The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [60]
Now he paused to squat beside another little boy who was skimming leaves from the dark water of a puddle with a stick. His right knee was skinned, the Band-Aid pulling off. Sunlight glinted in his short dark hair. Norah watched him, serious and utterly absorbed in his task, overcome by the simple fact of his existence. Paul, her son. Here in the world.
“Norah Henry! Just the person I wanted to see.”
She turned to see Kay Marshall, dressed in slim pink pants and a cream and pink sweater, gold leather flats, and glimmering gold earrings. She was pushing her newborn in an antique wicker carriage while Elizabeth, her oldest, walked by her side. Elizabeth, born a week after Paul, in the sudden spring that had followed that strange and sudden snow. She was dressed this morning in pink dotted Swiss and white patent leather shoes. Impatiently, she pulled away from Kay and ran off across the playground to the swings.
“It’s such a pretty day,” Kay said, watching her go. “How are you, Norah?”
“I’m fine,” Norah said, resisting the impulse to touch her hair, acutely aware of her plain white blouse and blue skirt, her lack of jewelry. No matter when or where Norah saw her, Kay Marshall was always like this: calm and cool, coordinated to the last detail, her children perfectly dressed and well-behaved. Kay was the sort of mother Norah had always imagined that she herself would be, handling every situation with a relaxed and instinctive calm. Norah admired her, and she envied her too. Sometimes she even caught herself thinking that if she could be more like Kay, more serene and secure, her marriage might improve; she and David might be happier.
“I’m fine,” she repeated, looking at the baby, who gazed up at her with wide inquisitive eyes. “Look how big Angela is getting!”
Impulsively, Norah leaned down and picked up the baby, Kay’s second daughter, dressed in frothy pink to match her sister. She was light and warm in Norah’s arms, patting at Norah’s cheeks with her small hands, laughing. Norah felt a rush of pleasure, remembering the way Paul had felt at this age, his scent of soap and milk, his soft skin. She glanced across the playground; he was running again, playing tag. Now that he was in school, he had his own life. He no longer liked to sit and cuddle with her unless he was sick or wanted her to read him a story before bed. It seemed impossible that he had ever been this small, impossible that he’d grown into a boy with a red tricycle who thrust sticks into puddles and sang so beautifully.
“She’s ten months today,” Kay said. “Can you believe it?”
“No,” Norah said. “Time goes so fast.”
“Have you been down by the campus?” Kay asked. “Have you heard what’s happening?”
Norah nodded. “Bree called last night.” She’d stood, the phone in one hand and the other on her heart, watching grainy news on TV: four students shot dead at Kent State. Even in Lexington, tension had been building for weeks, the newspapers full of war and protests and unrest, the world volatile and shifting.
“It’s scary,” Kay said, but her tone was calm, more disapproving than dismayed, the same voice she might have used to talk about someone’s divorce. She took Angela, kissed her forehead, and put her gently back into the carriage.
“I know,” Norah agreed. She used the same tone, but to her the unrest seemed deeply personal, a reflection of what had been going on within her heart for years. For a moment she felt another sharp, deep pang of envy. Kay lived in innocence, untouched by loss, believing that she would always be safe; Norah’s world had changed when Phoebe died. All her joys were set into stark relief—by that loss and by the possibility of further loss she now glimpsed