The Memory Keeper's Daughter

  “And pushing a vacuum cleaner is?”

  Norah thought of the wild rush of wind, of the Ohio, swirling, only eighty miles away. She pressed her lips together and did not answer.

  “You make me so crazy, Norah. Why are you afraid of change? Why can’t you just be and let the world unfold?”

  “I am,” she said. “I am being. You have no idea!”

  “You’re sticking your head in the sand. That’s what I see.”

  “You don’t see anything but the next available man.”

  “All right. We’re done.” Bree took a single step and was immediately swallowed by the crowd: a flash of color, then gone.

  Norah stood for a moment beneath the catalpas, trembling with an anger she knew to be unaccountable. What was wrong with her? How could she envy Kay Marshall one moment and Bree the next, for such completely different reasons?

  She made her way back through the crowd to her car. After the turbulence and drama of the protest, the city streets seemed flat, bleached of color, ominously ordinary. Too much time had passed; she had only two hours before she needed to fetch Paul. Not time enough for the river now. At home, in her sunny kitchen, Norah made herself a gin and tonic. The glass was solid and cool in her hand, and the ice tinkled with reassuring brightness. In the living room she paused before the photograph of herself standing on the natural stone bridge. When she remembered that day—their hike and their picnic—she never thought of this moment. Instead, she remembered the world spreading out below her, the sun and the air on her skin. Let me take your picture, David had called, insistent, and she’d turned to find him, kneeling, focusing, intent on preserving a moment that never really existed. She’d been right about that camera, to her own regret. David, fascinated to the point of obsession, had built a darkroom above the garage.

  David. How was it that he grew more mysterious to her as the years passed, as well as more familiar? He had left a pair of amber cuff links on the console beneath the photos. Norah picked these up and held them in her palm, listening to the clock tick softly in the living room. The stones warmed in her hand; she was comforted by their smoothness. She found rocks everywhere, clustered in David’s pockets, scattered on the dresser, tucked into envelopes in the desk. Sometimes she glimpsed David and Paul in the backyard, their heads bent together over some likely looking stone. Watching them, her heart always opened with a kind of wary gladness. Such moments were rare; David was so busy these days. Stop, Norah wanted to say. Take a minute. Spend some time. Your son is growing so fast.

  Norah slipped the cuff links in her pocket and took her drink outside. She stood below the papery nest, watching the wasps circle it and disappear inside. Now and then one flew close to her, drawn to the sweet smell of gin. She sipped and watched. Her muscles, her very cells, were relaxing in a fluid chain reaction, as if she had swallowed the warmth of the day. She finished the drink, put the glass down on the driveway, and went to find her garden gloves and hat, stepping around Paul’s tricycle. He was already too big for it; she should pack it away with the other things: his baby clothes, his outgrown toys. David did not want more children, and now that Paul was in school she had given up arguing with him about it. It was hard to imagine going back to diapers and 2 A.M. feedings, though she often longed to hold another baby in her arms: like Angela this morning, the sweet warmth and weight of her. How lucky Kay was and didn’t even know it.

  Norah pulled on her gloves and stepped back into the sun. She had no experience with wasps or bees, except for one sting on her toe when she was eight, which had hurt for an hour and healed. When Paul picked the dead bee off the floor and cried out in pain she’d felt no panic at all. Ice for the swelling, a long hug in the porch swing; all would be well. But the swelling and the redness had started in his hand and quickly spread. His face grew puffy, and she’d called for David with fear in her voice. He’d known right away what was happening, what shot to give. Within moments Paul began to breathe more easily. No harm done, David said. That was true, but it still made her sick with fear. What if David had not been home?

  She watched the wasps for a few minutes, thinking of the protesters on the hill, the shimmering, unsteady world. She’d done what was expected of her, always. She had gone to college and taken a little job; she had married well. Yet since the birth of her children—Paul, careening down the slide with his arms outflung, and Phoebe, present somehow through her absence, arriving in dreams, standing on the unseen edge of every moment—Norah could no longer understand the world in the same way. Her loss had left her feeling helpless, and she fought that helplessness by filling up her days.

  Now she studied the tools with purpose. She would deal with these insects herself.

  The long-handled hoe was heavy in her hands. She lifted it slowly and took a bold swipe at the nest, the blade slicing easily through the papery skin. It thrilled her, the power of that initial strike. But as she pulled the hoe back, wasps, furious and determined, poured out of the torn nest and flew straight after her. One stung her wrist, another her cheek. She dropped the hoe and ran inside, slamming the door and standing with her back pressed against it, breathless.

  Outside, the swarm circled, buzzing angrily around the ruined nest. Some wasps landed on the windowsill, their delicate wings moving lightly. Swarming, angry—they made her think of the students she had seen that morning; they made her think of herself. She went into the kitchen and made another drink, dabbing some gin on her cheek and her wrist, where the stings were beginning to swell. The gin was crisp, delightful, filling her with a warm, fluid sense of well-being and power. She had an hour, still, before she’d leave to pick Paul up.

  “All right, you damned wasps,” she said out loud. “You’ve had it now.”

  There was insect repellent in the closet, above the coats and shoes and the vacuum cleaner—a steel-blue Electrolux, brand new. Norah remembered Bree, brushing blond hair from her cheek. Pushing a vacuum—is that what you want for your life?

  Norah was halfway out the door when she had the idea.

  The wasps were busy, already reassembling the nest, and they seemed not to notice Norah when she came outside again, carrying the Electrolux. The machine sat in the driveway, as incongruous and odd as a steel-blue pig. Norah put her gloves back on, her hat, and a jacket. She wrapped a scarf around her face. She plugged the vacuum in and turned it on, letting it hum for a moment, sounding strangely small in the open air, before she picked up the nozzle. Boldly, she stuck it into what remained of the nest. The wasps buzzed and rushed with anger—her cheek and arm stung just at the sight of them—but they were quickly sucked in with a rattling sound, like acorns bouncing on the roof. She waved the nozzle in the air, a magic wand, collecting all the angry insects, shredding the delicate nest. Soon she had them all. She kept the vacuum running while she looked for some way to cover the nozzle; she didn’t want these wasps, so industrious and single-minded, to escape. It was such a warm sunny day, and the drinks had left her so relaxed. She stuck the nozzle into the dirt, but the machine began to make a straining sound. Then she noticed the tailpipe of the car: yes, the nozzle fit on it perfectly. Deeply satisfied, overcome with accomplishment, Norah turned the machine off and went inside.

  At the bathroom sink, sun pouring in through the frosted windows, she undid the scarf and took off her hat, studying her image in the mirror. Dark green eyes and blond hair and a face made thin by worry. Her hair was flattened, and her skin was filmed with sweat. An angry red welt rose on her cheek. She bit lightly at the inside of her lip, wondering what David saw when he looked at her. Wondering who was she, really, trying to fit in with Kay Marshall one minute and Bree’s friends the next, driving wildly to the river, never in a place that felt like home? Which of those selves did David see? Or was it another woman entirely who slept beside him every night? Herself, yes, but not as she would ever see herself. And not as he had once seen her, either, anymore than she saw the man she had married each night when David came home, hung his suit ja
cket carefully over a chair, and snapped open the evening paper.

  She dried her hands and went to put ice on her swollen cheek. The wasp nest hung tattered and empty from the eave of the garage. The Electrolux stood squatly in the driveway, connected to the tailpipe of the car by its long pleated hose, a silver umbilical cord that flashed in the sun. She imagined David coming home to find the wasps gone, the backyard decorated, the party planned down to the last perfect detail. He would be surprised, she hoped, and pleased.

  She glanced at her watch. It was time to get Paul. On the back steps Norah paused, groping in her purse for the house keys. A strange noise from the driveway made her look up. It was a kind of buzzing, and at first she thought the wasps were starting to escape. But the blue air was clear, empty. The buzzing became a sizzling, and then there was the electrical scent of ozone, burning wires. These, Norah realized with a kind of slow wonder, were all coming from the Electrolux. She hurried down the steps. Her feet hit the blacktop, her hand was reaching through the bright spring air, when suddenly the Electrolux exploded and sprang out of reach, careening across the grassy lawn and hitting the fence so hard it broke a plank. The blue machine fell amid the rhododendrons, smoke billowing out in oily clouds, whining like a wounded animal.

  Norah stood still with her hand outstretched, as frozen in time as any of David’s photographs, trying to take in what had happened. A piece of the tailpipe had been pulled from the car. Seeing this, she understood: the gasoline fumes must have gathered in the vacuum cleaner’s still-hot engine, causing it to explode. Norah thought of Paul, allergic to bees, a boy with a voice like a flute, who might have been in its path if he’d been home.

  As she watched, a wasp drifted out of the smoky tailpipe and flew off.

  Somehow, this was too much for Norah. Her hard work, her ingenuity, and now, despite everything, the wasps were going to escape. She crossed the lawn. With one swift, unhesitating motion, she opened the Electrolux, reached in through the bloom of smoke to pull out the paper bag full of dust and insects, threw it on the ground, and began to stomp on it, a wild dance. The paper bag spilt along one edge and a wasp slipped out; her foot came down on it. It was Paul she was fighting for, but also for some understanding of herself. You’re afraid of change, Bree had told her. Why can’t you just be? But be what? Norah had wondered all day. Be what? She had known once: she had been a daughter and a student and a long-distance operator, roles she had handled with ease and assurance. Then she had been a fiancée, a young wife, and a mother, and she had discovered that these words were far too small ever to contain the experience.

  Even after it was clear that all the wasps inside the bag must be dead, Norah kept dancing on the pulpy mess, wild and intent. Something was happening, something had changed, in the world and in her heart. That night, while the ROTC building on campus burned to the ground, bright flames flowering into the warm spring night, Norah would dream of wasps and bees, large dreamy bumblebees floating through tall grasses. The next day she would replace the vacuum cleaner without ever mentioning the incident to David. She would cancel the tuxedo for Kay’s fund-raiser; she would accept that job. Glamour, yes, and adventure, and a life of her own.

  All this would happen, but for the moment she did not consider anything but the movement of her feet and the bag slowly turning to a dirty pulp of wings and stingers. In the distance, the crowd of protesters roared, and the swelling sound traveled through the bright spring air to where she stood. Blood beat in her temples. What was happening there was happening here as well, in the quiet of her own backyard, in the secret spaces of her heart: an explosion, some way in which life could never be the same.

  A single wasp buzzed near the fiery azaleas and moved angrily away. Norah stepped off the soggy paper sack. Dazed, cold sober, she walked across the lawn, fingering her keys. She got in the car, as if it were any other day, and drove off to get her son.

  II

  DAD? DADDY?”

  At the sound of Paul’s voice, his quick light steps on the garage stairs, David looked up from the exposed sheet of paper he had just slipped into the developer.

  “Hang on!” he called out. “Just a second, Paul.” But even as he spoke the door burst open, spilling light into the room.

  “Damn it!” David watched the paper darken rapidly, the image lost in the sudden burst of light. “Damn it, Paul, haven’t I told you a million zillion trillion times not to come in when the red light is on?”

  “Sorry. I’m sorry, Dad.”

  David took a deep breath, chastened. Paul was only six, and standing in the doorway he looked very small. “It’s okay, Paul. Come on in. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  He squatted down and held out his arms, and Paul plunged into them, resting his head briefly on David’s shoulder, the bristle of his new haircut both soft and stiff against David’s neck. Paul was slight and wiry, strong, a boy who moved through the world like quicksilver, quiet and watchful and eager to please. David kissed his forehead, regretting that moment of anger, marveling at his son’s shoulder blades, elegant and perfect, stretching out like wings beneath layers of skin and muscle.

  “Okay. What was so important?” he asked, sitting back on his heels. “What was important enough to spoil my pictures?”

  “Dad, look!” Paul said. “Look what I found!”

  He unclenched his small fist. Several flat stones, thin disks with a hole in the center, rested on his palm, the size of buttons.

  “These are great,” David said, picking one up. “Where did you find them?”

  “Yesterday. When I went with Jason to his grandfather’s farm. There’s a creek, and you have to be careful because Jason saw a copperhead last summer, but it’s too cold for snakes now, so we were wading and I found these right by the edge of the water.”

  “Wow.” David fingered the fossils; light and delicate, millennia old, time preserved more clearly than any photograph ever could. “These fossils were part of a sea lily, Paul. You know, a long time ago, a lot of Kentucky used to be under an ocean.”

  “Really? Neat. Is there a picture in the rock book?”

  “Maybe. We’ll check as soon as I clean up. How are we doing on time?” he added, stepping to the darkroom door and glancing outside. It was a beautiful spring day, the air soft and warm, dogwoods in bloom all around the perimeter of the garden. Norah had set up tables and covered them with bright cloths. She’d arranged plates and punch, chairs and napkins, vases of flowers. A maypole, fashioned around a lean poplar tree in the center of the backyard, streamed bright ribbons. She’d done this by herself too. David had offered to help, but she’d declined. Stay out of the way, she’d told him. That’s the best thing you can do right now. So he had.

  He stepped back into the darkroom, cool and hidden, with its pale red light and sharp scent of chemicals.

  “Mom’s getting dressed,” Paul said. “I’m not supposed to get dirty.”

  “A tough order,” David observed, sliding the bottles of fixer and developer onto a high shelf beyond Paul’s reach. “Go on inside, okay? I’ll be right there. We’ll look up those sea lilies.”

  Paul ran down the stairs; David glimpsed him sprinting across the lawn, the screen door of the house slamming shut behind him. He washed out the trays and set them to dry, then removed the film from the developer and put it away. It was peaceful in the darkroom, cool and quiet, and he stood there for a few seconds longer before he followed Paul. Outside, the tablecloths rippled in the breeze. May baskets, woven of paper and filled with spring flowers, adorned each plate. Yesterday, on the real May Day, Paul had taken baskets like these to the neighbors too, hanging them from each front door, knocking and running and hiding to watch them be discovered. Norah’s idea: her artistry and energy and imagination.

  She was in the kitchen, wearing an apron over a suit of coral-colored silk, arranging parsley and cherry tomatoes on a meat platter.

  “Everything set?” he asked. “It looks great out there. Anything I can do?”<
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  “Get dressed?” she suggested, glancing at the clock. She dried her hands on a towel. “But first put this platter in the fridge downstairs, okay? This one’s already full. Thanks.”

  David took the platter, the glass cool against his hands. “Such a lot of work,” he observed. “Why don’t you have these parties catered?”

  He had meant to be helpful, but Norah paused, frowning, on her way out the door.

  “Because I enjoy this,” she said. “The planning and the cooking—all of it. Because it gives me a lot of pleasure to pull something beautiful out of nothing. I have a lot of talents,” she added, coolly, “whether you realize it or not.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” David sighed. These days they were like two planets in orbit around the same sun, not colliding but not drawing any closer either. “I just meant, Why not have some help? Hire a catering staff. We can certainly afford it.”

  “It’s not about the money,” she said, shaking her head, and stepped outside.

  He put the platter away and went upstairs to shave. Paul followed him in and sat on the edge of the tub, talking a mile a minute and kicking his heels against the porcelain. He loved Jason’s grandfather’s farm, he had helped milk a cow there, and Jason’s grandfather had let him drink some milk, still warm, tasting of grass.

  David lathered on the soap with a soft brush, taking pleasure in listening. The razor blade slid in smooth clean strokes against his skin, sending quivering motes of light against the ceiling. For a moment the whole world seemed caught, suspended: the soft spring air and the scent of soap and the excited voice of his son.

  “I used to milk cows,” David said. He dried his face and reached for his shirt. “I used to be able to squirt a stream of milk straight into the cat’s mouth.”

  “That’s what Jason’s pawpaw did! I like Jason. I wish he was my brother.”

  David, putting on his tie, watched Paul’s reflection in the mirror. In the silence that was not quite silence—the sink faucet dripping, the clock ticking softly, the whisper of cloth against cloth—his thoughts traveled to his daughter. Every few months, shuffling through the office mail, he came across Caroline’s loopy handwriting. Though the first few letters had come from Cleveland, now each envelope bore a different postmark. Sometimes Caroline enclosed a new post office box number—always in different places, vast impersonal cities—and whenever she did this David sent money. They had never known each other well, yet her letters to him had grown increasingly intimate over the years. The most recent ones might have been torn from her diary, beginning Dear David or simply David, her thoughts pouring forth in a rush. Sometimes he tried to throw the letters away unopened, but he always ended up fishing them from the trash and reading them quickly. He kept them locked in the filing cabinet in the darkroom so he would always know where they were. So Norah would never find them.