The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [155]
Norah’s book slipped from her hand, and she leaned over to pick it up. Van Gogh’s Starry Night wheeled across the brochure she’d been using as a bookmark. When she sat up again, Paul was crossing the park.
“Oh,” she said, with the sudden rush of pleasure she always felt on seeing him: this person, her son, here in the world. She stood up. “There he is, Bree. Paul’s here!”
“He’s so handsome,” Bree observed, standing up too. “He must get that from me.”
“He must,” Norah agreed. “Though where he gets the talent is anybody’s guess, when neither one of us nor David could carry a tune in a bucket.”
Paul’s talent, yes. She watched him walk across the park. A mystery, that, and a gift.
Paul raised one hand to wave, grinning widely, and Norah started walking toward him, leaving her book on the bench. Her heart was beating with excitement and gladness, as well as grief and trepidation; she was trembling. How it changed the world, his being there! She reached Paul at last and hugged him hard. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, khaki shorts. He smelled clean, as if he had just showered. She felt his muscles through the fabric, his strong bones, the very heat of him, and she understood, just for an instant, David’s desire to fix the world in place. You couldn’t blame him, no, you couldn’t fault him for wanting to go deeper into every fleeting moment, to study its mystery, to shout against loss and change and motion.
“Hey, Mom,” Paul said, pulling back to look at her. His teeth were white, straight, perfect; he’d grown a dark beard. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said, laughing.
“Yes, fancy that.”
Bree was beside her then. She stepped forward and hugged Paul too.
“I have to go,” she said. “I was just hanging around to say hello. You’re looking good, Paul. The wandering life agrees with you.”
He smiled. “Can’t you stay?”
Bree glanced at Norah. “No,” she said. “But I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Okay,” Paul said, leaning to kiss her on the cheek. “I guess.”
Norah wiped the back of her wrist against her eye as Bree turned and walked away.
“What is it?” Paul asked; then, suddenly serious, “What’s wrong?”
“Come and sit,” she said, taking his arm.
Together, they crossed back to her bench, causing a cluster of pigeons, their feathers iridescent, to burst into flight. She picked up her book, fingering her bookmark.
“Paul, I have bad news. Your father died nine days ago. A heart attack.”
His eyes widened in shock and grief and he looked away, staring without speaking at the path he’d walked to reach her, to reach this moment.
“When was the funeral?” he asked at last.
“Last week. I’m so sorry, Paul. There was no time to find you. I thought about contacting the embassy to help me track you down, but I didn’t know where to start. So I came here today, hoping you’d show up.”
“I almost missed the train,” he said, pensive. “I almost didn’t make it.”
“But you did,” she said. “Here you are.”
He nodded and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped between them. She remembered him sitting just this way as a child, struggling to hide his sadness. He clenched his fists, then released them. She took her son’s hand in hers. His fingertips were calloused from years of playing. They sat for a long while, listening to the wind rustling through the leaves.
“It’s okay to be upset,” she said at last. “He was your father.”
Paul nodded, but his face was still closed like a fist. When he finally spoke, his voice was on the edge of breaking.
“I never thought he’d die. I never thought I’d care. It’s not like we ever really talked.”
“I know.” And she did. After the call from Bree, Norah had walked down the leaf-canopied street, weeping freely, angry with David for leaving before she’d had a chance to settle things with him, once and for all. “But before,