The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [169]
“Well, it’s not mine,” Al said. “Even if it’s a million dollars, it’s not mine.”
She remembered, then, how he’d responded when Doro had given them the house: this same reluctance to accept anything he hadn’t earned with his own hands.
“That’s true,” she said. “The money is for Phoebe. But you and I, we raised her. If she’s taken care of financially, we can worry less. We can have more freedom. Al, we’ve worked hard. Maybe it’s time for us to retire.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. “You want Phoebe to move?”
“No. I don’t want that at all. But Phoebe wants it. She and Robert are downstairs now.” Caroline smiled a little, remembering the sheaf of roses she’d left lying on the counter by the pile of half-peeled carrots. “They went to the grocery store together. On the bus. They bought me flowers because it’s Saturday. So, I don’t know, Al. Who am I to say? Maybe they will be okay, more or less, together.”
He nodded, thinking, and she was struck by how tired he looked, how fragile all their lives were, in the end. All these years she had tried to imagine every possibility, to keep everyone safe, and yet here was Al, grown a little older, with a broken leg—an outcome that had never crossed her mind.
“I’ll make a pot roast tomorrow,” she said, naming his favorite meal. “Will pizza be okay tonight?”
“Pizza’s fine,” Al said. “Get it from that place on Braddock, though.”
She touched his shoulder and started down the stairs to make the call. On the landing she paused, listening to Robert and Phoebe in the kitchen, their low voices punctuated by a burst of laughter. The world was a vast and unpredictable and sometimes frightening place. But right now her daughter was in the kitchen, laughing with her boyfriend, and her husband dozed with a book in his lap, and she didn’t have to cook dinner. She took a deep breath. The air held the distant scent of roses—a clean scent, fresh as snow.
1989
July 1, 1989
THE STUDIO OVER THE GARAGE, WITH ITS HIDDEN DARKROOM, had not been opened since David moved out seven years ago, but now that the house was going up for sale Norah had no choice but to face it. David’s work was in favor again, worth quite a lot of money; curators were coming tomorrow to view the collection. So Norah had been sitting on the painted floor since early morning, slicing through boxes with an X-Acto knife, lifting out folders full of photographs and negatives and notes, determined to remained detached, to be ruthless, in this process of selection. It should not have taken long; David had been so meticulous, and everything was neatly labeled. A single day, she’d thought, no more.
She hadn’t counted on memory, the slow lure of the past. It was early afternoon already, growing hot, and she had only made it through one box. A fan whirred in the window and a fine sweat gathered on her skin; the glossy photos stuck to her fingertips. They seemed at once so near and so impossible, those years of her youth. There she was with a scarf tied gaily in her carefully styled hair, Bree beside her in sweeping earrings, a flowing patchwork skirt. And here was a rare photo of David, so serious, with a crew cut, Paul just an infant in his arms. Memories rushed up, too, filling the room, holding Norah in place: the scents of lilacs and ozone and Paul’s infant skin; David’s touch, the clearing of his throat; the sunlight of a lost afternoon moving in patterns on the wooden floors. What had it meant, Norah asked herself, that they had lived these moments in this particular way? What did it mean that the photos did not fit at all with the woman she remembered being? If she looked closely she could see it, the distance and longing in her gaze, the way she always seemed to be looking just beyond the photo’s edge. But a stranger wouldn’t notice, Paul wouldn’t; from these images alone no one could suspect the intricate mysteries of her heart.
A wasp roamed and floated near the ceiling. Each year they returned and built a nest somewhere in the eaves. Now that Paul was grown, Norah had