The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [158]
“It’s Michelle,” Paul said, already standing. “I’ll be right back. It’s Michelle.”
Norah watched him move toward her as if pulled by gravity, Michelle’s face lifting at the sight of him. He cupped her face lightly in his hands as they kissed, and then she raised her hand and their palms touched briefly, lightly, a gesture so intimate that Norah looked away. They crossed the park then, heads bent, talking. At one point they paused, and Michelle rested her hand on Paul’s arm, and Norah knew he had told her.
“Mrs. Henry,” she said, shaking hands when they reached the bench. Her fingers were long and cool. “I am so sorry about Paul’s father.”
Her accent, too, was faintly exotic: she had spent many years in London. For a few minutes they all stood in the garden, talking. Paul suggested that they go for dinner, and Norah was tempted to say yes. She wanted to sit with Paul and talk long into the night, but she hesitated, aware that between Paul and Michelle there was a warmth, a radiance, a restlessness to be alone. She thought of Frederic again, perhaps already back in their pension, his tie falling across the back of a chair.
“How about tomorrow?” she said. “What if we meet for breakfast? I want to hear all about your trip. I want to know all about the flamenco guitarists in Seville.”
On the street, walking to the metro, Michelle took Norah’s arm. Paul walked just ahead of them, broad-shouldered, lanky.
“You raised a wonderful son,” she said. “I’m so sorry I won’t get to know his father.”
“That would have been hard in any case—to get to know him. But yes, I’m sorry too.” They walked a few steps. “Have you enjoyed your tour?”
“Oh, it’s a wonderful freedom, traveling,” Michelle observed.
It was a soft evening, the bright lights of the metro station a shock as they descended. A train clattered in the distance, echoed through the tunnel. There were mingled scents: perfume and, underneath, the sharper tang of metal, oil.
“Come by around nine tomorrow,” Norah told Paul, raising her voice over the noise. And then, as the train came nearer, she leaned forward, close to his ear, shouting.
“He loved you! He was your father, and he loved you!”
Paul’s face opened for an instant: grief and loss. He nodded. There was no time for more. The train was rushing now, rushing toward them all, and in its sudden wind she felt her heart fill up. Her son, here in the world. And David, mysteriously, gone. The train stopped, squealing, and the hydraulic doors burst open with a sigh. Norah got on and sat by the window, watching a flash, a final glimpse of Paul, walking, his hands in his pockets, his head down. There, then gone.
By the time she reached her stop, the air had filled up with the grainy light of dusk. She walked across cobblestones to the pension, painted pale yellow and faintly luminous, its window boxes spilling flowers. The room was quiet, her own strewn things undisturbed; Frederic had not arrived. Norah went to the window overlooking the river and stood there for a moment, thinking of David carrying Paul on his shoulders through their first house, thinking of the day he had proposed, shouting at her over the rush of water, the cool ring slipping down her finger. Thinking of Paul’s hand and Michelle’s, palm to palm.
She went to the little desk and wrote a note: Frederic, I am in the courtyard.
The courtyard, lined with potted palms, overlooked the Seine. Tiny lights were woven into the trees, the iron railings. Norah sat where she could see the river and ordered a glass of wine. She’d left her book somewhere—probably in the garden at the Louvre. Its loss filled her with a vague regret. It was not the sort of book one bought twice, just something light, something to pass the time. Something about two sisters. Now she would never know how the story ended.
Two sisters. Maybe someday she and Bree would write a book. The thought made Norah smile, and the man who was sitting at an adjacent table, dressed in a white suit, a tiny aperitif glass by his hand, smiled back. So these things began: there was