The memory keeper's daughter - Kim Edwards [79]
Phoebe ran over and cupped her hands around Caroline’s ear, whispering a secret. Caroline couldn’t catch the words, just the breathless excited rush of air, and then Phoebe ran off into the sunshine again, twirling in her pale pink dress. The sunlight touched amber glints in her dark hair, and Caroline remembered Norah Henry beneath the bright clinic lights. For an instant she was stung with weariness and doubt.
Phoebe stopped in her twirling, arms held out to keep her balance. Then she gave a shout and ran headlong across the lawn and up the steps to where Al stood, looking down, a brightly wrapped package in one hand for Phoebe and bunch of lilacs that Caroline knew were for her.
Her heart lifted. He had courted her with a slow, persistent patience, showing up, solid and steady, week after week, offering a fistful of flowers or some other cheerful gift, the pleasure on his face so real that she could not bear to turn him away. Yet she’d held herself back from him, not trusting this love that had come so unexpectedly, from such an unexpected source. Now she stood, feeling a rush of pleasure. How afraid she’d been that this time he would stay away!
“Pretty day,” he said, squatting to hug Phoebe, who flung her arms around his neck in welcome. The package contained a filmy butterfly net with a carved wooden handle, which she took at once, running off toward a bank of dark blue hydrangeas. “How did the meeting go?”
She told him the story and he listened, shaking his head.
“Well, school’s not for everyone,” he said. “I sure didn’t like it much. But Phoebe’s a sweet kid, and they shouldn’t keep her out.”
“I want her to have a place in the world,” Caroline said, realizing suddenly that it wasn’t Al’s love for her she doubted, it was his love for Phoebe.
“Honey, she has a place. It’s right here. But yeah, I think you’re right. I think you’re doing the right thing to fight for her so hard.”
“I hope you had a better week,” she said, noting the shadows beneath his eyes.
“Oh, same old, same old,” he said, sitting on the steps beside her and picking up a stick, which he started to peel. Distantly, mowers hummed; Phoebe’s little radio played “Love, Love Me, Do.” “I logged 2,398 miles this week. A record, even for me.”
He’ll ask again, Caroline thought. This was the moment; he was road weary and ready to settle down, and he’d ask. She watched his hands move deftly, swiftly, stripping the bark, and her heart surged. This time she’d say yes. But Al didn’t speak. The silence extended for so long that finally she felt pressured to break it.
“That was a nice gift,” she said, nodding across the grassy space where Phoebe was running, the net making bright arcs in the air.
“Fellow in Georgia made it,” Al said. “Nicest guy. Had a whole bunch of them he’d carved for his grandkids. We got to talking in the grocery store. He collects shortwave radios and invited me to stop by and see them. Spent the whole night talking, me and him. Now, that’s the plus of the wandering life. Oh, yeah,” he went on, reaching into his pants pocket and pulling out a white envelope. “Here’s your mail from Atlanta.”
Caroline took the envelope without comment. Inside there would be several twenty-dollar bills folded neatly into a plain white paper. Al brought them back from Cleveland, Memphis, Atlanta, Akron: cities he frequented on his runs. She told him simply that the money was for Phoebe, from her father. Al accepted this without comment, but Caroline’s feelings were more complex. Sometimes she dreamed she was walking through Norah Henry’s house, taking things from the shelves and the cupboards, filling a cloth bag, happy until she came upon Norah Henry standing by a window, her expression distant and infinitely sad. She’d wake, trembling, and get up and make herself some tea, sitting in the darkness. When the money came she put it in the bank and didn’t think about