The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [161]
“It’s just that I miss you,” Caroline said softly. “That’s all I meant. That’s all I’m saying.” Phoebe and Robert walked ahead of them, holding hands. Caroline watched her daughter, wearing dark gloves, a scarf Robert had given her wrapped loosely around her neck. Phoebe wanted to marry Robert, to have a life with him; lately this was all she talked about. Linda, the day facility director, had warned, Phoebe’s in love. She’s twenty-four, a bit of a late bloomer, and she’s starting to discover her own sexuality, We need to discuss this, Caroline. But Caroline, unwilling to admit that anything had changed, had put the discussion off.
Phoebe walked with her head slightly bent, intent on listening; now and then her sudden laughter floated back through the dusk. Caroline inhaled the sharp cold air, feeling a surge of pleasure at her daughter’s happiness, taken back, in the same moment, to the clinic waiting room with its drooping ferns and rattling door, Norah Henry standing by the counter, pulling off her gloves to show the receptionist her wedding ring, laughing in this same way.
A lifetime ago, that was. Caroline had put those days from her mind almost completely. Then last week, while Al was still away, a letter had arrived from a law firm downtown. Caroline, puzzled, had ripped it open and read it on the porch, in the chill November air.
Please contact this office regarding an account in your name.
She called at once and stood at the window, watching the river of traffic, as the lawyer gave her the news: David Henry was dead. He’d been dead, in fact, for three months. They were contacting her to tell her about a bank account he’d left in her name. Caroline had pressed the phone to her ear, something sinking deeply and darkly through her at this news, studying the sparse remaining leaves of the sycamore trees as they fluttered in the cold morning light. The lawyer, miles away, went on talking. It was a beneficiary account: David had established it jointly in both their names, and therefore it stood outside the will and probate. They wouldn’t tell her how much was in the account, not over the phone. Caroline would have to come in to the office.
After she hung up she went back out onto the porch, where she sat for a long time in the swing, trying to take in the news. It shocked her that David had remembered her this way. It shocked her more that he’d actually died. What had she imagined? That she and David would both somehow go on forever, living their separate lives yet still connected to that moment in his office when he stood up and put Phoebe in her arms? That somehow, someday, whenever it suited her, she would seek him out and let him meet his daughter? Cars rushed down the hill in a steady stream. She couldn’t figure out what to do, and in the end she’d simply gone back inside and gotten ready for work, sliding the letter into the top desk drawer with the detritus of rubber bands and paper clips, waiting for Al to get home and help her gain perspective. She hadn’t mentioned it yet—he’d been so tired—but the news, unspoken, still hung in the air between them, along with Linda’s concern about Phoebe.
Light spilled from the center onto the sidewalk, the brown stems of grass. They pushed through the double glass doors into the hallway. A dance floor had been set up at the end of the hall and a disco ball turned, scattering bright shards of light over the ceiling and the walls and upturned faces. The music played, but no one was dancing. Phoebe and Robert stood on the edge of the crowd, watching the light shifting on the empty floor.
Al hung up their coats and then, to Caroline’s surprise, he took her hand. “You remember that day in the garden, the day we decided to get hitched? Let’s teach them how to rock and roll, what