The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [37]
“Hey—did your old house sell?” Bree asked, putting her glass on the counter. “Did you decide to take the offer?”
“I don’t know,” Norah said. “It’s lower than we hoped. David wants to accept it, just to have it settled, but I don’t know. It was our home. I still hate to let it go.”
She thought of their first house, standing dark and empty with a FOR SALE sign planted in the yard, and felt as if the world had become very fragile. She held on to the counter to steady herself and took another sip of wine.
“So how’s your love life these days?” Norah asked, changing the subject. “How are things with that guy you were seeing—what was his name—Jeff?”
“Oh, him.” A dark expression crossed Bree’s face, and she shook her head, as if to clear it. “I didn’t tell you? I came home two weeks ago and found him in bed—in my bed—with this sweet young thing who worked with us on the mayoral campaign.”
“Oh! I’m sorry.”
Bree shook her head. “Don’t be. It’s not like I loved him or anything. We were just good, you know, together. At least I thought so.”
“You didn’t love him?” Norah repeated, hearing and hating her mother’s disapproving voice coming from her own mouth. She did not want to be that person, drinking cups of tea in the orderly silent house of their childhood. But neither did she want to be the person she seemed to be becoming, set loose by grief into a world that made no sense.
“No,” Bree was saying. “No, I didn’t love him, though for a while I thought I might. But that’s not even the point anymore. The point is he turned our whole thing into a cliché. I hate that more than anything—being part of a cliché.”
Bree put her empty glass on the counter and shifted Paul into her other arm. Her face, unadorned, was delicate, finely boned; her cheeks, her lips, were flushed pale pink.
“I couldn’t live like you do,” Norah said. Since Paul was born, since Phoebe had died, she’d felt the need to keep a constant vigil, as if a second’s inattention would open the door for disaster. “I just couldn’t do it—break all the rules. Blow everything up.”
“The world doesn’t end,” Bree said quietly. “Amazing, but it really doesn’t.”
Norah shook her head. “It could. At any given moment, anything at all could happen.”
“I know,” Bree told her. “Honey, I know.” Norah’s earlier irritation was washed away by a sudden rush of gratitude. Bree would always listen and respond, would not demand anything less than the truth of her experience. “You’re right, Norah, anything can happen, any time. But what goes wrong is not your fault. You can’t spend the rest of your life tiptoeing around to try and avert disaster. It won’t work. You’ll just end up missing the life you have.”
Norah did not know how to answer this, so she reached for Paul, who was squirming in Bree’s arms, hungry, his long hair—too long, but Norah couldn’t bear to cut it—drifting slightly, as if underwater, whenever he moved.
Bree poured more wine for them both and took an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter. Norah cut up chunks of cheese and bread and banana, scattering them across the tray of Paul’s high chair. She sipped from her wine as she worked. Gradually, the world around her became clearer somehow, more vivid. She noticed Paul’s hands, like small starfish, spreading carrots in his hair. The kitchen light cast shadows through the back porch railing onto the grass, patterns of darkness and light.
“I bought David a camera for our anniversary,” Norah said, wishing she could capture these fleeting instants, hold them forever. “He’s been working so hard since he took this new job. He needs a distraction. I can’t believe he has to work tonight.”
“You know what?” Bree said. “Why don’t I take Paul anyway? I mean, who knows, David might get home early enough for dinner. So what if it’s midnight? Why not? You could just skip dinner then, sweep away the plates and make love on the dining room table.”
“Bree!”
Bree laughed. “Please, Norah? I’d love to take him.”
“He needs a bath,” Norah said.
“That’s okay,” Bree said.