The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [35]
Caroline drove fast, feeling reckless, her heart filling with an excitement as bright as the day. Because, really, what could ill omens matter now? After all, the child who rode beside her was, in the eyes of the world, already dead. And she, Caroline Gill, was vanishing from the face of the earth, a process that left her feeling light, then lighter, as if the car itself had begun to float high over the quiet fields of southern Ohio. All that sunny afternoon, traveling north and east, Caroline believed absolutely in the future. And why not? For if the worst had already happened to them in the eyes of the world, then surely, surely, it was the worst that they left behind them now.
1965
February 1965
NORAH STOOD, BAREFOOT AND PRECARIOUSLY BALANCED, on a stool in the dining room, fastening pink streamers to the brass chandelier. Chains of paper hearts, pink and magenta, floated down over the table, trailing across her wedding china, the dark red roses and gilded rims, the lace tablecloth, the linen napkins. As she worked the furnace hummed and strands of crepe paper wafted up, brushing against her skirt, then falling softly against the floor again, rustling.
Paul, eleven months old, sat in the corner beside an old grape basket full of wooden blocks. He had just learned to walk, and all afternoon he’d amused himself by stomping through this, their new house, in his first pair of shoes. Every room was an adventure. He had dropped nails down the registers, delighting in the echoes they made. He’d dragged a sack of joint compound through the kitchen, leaving a narrow white trail in his wake. Now, wide-eyed, he watched the streamers, as beautiful and elusive as butterflies, then pulled himself up on a chair and staggered in pursuit. He caught one pink strand and yanked, swaying the chandelier. Then he lost his balance and sat down hard. Astonished, he began to cry.
“Oh, sweetie,” Norah said, climbing down to pick him up. “There, there,” she murmured, running her hand over his soft dark hair.
Outside, headlights flashed and disappeared and a car door slammed. At the same time, the phone began to ring. Norah carried Paul into the kitchen and picked up the receiver just as someone knocked on the door.
“Hello?” She pressed her lips to Paul’s forehead, damp and soft, straining to see whose car was in the driveway. Bree wasn’t due for an hour. “Sweet baby,” she whispered. And then into the phone she said again, “Hello?”
“Mrs. Henry?”
It was the nurse from David’s new office—he’d joined the hospital staff a month ago—a woman Norah had never met. Her voice was warm and full: Norah pictured a middle-aged woman, hefty and substantial, her hair in a careful beehive. Caroline Gill, who had held her hand through the rippling contractions, whose blue eyes and steady gaze were inextricably connected for Norah to that wild and snowy night, had simply disappeared—a mystery, that, and a scandal.
“Mrs. Henry, it’s Sharon Smith. Dr. Henry was called into emergency surgery just, I swear, as he was about to walk out the door and go home. There was a horrible accident out off Leestown Road. Teenagers, you know; they’re pretty badly hurt. Dr. Henry asked me to call. He’ll be home as soon as he can.”
“Did he say how long?” Norah asked. The air was redolent with roast pork, sauerkraut, and oven potatoes: David’s favorite meal.
“He didn’t. But they say it was an awful wreck. Between you and me, honey, it may end up being hours.”
Norah nodded. Distantly, the front door opened, shut. There were footsteps, light and familiar, in the foyer, the living room, the dining room: Bree, early, coming to pick up Paul, to give Norah and David this evening before Valentine’s Day, their anniversary, to themselves.
Norah’s plan, her surprise, her gift to him.
“Thank you,” she told the nurse, before she hung up. “Thanks for calling.”
Bree walked into the kitchen, bringing with her the scent of rain. Below her long raincoat she wore black boots to her knees, and