The Memory Keeper's Daughter (40 page)

"Why do you ask?" Norah's voice was firm, but she was already leaning back, pulling away from the intensity in Caroline's eyes, from some swirling undercurrent, from her own fear of what might be coming. "Why are you here, and why are you asking me that?"

Caroline Gill didn't answer right away. The lilting voices of the bluebirds flashed through the room like motes of light.

"Look, I'm sorry," Caroline said. "I don't know how to say this. There isn't an easy way, I suppose, so I'll just come out with it. Norah, that night when your twins were born, Phoebe and Paul, there was a problem."

"Yes," Norah said sharply, thinking of the bleakness she had felt after the birth, joy and bleakness woven together, and the long hard path she had taken to reach this moment of steady calm. "My daughter died," she said. "That was the problem."

"Phoebe did not die," Caroline said evenly, looking straight at her, and Norah felt caught in the moment as she had been all those years ago, holding on to that gaze as the known world shifted around her. "Phoebe was born with Down's syndrome. David believed the prognosis was not good. He asked me to take her to a place in Louisville where such children were routinely sent. It wasn't uncommon, in 1964, to do that. Most doctors would have advised the same. But I couldn't leave her there. I took her and moved to Pittsburgh. I've raised her all these years. Norah," she added gently, "Phoebe is alive. She's very well."

Norah sat very still. The birds in the garden were fluttering, calling. She was remembering, for some reason, the time she had fallen through an unmarked grate in Spain. She had been walking on a sunny street, carefree. Then a rush, and she was up to her waist in a ditch with a sprained ankle and long bloody scrapes on her calves. I'm okay, I'm okay, she had kept telling the people who helped her out, who took her to the doctor. Brightly, unconcerned, blood seeping from her cuts: I'm okay. It was only later, alone and safe in her room, when she closed her eyes and felt that rush again, that loss of control, and wept. She felt this way now. Shaking, she held onto the edge of the table.

"What?" she said. "What did you say?"

Caroline said it again: Phoebe, not dead but taken away. All these years. Phoebe, growing up in another city. Safe, Caroline kept saying. Safe, well cared for, loved. Phoebe, her daughter, Paul's twin. Born with Down's syndrome, sent away.

David had sent her away.

"You must be crazy," Norah said, though even as she spoke so many jagged pieces of her life were falling into place that she knew what Caroline was saying must be true.

Caroline reached into her purse and slid two Polaroids across the polished maple. Norah couldn't pick them up, she was trembling too hard, but she leaned close to take them in: a little girl in a white dress, chubby, with a smile that lit her face, her almond-shaped eyes closed in pleasure. And then another, this same girl years later, about to shoot a basketball, caught in the instant before she jumped. She looked a little like Paul in one, a little like Norah in the other, but mostly she was just herself: Phoebe. Not any of the images so neatly filed away in David's folders but simply herself. Alive, and somewhere in the world.

"But why?" The anguish in her voice was audible. "Why would he do this? Why would you?"

Caroline shook her head and looked out into the garden again.

"For years I believed in my own innocence," she said. "I believed I'd done the right thing. The institution was a terrible place. David hadn't seen it; he didn't know how bad it was. So I took Phoebe, and I raised her, and I fought many, many fights to get her an education and access to medical care. To make sure she would have a good life. It was easy to see myself as the hero. But I think I always knew, underneath, that my motives weren't entirely pure. I wanted a child and I didn't have one. I was in love with David too, or thought I was. From afar, I mean," she added quickly. "It was all in my own head. David never even noticed me. But when I saw the funeral announcement, I knew I had to take her. That I'd have to leave anyway, and I couldn't leave her behind."

Norah, caught in a wild turmoil, went back to those blurry days of grief and joy, Paul in her arms and Bree handing her the phone, saying, You have to put this to rest. She had planned the whole memorial service without telling David, each arrangement helping her return to the world, and when David had come home that night she'd fought his resistance.

What must it have been like for him, that night, that service?

And yet he had let it all happen.

"But why didn't he tell me?" she asked, her voice a whisper. "All these years, and he never told me."

Caroline shook her head. "I can't speak for David," she said. "He was always a mystery to me. I know he loved you, and I believe that as monstrous as this all seems, his initial intentions were good ones. He told me once about his sister. She had a heart defect and died young, and his mother never got over her grief. For what it's worth, I think he was trying to protect you."

"She is my child." Norah said, the words torn out of some deep place in her body, some old long-buried hurt. "She was born of my flesh. Protect me? By telling me she'd died?"

Caroline didn't answer, and they sat for a long time, the silence gathering between them. Norah thought of David in all those photos, and in all the moments of their lives together, carrying this secret with him. She hadn't known, she hadn't guessed. But now that she'd been told, it made a terrible kind of sense.

At last Caroline opened her purse and took out a piece of paper with her address and telephone number on it. "This is where we live," she said. "My husband, Al, and I, and Phoebe. This is where Phoebe grew up. She has had a happy life, Norah. I know that's not much to give you, but it's true. She's a lovely young woman. Next month, she's going to move into a group home. It's what she wants. She has a good job in a photocopy shop. She loves it there, and they love her."

"A photocopy shop?"

"Yes. She's done very well, Norah."

"Does she know?" Norah asked. "Does she know about me? About Paul?"

Caroline glanced down at the table, fingering the edge of the photo. "No. I didn't want to tell her until I'd talked to you. I didn't know what you'd want to do, if you'd want to meet her. I hope you will. But of course I won't blame you if you don't. All these years- oh, I'm so sorry. But if you want to come, we're there. Just call. Next week or next year."

"I don't know," Norah said slowly. "I think I'm in shock."

"Of course you are." Caroline stood up.

"May I keep the photos?" Norah asked.

"They're yours. They've always been yours."

On the porch, Caroline paused and looked at her, hard.

"He loved you very much," she said. "David always loved you, Norah."

Norah nodded, remembering that she'd said the same thing to Paul in Paris. She watched from the porch as Caroline walked to the car, wondering about the life Caroline was driving back to, what complexities and mysteries it held.

Norah stood on the porch for a long time. Phoebe was alive, in the world. That knowledge was a pit opening, endless, in her heart. Loved, Caroline had said. Well cared for. But not by Norah, who had worked so hard to let her go. The dreams she'd had, all that searching through the brittle frozen grass, came back to her, pierced her.

She went back in the house, crying now, walking past the shrouded furniture. The appraiser would come. Paul was coming too, today or tomorrow; he'd promised to call first but sometimes he just showed up. She washed the water glasses and dried them, then stood in the silent kitchen, thinking of David, all those nights in all those years when he rose in the dark and went to the hospital to mend someone who was broken. A good person, David. He ran a clinic, he tended those in need.

And he had sent their daughter away and told her she was dead.

Norah slammed her fist on the counter, making the glasses jump. She made herself a gin and tonic and wandered upstairs. She lay down, got up, called Frederic, and hung up when the machine answered. After a time she went back out to David's studio. Everything was the same, the air so warm, so still, the photographs and boxes scattered all over the floor, just as she'd left them. At least fifty

You bastard, she whispered, watching the photographs flame high before they blackened and curled and disappeared.

Light to light, she thought, moving back from the heat, the roar, the powdery residue swirling in the air.

Ashes to ashes.

Dust, at last, to dust.

I OOK, IT'S FINE FOR YOU TO SAY THAT NOW, PAUL." MICHELLE

I was standing by the window with her arms folded, and when she turned her eyes were dark with emotion, veiled, too, by her anger. "You can say anything you want in the abstract, but the fact is, a baby would change everything-and mostly for me."

Paul sat on the dark-red sofa, warm and uncomfortable on this summer morning. He and Michelle had found it on the street when they first started living together here in Cincinnati, in those giddy days when it meant nothing to haul it up three flights of stairs. Or it meant exhaustion and wine and laughter and slow lovemaking later on its rough velvet surface. Now she turned away to look out the window, her dark hair swinging. An airy emptiness, a rushing, filled his heart. Lately, the world felt fragile, like a blown egg, as if it might shatter beneath a careless touch. Their conversation had begun amicably enough, a simple discussion of who would take care of the cat while they were both out of town: she in Indianapolis for a concert, he in Lexington to help his mother. And now, suddenly, they were here in this bleak territory of the heart, the place to which, lately, they both seemed constantly drawn. Paul knew he should change the subject.

"Getting married doesn't translate directly into babies," he said instead, stubborn.

"Oh, Paul. Be honest. Having a child is your heart's desire. It's not me you want, even. It's this mythical baby."

"Our mythical baby," he said. "Someday, Michelle. Not right away. Look, I just wanted to raise the subject of getting married. It's not a big deal."

She gave a sound of exasperation. The loft had a pine floor and white walls and splashes of primary colors in the bottles, the pillows, the cushions. Michelle was wearing white too, her skin and hair as warm as the floors. Paul ached, looking at her, knowing she had, in some important sense, already made up her mind. She would leave him very soon, taking her wild beauty and her music with her.

"It's interesting," she said. "I find it very interesting, anyway. That all this is coming up just as my career is about to take off. Not before, but now. In a weird way, I think you're trying to break us up."

"That's ridiculous. Timing has nothing to do with it."

"No?"

"No!"

They didn't speak for several minutes and the silence grew in the white room, filled the space and pressed against the walls. Paul was afraid to speak and more afraid not to, but at last he could not hold back any longer.

"We've been together for two years. Either things grow and change or they die. I want us to keep growing."

Michelle sighed. "Everything changes anyway, with or without a piece of paper. That's what you're not factoring in. And no matter what you say, it is a big deal. No matter what you say, marriage changes everything, and it's always women who make the sacrifices, no matter what anyone says."

"That's theory. That's not real life."

"Oh! You're infuriating, Paul-so damned sure of everything."

The sun was up, touching the river and filling the room with a silvery light, casting wavering patterns on the ceiling. Michelle went into the bathroom and shut the door. A rummaging in draw-ers, the running of water. Paul crossed the room to where she had stood, taking in the view as if this might help him understand her. Then, quietly, he tapped on the door.

"I'm leaving," he said.

A silence. Then she called back. "You'll be back tomorrow night?"

"Your concert's at six, right?"

"Right." She opened the bathroom door and stood, wrapped in a plush white towel, rubbing lotion into her face.

"Okay, then," he said, and kissed her, taking in her scent, the smoothness of her skin. "I love you," he said, as he stepped back.

She looked at him for a moment. "I know," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

I know. He brooded on her words all the way to Lexington. The drive took two hours: across the Ohio River, through the dense traffic near the airport, and finally into the beautiful rolling hills. Then he was traveling through the quiet downtown streets, past empty buildings, remembering how it had been when Main Street still was the center of life, the place where people went to shop and eat and mingle. He remembered going into the drugstore, sitting at the ice cream fountain in the back. Scoops of chocolate in a metal cup frosted with ice, the whir of the blender; mingled scents of grilled meat and antiseptic. His parents had met downtown. His mother had ridden on an escalator and risen above the crowd like the sun, and his father had followed her.

He drove past the new bank building and the old courthouse, the empty place where the theater once stood. A thin woman was walking down the sidewalk, her head bent, her arms folded, her dark hair moving in the wind. For the first time in years Paul thought of Lauren Lobeglio, the silent determined way she had walked across the empty garage to him week after week. He had reached for her, again and then again; he had woken in the middle of so many dark nights, fearing with Lauren all he now so desired with Michelle: marriage, children, an interweaving of lives.

He drove, humming his newest song to himself. "A Tree in the Heart" it was called-maybe he would play this one tonight, at Ly-nagh's pub. Michelle would be shocked by that, but Paul didn't care. Lately, since his father died, he had been playing more at informal venues as well as concert halls: he'd pick up a guitar and play in bars or restaurants, classical pieces but also more popular works that he had always, in the past, disdained. He couldn't explain his change of heart, but it had something to do with the intimacy in those places, the connection he felt to the audience, close enough to reach out and touch. Michelle didn't approve; she believed it was a consequence of grief, and she wanted him to get over it. But Paul couldn't give it up. All the years of his adolescence, he had played out of anger and longing for connection, as if through music he could bring some order, some invisible beauty, into his family. Now his father was gone, and there was no one to play against. So he had this new freedom.

He drove to the old neighborhood, past the stately houses and deep front yards, the sidewalks and eternal quiet. The front door of his mother's house was closed. He turned off the engine and sat for a moment, listening to the birds and the distant sound of lawn mowers.

A tree in the heart. His father had been dead for a year and his mother was marrying Frederic and moving to France for a while, and he was here not as a child or as a visitor but as caretaker of the past. His to choose, what to keep and what to discard. He'd tried to talk with Michelle about this, his deep sense of responsibility, how what he kept from this house of his childhood would become, in turn, what he passed down to his own children someday-all they would ever know, in a tangible way, of what had shaped him. He'd been thinking of his father, whose past was still a mystery, but Michelle misunderstood; she stiffened at this casual mention of children. That's not what I meant, he protested, angry, and she was angry too. Whether or not you knew it, that's what you meant.

He leaned back, searching in his pocket for the house key. Once his mother understood that his father's work was valuable, she'd started keeping the doors locked, though the boxes sat unopened in the studio.

Well, he didn't want to look at that stuff either.

When Paul finally got out of the car he stood for a moment on the curb, looking around the neighborhood. It was hot; a high faint breeze moved through the tops of the trees. Pin oak leaves dug into the light, creating a play of shadows on the ground. Strangely, too, the air seemed to be full of snow, a feathery gray-white substance drifting down through the blue sky. Paul reached out into the hot, humid air, feeling as if he were standing in one of his father's photographs, where trees bloomed up in the pulse of a heart, where the world was suddenly not what it seemed. He caught a flake in one palm; when he closed his hand into a fist and opened it again, his flesh was smeared with black. Ashes were drifting down like snow in the dense July heat.

He left footprints on the sidewalk as he walked up the steps. The front door was unlocked, but the house was empty. Hello? Paul called, walking through the rooms, the furniture pushed into the middle of the floor and covered with tarps, the walls bare, ready for painting. He hadn't lived here for years but he found himself pausing in the living room, stripped of everything that had made it meaningful. How many times had his mother decorated this room? And yet it was just a room, finally. Mom? he called, but got no answer. Upstairs, he stood in the doorway of his own room. Boxes were piled here too, full of old things he had to sort. She hadn't thrown anything away; even his posters were rolled neatly and secured with rubber bands. There were faint rectangles on the walls where they'd once hung.

"Mom?" he called again. He went downstairs and onto the back porch.

She was there, sitting on the steps, wearing old blue shorts and a limp white T-shirt. He stopped, wordless, taking in the strange scene. A fire still smoldered in a circle of stones, and the ashes and wisps of burned paper that had fallen around him in the front yard were here too, caught in the bushes and in his mother's hair. Papers were scattered all over the lawn, pressed against the bases of trees, against the rusting metal legs of the ancient swing set. Paul realized with shock that his mother had been burning his father's photographs. She looked up, her face streaked with ashes and with tears.

"It's all right," she said, in an even voice. "I've stopped burning them. I was so angry with your father, Paul, but then it struck me: This is your inheritance too. I only burned one box. It was the box with all the girls, so I don't imagine it was very valuable."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, sitting down beside her.

She handed him a photo of himself, one he'd never seen. He was about fourteen, sitting in the porch swing, bent over his guitar, playing intently, oblivious to everything around him, caught up in the music. It startled him that his father had captured this moment-a private moment, completely unself-conscious, one of the moments of his life when Paul felt most alive.

"Okay. But I don't understand. Why are you so mad?"

His mother pressed her hands to her face, briefly, and sighed. "Do you remember the story of the night you were born, Paul? The blizzard, how we barely got to the clinic in time?"

"Sure." He waited for her to go on, not knowing what to say, yet understanding at some instinctive level that this had to do with his twin sister, who had died.

"Do you remember the nurse, Caroline Gill? Did we tell you about her?"

"Yes. Not her name. You said she had blue eyes."

"She does. Very blue. She came here yesterday, Paul. Caroline Gill. I haven't seen her since that night. She brought news, shocking news. I'm just going to tell you, since I don't know what else to do."

She took his hand. He didn't pull away. His sister, she told him calmly, had not died at birth after all. She'd been born with Down's syndrome, and his father had asked Caroline Gill to take her to a home in Louisville.

"To spare us," his mother said, and her voice caught. "That's what she said. But she couldn't go through with it, Caroline Gill. She took your sister, Paul. She took Phoebe. All these years your twin has been alive and well, growing up in Pittsburgh."

"My sister?" Paul said. "In Pittsburgh? I was just in Pittsburgh last week." It was not an appropriate response, but he did not know what else to say; he was filled with a strange emptiness, a kind of stunned detachment. He had a sister: that was news enough. She was retarded, not perfect, so his father had sent her away. It wasn't anger, strangely, but fear that rose up next, some old apprehension born of the pressure his father had focused on him as the only child. Born, too, of Paul's need to make his own way, even if his father might disapprove enough to leave. A fear Paul had transformed all these years, like a gifted alchemist, into anger and rebellion.

"Caroline went to Pittsburgh and started a new life," his mother said. "She raised your sister. I guess it was a struggle; it would have been, especially in those days. I keep trying to be thankful that she was good to Phoebe, but there's a part of me that's just raging."

Paul closed his eyes for a moment, trying to hold all these ideas together. The world felt flat, strange, and unfamiliar. All these years he'd tried to imagine his sister, what she would be like, but now he couldn't bring a single idea of her to mind.

"How could he?" he asked finally. "How could he keep this a secret?"

"I don't know," his mother said. "I've been asking myself the same thing for hours. How could he? And how dare he die and leave us to discover this alone?"

They sat there silently. Paul remembered an afternoon of developing photos with his father on the day after he'd trashed the darkroom, when he was full of guilt and his father was too, when the very air was charged with what they said and what they left unspoken. Camera, his father told him, came from the French chambre, room. To be in camera was to operate in secret. This was what his father had believed: that each person was an isolated universe. Dark trees in the heart, a fistful of bones: that was his father's world, and it had never made him more bitter than at this moment.

"I'm surprised he didn't give me away," he said, thinking of how hard he'd always fought against his father's vision of the world. He had gone out and played his guitar, music rising straight up through him and entering the world, and people turned, put down their drinks, and listened, and a room full of strangers was connected, each to each. "I'm sure he wanted to."

"Paul!" His mother frowned. "No. If anything, he wanted even more for you because of all this. Expected even more. Demanded perfection of himself. That's one of the things that's become clear to me. That's the terrible part, actually. Now that I know about Phoebe, so many mysteries about your father make sense. That wall I always felt-it was real."

She got up, went inside, and came back with two Polaroids. "Here she is," she said. "This is your sister: Phoebe."