The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [154]
“Where is Frederic anyway?” Bree asked. “Didn’t you say he was coming?”
“He wanted to, but he got called to Orléans to work. He has some family connection there from way back. Some distant second cousin who lives in a place called Châteauneuf. Wouldn’t you like to live in a place named that?”
“They probably have traffic jams and bad hair days even there.”
“I hope not. I hope they walk to market every morning and come home with fresh bread and pots full of flowers. Anyway, I told Frederic to go. He and Paul are great friends, but it’s better that I give him this news alone.”
“Yes. I’m planning to slip away too, once he comes.”
“Thank you,” Norah said, taking her hand. “Thank you for everything. For helping so much with the funeral. I couldn’t have gotten through the last week without you.”
“You owe me big-time,” Bree said, smiling. Then she grew pensive. “I thought it was a beautiful funeral, if you can say such a thing. There were so many people. It surprised me to know how many lives David touched.”
Norah nodded. She had been surprised too, Bree’s little church filled up with people, so that by the time the service began they were standing three deep in the back. The preceding days had been a blur, Ben guiding her gently through choosing the music and the scriptures, the casket and the flowers, helping her write the obituary. Still, it had been a relief to have these concrete things to do, and Norah moved through the tasks in a protective cloud of numb efficiency—until the service began. People must have thought it odd, how deeply she’d wept then, the beautiful old words newly significant, but it was not only for David that she grieved. They had stood together at the memorial service for their daughter all those years ago, their loss even then growing between them.
“It was the clinic,” Norah said. “The clinic he ran for all those years. Most of the people had been his patients.”
“I know. It was amazing. People seemed to think he was a saint.”
“They weren’t married to him,” Norah said.
Leaves fluttered against the hot blue sky. She scanned the park again, looking for Paul, but he was nowhere in sight.
“Oh,” Norah said, “I can’t believe David is really dead.” Even now, days later, the words sent a little shock through her body. “I feel so old, somehow.”
Bree took her hand, and they sat quietly for several minutes. Bree’s palm was smooth and warm against her own, and Norah felt the moment extending, growing, as if it could contain the whole world. She remembered a similar feeling, all those long years ago when Paul was an infant and she sat in the soft dark nights, nursing him. Grown now, he stood in a train station or on the sidewalk beneath fluttering leaves or strode across a street. He paused in front of shop windows, or reached into his pocket for a ticket, or shaded his eyes against the sun. He’d grown from her body and now, astonishingly, he moved through the world without her. She thought of Frederic too, sitting in a meeting room, nodding as he scanned papers, placing his hands flat on the table as he prepared to speak. He had dark hair on his arms and long square fingernails. He shaved twice a day, and if he forgot, his new beard scraped against her neck when he pulled her close in the night, kissing her behind the ear to rouse her. He did not eat bread or sweet things; if the morning paper was late it made him exceptionally cross. All these small habits, alternately endearing