The Memory Keeper's Daughter

  Once, years ago, when the letters first began to arrive, David had made the eight-hour drive to Cleveland. He’d walked through the city for three days, studying phone books, inquiring at every hospital. In the main post office he’d touched the little brass door numbered 621 with his fingertips, but the postmaster would not give him the owner’s name or address. I’ll stand here and wait then, David said, and the man shrugged. Go ahead, he said. Better bring some food, though. Weeks can pass before some of these mailboxes get opened.

  In the end, he’d given up and come home, allowing the days to pass, one by one, as Phoebe grew up without him. Each time he sent money, he enclosed a note asking Caroline to tell him where she lived, but he did not press her, or hire a private investigator, as he sometimes imagined doing. It would have to come from her, he felt, the desire to be found. He believed he wanted to find her. He believed that once he did—once he could fix things—he would be able to tell Norah the truth.

  He believed all this, and he got up every morning and walked to the hospital. He performed surgeries and examined X-rays and came home and mowed the lawn and played with Paul; his life was full. Yet even so, every few months, for no predictable reason, he woke from dreams of Caroline Gill staring at him from the clinic doorway or across the courtyard at the church. Woke, trembling, and got dressed and went down to the office or out to the darkroom, where he worked on his articles or slid his photographs into their chemical baths, watching images emerge where nothing had been.

  “Dad, you forgot to look up the fossils,” Paul said. “You promised.”

  “That’s right,” David said, pulling himself back to the present, adjusting the knot in his tie. “That’s right, son. I did.”

  They went downstairs together to the den and spread the familiar books on the desk. The fossil was a crinoid, from a small sea animal with a flowerlike body. The buttonlike stones had once been plates forming the stem column. He rested his hand lightly on Paul’s back, feeling his flesh, so warm and alive, and the delicate vertebrae just beneath his skin.

  “I’m going to show Mom,” Paul said. He grabbed the fossils and ran off through the house and out the back door. David got a drink and stood by the window. A few guests had arrived and were scattered across the lawn, the men in dark blue coats, the women like bright spring flowers in pink and vibrant yellow and pastel blue. Norah moved among them, hugging the women, shaking hands, managing the introductions. She had been so quiet when David first met her, calm and self-contained and watchful. He could never have imagined her in this moment, so gregarious and at ease, launching a party she had orchestrated down to the very last detail. Watching her, David was filled with a kind of longing. For what? For the life they might have had, perhaps. Norah seemed very happy, laughing on the lawn. Yet David knew this success would not be enough, not even for a day. By evening she would have moved on to the next thing, and if he woke in the night and ran his hand along the curve of her back, hoping to stir her, she would murmur and catch his hand in hers and turn away, all without waking.

  Paul was on the swing set now, flying high into the blue sky. He wore the crinoids on a long piece of string around his neck; they lifted and fell, bouncing against his small chest, sometimes snapping against the chains of the swing.

  “Paul,” Norah called, her voice drifting in clearly through the open screen. “Paul, take that thing off your neck. It’s dangerous.”

  David took his drink and went outside. He met Norah on the lawn.

  “Don’t,” he said softly, putting his hand on her arm. “He made it himself.”

  “I know. I gave him the string. But he can wear it later. If he slips while he’s playing and it gets caught, it could choke him.”

  She was so tense; he let his hand fall.

  “That’s not likely,” he said, wishing he could erase their loss and what it had done to them both. “Nothing bad is going to happen to him, Norah.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Even so, David’s right, Norah.”

  The voice came from behind. He turned to see Bree, whose wildness and passions and beauty moved like a wind through their house. She was wearing a spring dress of filmy material, which seemed to float around her as she moved, and holding hands with a young man, shorter than she: clean-cut, with short reddish hair, wearing sandals and an open collar.

  “Bree, honestly, it could catch and he could choke,” Norah insisted, turning too.

  “He’s swinging,” Bree told her lightly, as Paul flew high against the sky, his head tipped back, sun on his face. “Look at him, he’s so happy. Don’t make him get down and get all worried. David’s right. Nothing’s going to happen.”

  Norah forced a smile. “No? The world could end. You said so yourself just yesterday.”

  “But that was yesterday,” Bree said. She touched Norah’s arm and they exchanged a long look, connected for a moment in a way that excluded everyone else. David watched with a rush of longing and with a sudden memory of his own sister, the two of them hiding under the kitchen table, peeking through the folds of oilcloth, stifling their laughter. He remembered her eyes and the warmth of her arm and the joy of her company.

  “What happened yesterday?” David asked, pushing away the memory, but Bree ignored him, talking to Norah.

  “I’m sorry, Sis,” she said. “Things were a little crazy yesterday. I was out of line.”

  “I’m sorry too,” Norah said. “I’m glad you came to the party.”

  “What happened yesterday? Were you at the fire, Bree?” David asked again. He and Norah had woken in the night to sirens, to the acrid smell of smoke and a strange glow in the sky. They had come outside to stand with their neighbors on the dark quiet lawns, their ankles growing wet with dew while on campus the ROTC building burned. For days the protests had been growing, layers of tension in the air, invisible but real, while in towns along the Mekong River bombs fell and people ran, cradling their dying children in their arms. Across the river in Ohio now, four students lay dead. But no one had imagined this in Lexington, Kentucky: a Molotov cocktail and a building in flames, police pouring into the streets.

  Bree turned to him, her long hair swinging over her shoulders, and shook her head. “No. I wasn’t there, but Mark was.” She smiled at the young man beside her and slipped her slender arm through his. “This is Mark Bell.”

  “Mark fought in Vietnam,” Norah added. “He’s here protesting the war.”

  “Ah,” David said. “An agitator.”

  “A protester, I believe,” Norah corrected, waving across the lawn. “There’s Kay Marshall,” she said. “Will you excuse me?”

  “A protester, then,” David repeated, watching Norah walk away, the breeze moving lightly against the sleeves of her silk suit.

  “That’s right,” Mark said. He spoke with self-mocking intentness and a faint familiar accent that reminded David of his father’s voice, low and melodic. “The relentless pursuit of equity and justice.”

  “You were on the news,” David said, remembering him all at once. “Last night. You were giving some kind of speech. So. You must be glad about the fire.”

  Mark shrugged. “Not glad. Not sorry. It happened, that’s all. We go on.”

  “Why are you being so hostile, David?” Bree asked, fixing her green eyes on him.

  “I’m not being hostile,” David said, realizing even as he spoke that he was. Realizing, too, that he was beginning to flatten and extend his own vowels, called by the deep pull of language, patterns of speech as familiar and compelling as water. “I’m gathering information, that’s all. Where are you from?” he asked Mark.

  “West Virginia. Over near Elkins. Why?”

  “Just curious. I had family there once.”

  “I didn’t know that about you, David,” Bree said. “I thought you were from Pittsburgh.”

  “I had family near Elkins,” David repeated. “A long time ago.”

  “Is that so?” Mark was watching him less warily now. �
��They work coal?”

  “Sometimes, in the winter. They had a farm. A hard life, but not as hard as coal.”

  “They keep their land?”

  “Yes.” David thought of the house he had not seen for nearly fifteen years.

  “Smart. My daddy, now, he sold the home place. When he died in the mines five years later, we had nowhere to go. Nowhere at all.” Mark smiled bitterly and thought for a moment. “You ever go back there?”

  “Not in a long time. You?”

  “No. After Vietnam I went to college. Morgantown, the GI bill. It got to be strange, going back. I belonged and I didn’t belong, if you know what I mean. When I left I didn’t think I was making a choice. But it turned out I was.”

  David nodded. “I know,” he said. “I know what you mean.”

  “Well,” Bree said, after a long moment of silence. “You’re both here now. I’m getting thirstier by the second,” she added. “Mark? David? Want a drink?”

  “I’ll come with you.” Mark said, extending his hand to David. “Small world, isn’t it? It’s good to meet you.”

  “David is a mystery to us all,” Bree said, pulling him away. “Just ask Norah.”

  David watched them merge into the bright milling crowd. A simple encounter, yet he felt strangely agitated, exposed and vulnerable, his past rising up like the sea. Each morning he stood for a moment in his office doorway, surveying his clean simple world: the orderly array of instruments, the crisp white length of cloth on the examination table. By every external measure he was a success, yet he was never filled, as he hoped to be, with a sense of pride and reassurance. I suppose this is it, his father had said, slamming the truck door and standing on the curb by the bus stop on the day David left for Pittsburgh. I suppose this is the last we can expect to hear from you, moving up in the world and all. You won’t have time for the likes of us anymore. And David, standing on the curb with early leaves falling down around him, had felt a deep sense of desperation, because even then he sensed the truth of his father’s words: whatever his own intentions were, however much he loved them, his life would carry him away.

  “Are you all right, David?” Kay Marshall asked. She was walking by, carrying a vase of pale pink tulips, each petal as delicate as the edge of a lung. “You look a million miles away.”

  “Ah, Kay,” he said. She reminded him a little of Norah, some kind of loneliness moving always beneath her carefully polished surface. Once, after drinking too much at another party, Kay had followed him into a dark hallway, slipped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. Startled, he had kissed her back. The moment had passed, and although he often thought about the cool, surprising touch of her lips on his, every time he saw her David also wondered that it had ever really happened. “You look ravishing as always, Kay.” He raised his glass to her. She smiled and laughed and moved on.

  He went into the coolness of the garage and up the stairs, where he took his camera from the cupboard and loaded a new roll of film. Norah’s voice lifted above the crowd, and he remembered the feel of her skin when he’d reached for her that morning, the smooth curve of her back. He remembered the moment she’d shared with Bree, how connected they were, beyond any bond he’d ever share with her again. I want, he thought, slipping the camera around his neck. I want.

  He moved around the edges of the party, smiling and saying hello, shaking hands, drifting away from conversations to catch moments of the party on film. He paused before Kay’s tulips, focusing in close, thinking how much they really did resemble the delicate tissue of lungs and how interesting it would be to frame shots of both and stand them next to each other, exploring this idea he had that the body was, in some mysterious way, a perfect mirror of the world. He grew absorbed in this, the sounds of the party falling away as he concentrated on the flowers, and he was startled to feel Norah’s hand on his arm.

  “Put the camera away,” she said. “Please. It’s a party, David.”

  “These tulips are so beautiful,” he began, but he was unable to explain himself, unable to put into words why these images compelled him so.

  “It’s a party,” she repeated. “You can either miss it and take pictures of it, or you can get a drink and join it.”

  “I have a drink,” he pointed out. “No one cares that I’m taking a few pictures, Norah.”

  “I care. It’s rude.”

  They were speaking softly, and during the whole exchange Norah had not stopped smiling. Her expression was calm; she nodded and waved across the lawn. And yet David could feel the tension radiating from her, and the pressed-back anger.

  “I’ve worked so hard,” she said. “I organized everything. I made all the food. I even got rid of the wasps. Why can’t you just enjoy it?”

  “When did you take the nest down?” he asked, searching for a safe topic, looking up at the smooth, clean eaves of the garage.

  “Yesterday.” She showed him her wrist, the faint red welt. “I didn’t want to take any chances with your allergies and Paul’s.”

  “It’s a beautiful party,” he said. On an impulse he brought her wrist to his lips and gently kissed the place where she’d been stung. She watched him, her eyes widening in surprise and a flicker of pleasure, then pulled her hand away.

  “David,” she said softly, “for heaven’s sake, not here. Not now.”

  “Hey, Dad,” Paul called, and David looked around, trying to locate his son. “Mom and Dad, look at me. Look at me!”

  “He’s in the hackberry tree,” Norah said, shading her eyes and pointing across the lawn. “Look, up there, about halfway up. How did he do that?”

  “I bet he climbed up from the swing set. Hey!” David called, waving back.

  “Get down right now!” Norah called. And then, to David, “He’s making me nervous.”

  “He’s a kid,” David said. “Kids climb trees. He’ll be fine.”

  “Hey, Mom! Dad! Help!” Paul called, but when they looked up at him, he was laughing.

  “Remember when he used to do that in the grocery store?” Norah asked. “Remember, when he was learning to talk, how he used to shout out help in the middle of the store? People thought I was a kidnapper.”

  “He did it at the clinic once,” David said. “Remember that?”

  They laughed together. David felt a wave of gladness.

  “Put the camera away,” she said, her hand on his arm.

  “Yes,” he said. “I will.”

  Bree had wandered over to the maypole and picked up a royal purple ribbon. A few others, intrigued, had joined her. David started back to the garage, watching the fluttering ends of the ribbons. He heard a sudden rush and stirring of the leaves, a branch cracking loudly. He saw Bree lift her hands, the ribbon slipping from her fingers as she reached up into the open air. A silence grew for a long instant, and then Norah cried out. David turned around in time to see Paul hit the ground with a thud, then bounce once, slightly, on his back, the sea lily necklace broken, the treasured crinoids scattered on the ground. David ran, pushing through the guests, and knelt beside him. Paul’s dark eyes were full of fear. He grabbed David’s hand, trying hard to breathe.

  “It’s okay,” David said, smoothing Paul’s forehead. “You fell out of the tree and lost your wind, that’s all. Just relax. Take another breath. You’re going to be okay.”

  “Is he all right?” Norah asked, kneeling down beside him in her coral suit. “Paul, sweetie, are you okay?”

  Paul gasped and coughed, tears standing in his eyes. “My arm hurts,” he said, when he could speak again. He was pale, a thin blue vein visible in his forehead, and David could tell he was trying hard not to cry. “My arm really hurts.”

  “Which arm?” David asked, using his calmest voice. “Can you show me where?”

  It was his left arm, and when David lifted it carefully, supporting the elbow and the wrist, Paul cried out in pain.

  “David!” Norah said. “Is it broken?”

  “Well, I’m not sure,” he said calmly
, though he was nearly certain that it was. He rested Paul’s arm gently on his chest, then put one hand on Norah’s back to comfort her. “Paul, I’m going to pick you up. I’m going to carry you to the car. And then we’re going to go to my office, okay? I’m going to show you all about X-rays.”

  Slowly, gently, he lifted Paul. His son was so light in his arms. Their guests parted to let him pass. He put Paul in the backseat, got a blanket from the trunk, and tucked it around him.

  “I’m coming too,” Norah said, sliding in the front seat beside him.

  “What about the party?”

  “There’s lots of food and wine,” she said. “They’ll just have to figure it out.”

  They drove through the bright spring air toward the hospital. From time to time, Norah still teased him about the night of the birth, how slowly and methodically he had driven through the empty streets, but he could not bring himself to speed today either. They passed the ROTC building, still smoldering. Wisps of smoke rose like dark lace. Dogwoods were in bloom nearby, the petals pale and fragile against the blackened wall.

  “The world’s falling to pieces, that’s how it feels,” Norah said softly.