll ask at the manse,” she said. “The front door’s open.”
“Go on,” Norah said. We’ll wait here.”
Bree stooped to pick up her shoes and then made her way through the rich green grass, something girlish and vulnerable about her pale legs, her stocking feet. Her yellow shoes were swinging from her hand. Norah remembered her, suddenly, running through a field behind their childhood home, laughter floating through the sunlit air. Be well, she thought, watching. Oh, my sister, be well.
“I’m going to take a walk,” she told Paul, who was still slouching in the backseat. She left him there and followed the gravel path to the cemetery. The iron gate pushed open easily, and Norah wandered in among the stones, gray and worn. She had not been to the grave on Bentley’s farm for years. She looked back at Paul. He was getting out of the car, stretching, his eyes masked by dark sunglasses.
The church door was red. It swung open silently when Norah touched it. The sanctuary was dim and cool, and the stained-glass windows were ablaze, jewel-like images of saints and biblical scenes, doves and fire. Norah thought of Sam’s bedroom, the riot of colors there, and how tranquil this seemed in contrast, the colors stable, fixed, falling through the air. A guest book lay open, and she signed it in her fluid script, remembering the ex-nun who had taught her cursive writing. Norah lingered. Perhaps it was simply the silence that caused her to take a few steps down the empty center aisle: silence and this sense of peace and emptiness, the way the light fell through the stained-glass windows, the dusty air. Norah walked through this light: red, dark blue, gold.
The pews smelled of furniture polish. She slid into one. There were blue velvet kneelers, a little dusty. She thought of Bree’s old sofa,