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By Root 1215 0

practically, in crisp dark-blue pants. She wore a white cotton sweater with short sleeves, and her thick hair was gray and cut very short. Even at first glance she gave the impression of being organized, efficient, the sort of person who wouldn’t stand for any sort of nonsense, the sort of person who took charge of the world and got things done. She didn’t speak, however. She seemed startled to see Norah, taking her in so intently that Norah folded her arms defensively, aware suddenly of her dust-streaked shorts, her sweat-damp T-shirt. She glanced across the street, then looked back at the woman on her porch. She caught the woman’s gaze and focused on her wide-set eyes, so blue, and then she knew.

Her breath snagged. “Caroline? Caroline Gill?”

The woman nodded, her blue eyes falling shut for a moment as if something had been settled between them. But Norah did not know what. The presence of this woman from the long-lost past had set up a fluttering deep in her heart, taking her back to that dreamlike night when she and David had ridden to the clinic through the silent snow-filled streets, when Caroline Gill had administered gas and held her hand during the contractions, saying Look at me, look at me now, Mrs. Henry, I’m right here with you and you’re doing just fine. Those blue eyes, the steady grip of her hand, as deeply woven into the fabric of those moments as her memory of David’s methodical driving or Paul’s first fluted cry.

“What are you doing here?” Norah asked. “David died a year ago.”

“I know,” Caroline said, nodding. “I know, I’m so sorry. Look, Norah—Mrs. Henry—I have something I need to talk with you about, something rather difficult. I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes. When it’s convenient. I can come back if this isn’t a good time.”

There was both an urgency and a firmness in her voice, and against her better judgment Norah found herself stepping back and letting Caroline Gill step into the foyer. Boxes, neatly filled and taped, were stacked against the walls. “You’ll have to excuse the house,” she said. She gestured to the living room, the furniture all pushed to the center of the room. “I have painters coming in to give some bids. And a furniture appraiser. I’m getting married again,” she added. “I’m moving.”

“I’m glad I caught you then,” Caroline said. “I’m glad I didn’t wait.”

Caught me why? Norah wondered, but from force of habit she invited Caroline into the kitchen, the only place they could comfortably sit. As they walked through the dining room, not speaking, Norah remembered the abruptness of Caroline’s disappearance, the scandal. She glanced back twice, unable to shake the strange sensations Caroline’s presence had stirred. Sunglasses hung from a chain around Caroline’s neck. Her features had grown stronger over the years, her nose and chin more pronounced. She’d be formidable, Norah decided, in a business situation. Not a person to be taken lightly. Still, Norah realized, her uneasiness came from another source. Caroline had known her as a different person—a woman young and unsure, embedded in a life and a past she was not particularly proud to remember.

Caroline took a seat in the breakfast nook while Norah filled two glasses with ice and water. David’s final note—I fixed the bathroom sink. Happy Birthday—was tacked onto the bulletin board just behind Caroline’s shoulder. Norah thought impatiently of the photos waiting in the garage, of all she had to do that couldn’t wait.

“You’ve got bluebirds,” Caroline observed, nodding at the wild, chaotic garden.

“Yes. It took years to attract them. I hope the next people will feed them.”

“It must be strange to be moving.”

“It’s time,” Norah said, getting out two coasters and putting the glasses on the table. She sat down. “But you didn’t come to ask about that.”

“No.”

Caroline took a drink, then placed her hands flat on the table as if, Norah sensed, to steady them. But when she spoke she seemed calm, resolved.

“Norah—may I call you Norah? That’s how I’ve thought of you, all these years.”

Norah nodded, still perplexed, increasingly