The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Page 26

  The bus rounded the corner and roared to a stop. The doors folded open and Caroline climbed in and took a window seat, trees flashing as they roared over the bridge and the hollow below. Flying past the cemetery, lurching through Squirrel Hill, then lumbering on through the old neighborhoods to Oakland, where Caroline got off. She stood before the Carnegie Museum for a moment, collecting herself, looking up at the grand stone building with its cascading steps and ionic columns. A banner strung along the top of the portico fluttered in the wind: MIRROR IMAGES: PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID HENRY.

  Tonight was the opening: he would be here to speak. Hands trembling, Caroline slid the newspaper clipping from her pocket. She had carried it for two weeks, her heart surging every time she touched it. A dozen times, perhaps more, she had changed her mind. What good could come of it?

  And then, in the next breath, what harm?

  If Al had been here, she would have stayed home. She would have let the opportunity slip away unremarked, glancing at the clock until the opening was over and David Henry had disappeared back into whatever life he now led.

  But Al had called to say he’d be away tonight, and Mrs. O’Neill was home to keep an eye on Phoebe, and the bus had been on time.

  Caroline’s heart was roaring now. She stood still, taking deep breaths, while the world moved around her, the squeal of brakes and the scent of spent fuel, and the faint stirrings of the feathery new leaves of spring. Voices swelled as people drew near, then receded, scraps of conversation drifting like bits of paper borne on the wind. Streams of people, dressed in silk and heels and dark expensive suits, flowed up the museum’s stone steps. The sky was a darkening indigo and the streetlights had come on; the air was full of the scent of lemon and mint from the festival at the Greek Orthodox Church one block down. Caroline closed her eyes, thinking of black olives, which she had never tasted until she reached this city. Thinking of the wild mosaic of Saturday morning market at the Strip, fresh bread and flowers and fruits and vegetables, a riot of food and color for blocks along the river, something she would never have seen except for David Henry and an unexpected snowstorm. She took one step and then another, merging with the crowd.

  The museum had high white ceilings and oak floors, polished to a dark, gleaming gold. Caroline was given a program of thick creamy paper with David Henry’s name across the top. A list of photos followed. “Dunes at Dusk,” she read. “A Tree in the Heart.” She walked into the gallery room and found his most famous photo, the undulating beach that was more than a beach, the curve of a woman’s hip, then the smooth length of her leg, hidden among the dunes. The image trembled, on the edge of being something else, and then it suddenly was something else. Caroline had stared at it for a good fifteen minutes the first time she saw it, knowing that the swell of flesh belonged to Norah Henry, remembering the white hill of her belly rippling with contractions, the powerful force of her grip. For years she had consoled herself with her disdainful opinion of Norah Henry, a bit imperial, used to ease and order, a woman who might have left Phoebe in an institution. But this image exploded that idea. These photos showed a woman she had never known.

  People milled in the room; the seats filled. Caroline sat down, watching everything intently. The lights dimmed once and went on again, and then suddenly there was applause and David Henry was walking in, tall and familiar, fleshier now, smiling at the audience. It shocked her to see that he was not a young man anymore. His hair was turning gray and there was a slight bend to his shoulders. He walked to the podium and gazed out at the audience and Caroline caught her breath, sure he must have seen her, must have known her at once, as she knew him. He cleared his throat and made a joke about the weather. As the laughter spilled out around her and died down, as he looked at his notes and began to speak, Caroline understood that she was just another face in the crowd.

  He spoke with melodious assurance, though Caroline paid almost no attention to what he was saying. Instead, she studied the familiar gestures of his hands, the new lines at the corners of his eyes. His hair was longer, thick and luxurious despite the gray, and he seemed satisfied, settled. She thought of that night, almost twenty years ago now, when he’d woken and lifted his head from the desk and caught her in the doorway, naked in her love for him, the two of them as vulnerable to each other in that moment as it was possible to be. She had recognized something then, something he kept hidden, some experience or expectation or dream too private to share. And it was true, she could see that still: David Henry had a secret life. Her mistake twenty years ago had been in believing that his secret had to do with any kind of love for her.

  When his talk was over, the applause rose, strong, and then he was stepping from behind the podium, taking a long drink from his glass of water, answering questions. There were several—from a man with a notebook, a matron with gray hair, a young woman dressed in black with dark cascading hair who asked something rather angrily about form. Tension grew in Caroline’s body and her heart pounded until she could barely breathe. The questions ended and the silence grew, and David Henry cleared his throat, a smile forming as he thanked the audience and turned away. Caroline felt herself rising then, almost beyond her own volition, her purse in front of her like a shield. She crossed the room and joined the little group collecting around him. He glanced at her and smiled politely, without recognition. She waited through more questions, growing somewhat calmer as the moments passed. The curator of the show hovered at the edge of the group, anxious for David to mingle, but when a break came in the questions, Caroline stepped forward and put her hand on David’s arm.

  “David,” she said. “Don’t you know me?”

  He searched her face.

  “Have I changed so much?” she whispered.

  She saw him understand, then. His face altered, the shape of it even, as if gravity had suddenly gotten stronger. A flush crept up his neck and a muscle pulsed in his cheek. Caroline felt something strange happening with time, as if they were back in the clinic again all those years ago, the snow falling down outside. They stared at each other without speaking, as if the room and all the people in it had fallen utterly away.

  “Caroline,” he said at last, recovering. “Caroline Gill. An old friend,” he added, speaking to the people still clustering around them. He reached up with one hand and adjusted his tie, and a smile broke across his face, though it did not touch his eyes. “Thank you,” he said, nodding to the others. “Thank you all for coming. Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

  And then they were crossing the room. David walked beside her, one hand lightly but firmly against her back, as if she might disappear unless he held her in place.

  “Come in here,” he said, stepping behind a display panel, where an unframed door was barely visible in the white wall. He guided her inside, swiftly, and shut the door behind them. It was a storage closet, small, one bare bulb raining light down on shelves full of paint and tools. They stood face-to-face, just inches apart. His scent filled the room, that sweetish cologne, and beneath it was a smell she remembered, something medicinal and tinged with adrenaline. The little room was hot, and she felt suddenly dizzy, silverfish flashing in her vision.

  “Caroline,” he said. “Good God, do you live here? In Pittsburgh? Why wouldn’t you tell me where you were?”

  “I wasn’t hard to find. Other people found me,” she said slowly, remembering Al walking up the alley, understanding for the first time the depth of his persistence. For if it was true that David Henry had not looked very hard, it was also true that she had wanted to be lost.

  Outside the door there were footsteps, drawing near and then pausing. The rush and murmur of voices. She studied his face. All these years she’d thought about him every single day, and yet now she couldn’t imagine what to say.

  “Shouldn’t you be out there?” she asked, glancing at the door.

  “They’ll wait.”

  They looked at each other then, not speaking. Caroline had held him in her mind all this time like a photogr
aph, a hundred or a thousand photographs. In each of these David Henry was a young man full of a restless, determined energy. Now, staring at his dark eyes and fleshy cheeks, his hair so carefully styled, she realized that if she had passed him on the street she might not have known him, after all.

  When he spoke again his tone had softened, though a muscle still worked in his face. “I went to your apartment, Caroline. That day, after the memorial service. I went there, but you were already gone. All this time—” he began, and then he fell silent.

  There was a light tap on the door, a muffled questioning voice.

  “Give me a minute,” David called back.

  “I was in love with you,” Caroline said in a rush, astonished at her confession, for it was the first time she had ever voiced this, even to herself, though it was knowledge she had lived with for years. The admission made her feel light-headed, reckless, and she went on. “You know, I spent all sorts of time imagining a life with you. And it was in that moment by the church when I realized I hadn’t crossed your mind at all, not really.”

  He’d bent his head as she spoke, and now he looked up.

  “I knew,” he said. “I knew you were in love with me. How could I have asked you to help me, otherwise? I’m sorry, Caroline. For years now, I have been—so sorry.”

  She nodded, tears in her eyes, that younger version of herself still alive, still standing by the edge of the memorial service, unacknowledged, invisible. It made her angry, even now, that he had not really seen her then. And that, not knowing her at all, he hadn’t hesitated to ask her to take away his daughter.

  “Are you happy?” he asked. “Have you been happy, Caroline? Has Phoebe?”

  His question, and the gentleness in his voice, disarmed her. She thought of Phoebe, struggling to learn to shape letters, to tie her shoes. Phoebe, playing happily in the backyard while Caroline made phone call after phone call, fighting for her education. Phoebe, putting her soft arms around Caroline’s neck for no reason at all and saying, I love you, Mom. She thought of Al, gone too much but walking through the door at the end of a long week, carrying flowers or a bag of fresh rolls or a small gift, something for her, always, and something for Phoebe. When she’d worked in David Henry’s office she had been so young, so lonely and naïve, that she imagined herself as some sort of vessel to be filled up with love. But it wasn’t like that. The love was within her all the time, and its only renewal came from giving it away.

  “Do you really want to know?” she asked at last, looking him straight in the eye. “Because you never wrote back, David. Except for that one time, you never asked a single thing about our lives. Not for years.”

  As Caroline spoke, she realized that this was why she had come. Not out of love at all, or any allegiance to the past, or even out of guilt. She had come out of anger and a desire to set the record straight.

  “For years you never wanted to know how I was. How Phoebe was. You just didn’t give a damn, did you? And then that last letter, the one I never answered. All of a sudden, you wanted her back.”

  David gave a short, startled laugh. “Is that how you saw it? Is that why you stopped writing?”

  “How else could I see it?”

  He shook his head slowly. “Caroline, I asked you for your address. Again and again—every time I sent money. And in that final letter I simply asked you to invite me back into your life. What more could I do? Look, I know you don’t realize this, but I kept every letter you ever sent. And when you stopped writing, I felt like you’d slammed a door in my face.”

  Caroline thought of her letters, all her heartfelt confessions flowing into ink on paper. She couldn’t remember anymore what she’d written: details about Phoebe’s life, her hopes and her dreams and her fears.

  “Where are they?” she asked. “Where do you keep my letters?”

  He looked surprised. “In my darkroom filing cabinet: bottom drawer. It’s always locked. Why?”

  “I didn’t think you even read them,” Caroline said. “I felt I was writing into a void. Maybe that’s why I felt so free. Like I could say anything at all.”

  David rubbed his hand on his cheek, a gesture she remembered him using when he was tired or discouraged. “I read them. At first I had to force myself, to be honest. Later, I wanted to know what was happening, even though it was painful. You gave me little glimpses of Phoebe. Little scraps from the fabric of your lives. I looked forward to that.”

  She didn’t answer, remembering the satisfaction she’d felt on that rainy day, when she’d sent Phoebe upstairs with her kitten, Rain, to change out of her wet clothes while she stood in the living room, tearing his letter in four pieces, then eight, then sixteen, and dropping it like confetti in the trash. Satisfaction, and a sense of pleasure at having the matter closed. She’d felt those things, oblivious—unconcerned, even—about what David had been feeling.

  “I couldn’t lose her,” she said. “I was angry with you for a long, long time, but by then I was mostly afraid that if you met her you’d take her away. That’s why I stopped writing.”

  “That was never my intention.”

  “You didn’t intend any of this,” Caroline answered. “But it happened anyway.”

  David Henry sighed, and she imagined him in her deserted apartment, walking from room to room and realizing she was gone for good. Tell me your plans, he’d said. That’s all I ask.

  “If I hadn’t taken her,” she added softly. “You might have chosen differently.”

  “I didn’t stop you,” he said, meeting her gaze again. His voice was rough. “I could have. You wore a red coat that day at the memorial service. I saw you and I watched you drive away.”

  Caroline felt suddenly depleted, almost faint. She did not know what she had hoped for from this night, but when she had imagined this conversation, she had not imagined this contention: his grief and anger, and her own.

  “You saw me?” she said.

  “I went straight to your apartment afterward. I expected you to be there.”

  Caroline closed her eyes. She had been driving toward the highway, then, on her way here, to this life. She’d probably missed David Henry’s visit by minutes, an hour. How much had turned on that moment. How differently her life might have unfolded.

  “You didn’t answer me,” David said, clearing his throat. “Have you been happy, Caroline? Has Phoebe? Is her health okay? Her heart?”

  “Her heart’s fine,” Caroline said, thinking of the early years of constant worry over Phoebe’s health—all the trips to the doctors and dentists and cardiologists and ear, nose, and throat specialists. But she had grown up; she was well; she shot baskets in the driveway and loved to dance. “The books I read when she was still small predicted she’d be dead by now, but she’s fine. She was lucky, I guess; she never had a problem with her heart. She loves to sing. She has a cat named Rain. She’s learning how to weave. That’s where she is right now. At home. Weaving.” Caroline shook her head. “She goes to school. Public school, with all the other kids. I had to fight like hell for them to take her. And now she’s nearly grown I don’t know what will happen. I have a good job. I work part-time in an internal medicine clinic at the hospital. My husband—he travels a lot. Phoebe goes to a group home each day. She has a lot of friends there. She’s learning how to do office work. What else can I say? You missed a lot of heartache, sure. But David, you missed a lot of joy.”

  “I know that,” he said. “Better than you think.”

  “And you?” she asked, struck again by how he’d aged, still trying to assimilate the fact of his presence, here with her, in this small room after all these years. “Have you been happy? Has Norah? And Paul?”

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “As happy as anyone ever is, I suppose. Paul’s so smart. He could do anything. What he wants is to go to Juilliard and play the guitar. I think he’s making a mistake, but Norah doesn’t agree. It’s caused a lot of tension.”

  Caroline thought of Phoebe, how she loved
to clean and organize, how she sang to herself while washing the dishes or mopping the floors, how she loved music with her whole heart and would never have a chance to play the guitar.

  “And Norah?” she asked.

  “She owns a travel agency,” David said. “She’s away a lot too. Like your husband.”

  “A travel agency?” Caroline repeated. “Norah?”

  “I know. It surprised me too. But she’s owned it for years now. She’s very good at it.”

  The doorknob turned, and the door swung open a few inches. The curator of the show stuck his head inside, his blue eyes bright with curiosity and concern. He ran one hand through his dark hair nervously, as he spoke. “Dr. Henry?” he said. “You know, there are a lot of people out here. There’s a kind of expectation that’ll you’ll—ah—mingle. Is everything all right?”

  David looked at Caroline. He was hesitating, but he was impatient too, and Caroline knew that in an instant he would turn, adjust his tie, and walk away. Something that had endured for years was ending in this moment. Don’t, she thought, but the curator cleared his throat and gave an uncomfortable laugh, and David said, “No problem. I’m coming… . You’ll stay, won’t you?” he said to Caroline, taking her elbow.

  “I need to get home,” she said. “Phoebe’s waiting.”

  “Please.” He paused outside the door. She met his eyes and saw the same sadness and compassion she remembered from so long ago, when they were both much younger. “There’s so much to say, and it’s been so many years. Please say you’ll wait? It shouldn’t be long.” She felt sick to her stomach, an uneasiness she couldn’t place, but she nodded slightly, and David Henry smiled. “Good. We’ll have dinner, all right? All this glad talk—I have to do it. But I was wrong, all those years ago. I want more than just the scraps.”