The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [39]
“I know it’s you,” she said. “Paul’s fine. We read a book and had a bath and now he’s sound asleep.”
“Oh, good. Yes, wonderful,” Norah said. She had intended to tell Bree about this shimmering world, but now it seemed too private somehow, a secret.
“How about you?” Bree was saying. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Norah said. “David’s not here yet, but I’m fine.”
She hung up fast, poured herself another glass of wine, and stepped onto the porch, where she lifted her face to the sky. A light mist hung in the air. Now the wine seemed to move through her like heat or light, spreading out through her limbs to her fingertips and toes. When she turned, her body once again seemed to float for an instant, as if she were sliding out of herself. She remembered their car, traveling over the icy roads as if airborne, swerving slightly before David got it under control. People were right; she couldn’t remember the pain of labor, but she had never forgotten that feeling in the car of the world slipping, spinning, and her hands holding fast to the cold dashboard while David, methodical, stopped at every light.
Where was he, she wondered, sudden tears in her eyes, and why had she married him anyway? Why had he wanted her so much? Those whirlwind weeks after they met he’d been at her apartment every day, offering roses and dinners and drives in the country. Christmas Eve the doorbell rang and she went to answer it in her old robe, expecting Bree. Instead, she opened the door to find David, his face flushed with cold, brightly wrapped boxes in his arms. It was late, he said, he knew that, but would she come with him for a drive?
No, she said, and You’re crazy! but all the time she was laughing at the wildness of it, laughing and stepping back and letting him in, this man on her steps holding his flowers and his gifts. She was amazed and pleased and a little astonished. There had been moments, watching others go off to sorority parties, or sitting on her stool in the windowless room of the telephone company while coworkers planned their weddings down to the last corsage and party mint, when Norah, so quiet and reserved, believed she would be single all her life. Yet here was David, handsome, a doctor, standing in the doorway of her apartment saying, Come on, please, there’s something special I want you to see.
It had been a clear night, stars vivid in the sky. Norah sat on the wide vinyl front seat of David’s old car. She was wearing a red wool dress and she felt beautiful, the air so crisp and David’s hands on the wheel and the car traveling through the darkness, through the cold, traveling on smaller and smaller roads, into a landscape she did not recognize. He pulled to a stop beside an old flour mill. They stepped out of the car into the sound of rushing water. Black water caught the moonlight and poured over the rocks, turning the mill’s great wheel. The building stood darkly against the darker sky, obscuring stars, and the air was filled with the rushing, spilling sounds of the water.
“Are you cold?” David asked, shouting over the stream, and Norah laughed, shivering, and said, No; no, she was not, she was fine.
“What about your hands?” he shouted, his voice ringing, cascading like the water. “You didn’t bring any gloves.”
“I’m fine,” she shouted back, but he was already taking her hands in his, pressing them to his chest, warming them between his gloves and the dark flecked wool of his coat.
“It’s beautiful here!” she called to him, and he laughed. Then he leaned down and kissed her, releasing her hands and letting his own slide inside her coat and up her back. Water rushed, echoing off the rocks.
“Norah,” he shouted, his voice part of the night, rolling like the stream, the words clear and yet small amid the other sounds. “Norah! Will you marry me?”
She laughed, letting her head fall back, the night air pouring over