The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [76]
Lentils scattered on the floor as the boy dropped his shovel and ran into the hall. Phoebe followed, braids flying, headed for the green room with its easels and its pots of paint.
“This place has been so good for her,” Doro said.
Caroline nodded. “I wish the Board of Education could see her here.”
“You have a strong argument, and a good lawyer. You’ll be fine.”
Caroline glanced at her watch. Her friendship with Sandra had grown into a political force, and today the Upside Down Society, over 500 members strong, would ask the school board to include their children in public schools. Their chances were good, but Caroline was still very nervous. So much rested on this decision.
A speeding child careened past Doro, who caught him gently by the shoulders. Doro’s hair was pure white now, in striking contrast to her dark eyes, her smooth olive skin. She swam every morning and she’d taken up golf, and lately Caroline often caught her smiling to herself, as if she had a secret.
“It’s so good of you to come today to cover for me,” Caroline said, pulling on her coat.
Doro waved her hand. “Don’t mention it. I’d much rather be here, actually, than fighting with the department over my father’s papers.” Her voice was weary, but a smile flickered across her face.
“Doro, if I didn’t know better, I’d guess you were in love.”
Doro only laughed. “What a bold conjecture,” she said. “And speaking of love, can I expect Al this afternoon? It’s Friday, after all.”
The patterns of light and shadow in the sycamores were so soothing, like moving water. It was Friday, yes, but Caroline hadn’t heard from Al all week. Usually he called from the road, from Columbus or Atlanta or even Chicago. He’d asked her to marry him twice this year; each time her heart had flared with possibility, and each time she’d said no. They had argued on his last visit—You hold me at arm’s length, he’d complained—and he’d left angry, without saying goodbye.
“We’re just close friends, Al and I. It’s not that easy.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Doro said. “Nothing’s simpler.”
So it was love, Caroline thought. She kissed Phoebe’s soft cheek and went away in Leo’s old Buick: black, vast, with a ride like a boat. In the last year of his life Leo had grown frail, spending most of his days in an armchair near the window with a book in his lap, gazing out at the street. One day Caroline had found him slumped, his gray hair sticking up at an awkward angle, his skin—even his lips—so pale. Dead. She knew this before she touched him. She took off his glasses, placed her fingertips on his eyelids, and drew them closed. Once they had taken his body away she sat in his chair, trying to imagine what his life had been like, the tree branches moving silently outside the window, her own footsteps, and Phoebe’s, making patterns on his ceiling. “Oh, Leo,” she’d said out loud, to the empty air. “I’m sorry you were so alone.”
After his funeral, a quiet affair crowded with physics professors and gardenias, Caroline offered to leave, but Doro wouldn’t hear of it. I’m used to you. I’m used to the company. No, you stay. We’ll take it day by day.
Caroline drove across the city she had come to love, this tough, gritty, strikingly beautiful city with its soaring buildings and ornate bridges and vast parks, its neighborhoods tucked into every emerald hill. She found a parking spot on the narrow street and entered the building, its stone darkened by decades of coal smoke. She walked through the foyer with its high ceilings and intricate mosaic floor and climbed two flights of stairs. The wooden door was darkly stained, with a panel of cloudy glass and tarnished brass numbers: 304B.