The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [16]
This would destroy her, he had said of Norah. I will not have her destroyed.
There were footsteps, drawing nearer, and then a woman with gray hair and a white uniform very much like Caroline’s stood in the doorway. She was solidly built, agile for her size, no-nonsense. In another situation, Caroline would have been favorably impressed.
“Can I help you?” she asked. “Have you been waiting long?”
“Yes,” Caroline said slowly. “I’ve been waiting for a long time, yes.”
The woman, exasperated, shook her head. “Yes, look, I’m sorry. It’s the snow. We’re short-staffed today because of it. You get as much as an inch here in Kentucky, and the whole state shuts down. I grew up in Iowa, myself, and I don’t see what all the fuss is about, but that’s just me. Now, then. What can I do for you?”
“Are you Sylvia?” Caroline asked, struggling to remember the name on the paper below the directions. She’d left it in the car. “Sylvia Patterson?”
The woman’s expression grew annoyed. “No. I am certainly not. I’m Janet Masters. Sylvia no longer works here.”
“Oh,” Caroline said, and then stopped. This woman didn’t know who she was; clearly, she hadn’t talked with Dr. Henry. Caroline, still holding the dirty diaper, dropped her hands to her sides to keep it out of sight.
Janet Masters planted her hands firmly on her hips, and her eyes narrowed. “Are you here from that formula company?” she asked, nodding across the room to the box on the sofa, the red cherubs smiling benignly. “Sylvia had something going with that rep, we all knew that, and if you’re from the same company you can just pack up your things and go.” She shook her head sharply.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Caroline said. “I’ll just go,” she added. “Really. I’m leaving. I won’t bother you again.”
But Janet Masters wasn’t finished. “Insidious, that’s what you people are. Dropping off free samples and then sending a bill for them a week later. This may be a home for the feebleminded, but it isn’t run by them, you know.”
“I know,” Caroline whispered. “I’m truly sorry.”
A bell rang, distantly, and the woman let her hands fall from her hips.
“See that you’re out of here in five minutes,” she said. “Out of here, and don’t come back.” Then she was gone.
Caroline stared at the empty doorway. A draft slid around her legs. After a moment she put the dirty diaper in the middle of the rickety piecrust table by the sofa. She felt in her pocket for her keys, then picked up the box with Phoebe in it. Quickly, before she could think about what she was doing, she went into the spartan hallway and through the double doors, the rush of cold air from the world outside as astonishing as being born.
She settled Phoebe in the car again and pulled away. No one tried to stop her; no one paid any attention at all. Still, Caroline drove fast once she reached the interstate, fatigue sluicing through her body like water down rock. For the first thirty miles she argued with herself, sometimes out loud. What have you done? she demanded severely. She argued with Dr. Henry, too, imagining the lines deepening in his forehead, the stray muscle in his cheek that leaped whenever he was upset. What are you thinking? he demanded to know, and Caroline had to confess that she had no idea whatsoever.
But the energy soon drained from these conversations, and by the time she reached the interstate she was driving mechanically, shaking her head now and then just to keep herself awake. It was late afternoon; Phoebe had been asleep for almost twelve hours. Soon she would need to be fed. Caroline hoped against hope they would be in Lexington before this happened.
She had just passed the last Frankfort exit, thirty-two miles