The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [50]
Caroline couldn’t answer. There was pleasure at the sight of him but a great confusion too. For nearly a year she had not let herself think too long or too hard about the life she had left, but now it rose up with great force and intensity: the scent of cleaning fluid and sun in the waiting room and the way it felt to come home to her tranquil, orderly apartment after a long day, fix herself a modest meal, and sit down for the evening with a book. She had given up those pleasures willingly; she had embraced this change out of some deep unacknowledged yearning. Now her heart was pounding, and she stared wildly down the alley, as if she might suddenly see David Henry too. This, she understood suddenly, was why she had never sent that letter. What if he wanted Phoebe back—or Norah did? The possibility filled her with an excruciating rush of fear.
“How did you do it?” Caroline demanded. “How did you find me? Why?”
Al, taken aback, shrugged. “I stopped in Lexington to stay hello. Your place was empty. Being painted. That neighbor of yours told me you’d been gone three weeks. Guess I don’t like mysteries, because I kept thinking of you.” He paused, as if debating whether or not to go on. “Plus—hell, I liked you, Caroline, and I figured you were in some kind of trouble, to cut out like you did. You sure had trouble written all over you, standing in the parking lot that day. I figured maybe I could lend you a hand. I figured maybe you might need it.”
“I’m doing just fine,” she said. “So. What do you figure now?”
She hadn’t meant the words to come out as they did, so tough and harsh. There was a long silence before Al spoke again.
“I guess I figure I was wrong about some things,” Al said. He shook his head. “I thought we hit it off, you and me.”
“We did,” Caroline said. “I’m just shocked, that’s all. I thought I’d cut my ties.”
He looked at her then; his brown eyes met hers.
“It took me a full year,” he said. “If you’re worried about someone else tracking you down, remember that. And I knew where to start, and I had good luck. I started checking the motels I know, asking about a woman with a baby. Each time I went to a different place, and last week I hit pay dirt. The clerk at the place you stayed remembered you. She’s retiring next week, by the way.” He held his thumb and forefinger up, close together. “I came this close to missing you forever.”
Caroline nodded, remembering the woman behind the desk with her white hair in a careful beehive, pearl earrings glimmering. The motel had been in her family for fifty years. The heat rattled all night, and the walls were constantly damp, peeling the paper. You never knew, anymore, the woman said, pushing a key across the counter, who was going to walk through the door.
Al nodded at the powder-blue hood of the Fairlane.
“I knew I’d found you the minute I saw that,” he said. “How’s your baby?”
She remembered the empty parking lot, all the light that had spilled into the snow and faded, the way his hand had rested, so gently, on Phoebe’s tiny forehead.
“Do you want to come in?” she heard herself ask. “I was just about to wake her. I’ll make you some tea.”
Caroline took him down the narrow sidewalk and up the steps to the back porch. She left him in the living room and climbed the stairs, feeling giddy, unsteady, as if she’d suddenly become aware that the planet beneath her turned in space, shifting her world no matter how hard she tried to hold it still. She changed Phoebe and splashed water on her own face, trying to calm herself down.
Al was sitting at the dining room table, looking out the window. When she came down the stairs he turned, his face breaking into a wide grin. He reached for Phoebe at once, exclaiming over how big she’d grown, how beautiful she was. Caroline