The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [33]
“It’s in your hands,” he said, releasing her. “I leave it to you. I believe the home in Louisville is the right place for this child. I don’t make the decision lightly. She will need medical care she can’t get elsewhere. But whatever you have to do, I will respect that. And if you choose to call the authorities, I will take the blame. There will be no consequences for you, I promise.”
His expression was weighted. For the first time Caroline thought beyond the immediate, beyond the baby in the next room. It had not really occurred to her before that their careers were in jeopardy.
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I have to think. I don’t know what to do.”
He pulled out his wallet, emptying it. Three hundred dollars—she was shocked that he carried this much with him.
“I don’t want your money,” she said.
“It’s not for you,” he told her. “It’s for the child.”
“Phoebe. Her name is Phoebe,” Caroline said, pushing away the bills. She thought of the birth certificate, left blank but for his signature in David Henry’s haste that snowy morning. How easy it would be to type in Phoebe’s name, and her own.
“Phoebe,” he said. He stood up to go, leaving the money on the table. “Please, Caroline, don’t do anything without telling me first. That’s the only thing I ask. That you give me warning, whatever it is you decide.”
He left, then, and everything was the same as it had been: the clock on the mantel, the square of light on the floor, the sharp shadows of bare branches. In a few weeks the new leaves would come, feathering out on the trees and changing the shapes on the floors. She had seen all this so many times, and yet the room seemed strangely impersonal now, as if she had never lived here at all. Over the years she had bought very few things for herself, being naturally frugal and imagining, always, that her real life would happen elsewhere. The plaid sofa, the matching chair—she liked this furniture well enough, she had chosen it herself, but she saw now that she could easily leave it. Leave all of it, she supposed, looking around at the framed prints of landscapes, the wicker magazine rack by the sofa, the low coffee table. Her own apartment seemed suddenly no more personal than a waiting room in any clinic in town. And what else, after all, had she been doing here all these years but waiting?
She tried to silence her thoughts. Surely there was another, less dramatic way. That’s what her mother would have said, shaking her head, telling her not to play Sarah Bernhardt. Caroline hadn’t known for years who Sarah Bernhardt was, but she knew well enough her mother’s meaning: any excess of emotion was a bad thing, disruptive to the calm order of their days. So Caroline had checked all her emotions, as one would check a coat. She had put them aside and imagined that she’d retrieve them later, but of course she never had, not until she had taken the baby from Dr. Henry’s arms. So something had begun, and now she could not stop it. Twin threads ran through her: fear and excitement. She could leave this place today. She could start a new life somewhere else. She would have to do that, anyway, no matter what she decided to do about the baby. This was a small town; she couldn’t go to the grocery store without running into an acquaintance. She imagined Lucy Martin’s eyes growing wide, the secret pleasure as she relayed Caroline’s lies, her affection for this discarded baby. Poor old spinster, people would say of her, longing so desperately for a baby of her own.
I’ll leave it in your hands, Caroline. His face aged, clenched like a walnut.
The next morning, Caroline woke early. It was a beautiful day and she opened the windows, letting in the fresh air and the scent of spring. Phoebe had woken twice in the night, and while she slept Caroline had packed and carried her things to the car in the darkness. She had very little, as it turned out, just a few suitcases that would fit