The Memory Keeper's Daughter (41 page)

Paul took them and stared from one to the other: a posed picture of a girl, smiling, and then a candid shot of her shooting a basket. He was still trying to take in what his mother had told him: that this stranger with the almond eyes and sturdy legs was his twin.

"You have the same hair," Norah said softly, sitting down next to him again. "She likes to sing, Paul. Isn't that something?" She laughed. "And guess what-she's a basketball fan."

Paul's laugh was sharp and full of pain.

"Well," he said, "I guess Dad chose the wrong kid."

His mother took the photos in her ash-stained hands.

"Don't be bitter, Paul. Phoebe has Down's syndrome. I don't know much about it, but Caroline Gill had a lot to say. So much I could hardly take it all in, really."

Paul had been running his thumb along the concrete edge of the step and now he stopped, watching blood seep up where he'd scraped it raw.

"Don't be bitter? We visited her grave," he said, remembering his mother walking through the cast-iron gate with her arms full of flowers, telling him to wait in the car. Remembering her kneeling the dirt, planting morning glory seeds. "What about that?"

"I don't know. It was Dr. Bentley's land, so he must have known too. Your father never wanted to take me there. I had to fight so hard. At the time I thought he was afraid I'd have a nervous breakdown. Oh, it made me so mad-the way he always knew best."

Paul started at the vehemence in her voice, remembering his conversation that morning with Michelle. He pressed the edge of his thumb to his lips and sucked away the little beads of blood, glad for the sharp copper taste. They sat in silence for a time, looking at the backyard with its wisps of ash, its scattered photos and damp boxes.

"What does it mean," he asked at last, "that she's retarded? I mean, day-to-day."

His mother looked at the photographs again. "I don't know. Caroline said she's quite high-functioning, whatever that means. She has a job. A boyfriend. She went to school. But apparently she can't really live on her own."

"This nurse-Caroline Gill-why did she come here now, after all these years? What did she want?"

"She just wanted to tell me," his mother said softly. "That's all. She didn't ask for anything. She was opening a door, Paul. I really do believe that. It was an invitation. But whatever happens next is up to us."

"And what is that?" he asked. "What happens now?"

"I'll go to Pittsburgh. I know I have to see her. But after that, I don't know anything. Should I bring her back here? We'll be strangers to her. And I have to talk with Frederic; he has to know." She put her face in her hands for a moment. "Oh, Paul-how can I go to France for two years and leave her behind? I don't know what to do. It's too much for me, all at once."

A breeze fluttered the photographs scattered across the lawn. Paul sat quietly, struggling with many confused emotions: anger at his father, and surprise, and sadness for what he'd lost. Worry, too; it was terrible to be concerned about this, but what if he had to take care of this sister who couldn't live on her own? How could he possibly do that? He'd never even met a retarded person, and he found that the images he had were all negative. None of them fit with the sweetly smiling girl in the photograph, and that was disconcerting too.

"I don't know either," Paul said. "Maybe the first thing is to clean this mess up."

"Your inheritance," his mother said.

"Not just mine," he said thoughtfully, testing the words. "It's my sister's too."

They worked through that day and the next, sorting the photos and repacking the boxes, dragging them into the cool depths of the garage. While his mother met with the curators, Paul called Michelle to explain what had happened and to tell her he would not be at her concert after all. He expected her to be angry, but she listened without comment and hung up. When he tried to call back, the machine picked up; that happened all day long. More than once he considered getting in his car and driving like wild home to Cincinnati, but he knew it would do no good. Knew, too, that he didn't really want to go on this way, always loving Michelle more than she could love him back. So he forced himself to stay. He turned to the physical work of packing up the house, and in the evening he walked downtown to the library to check out books on Down's syndrome.

On Tuesday morning, quiet and distracted and full of apprehension, he and his mother got into her car and drove over the river and through the lush late-summer green of Ohio. It was very hot, the leaves of the corn shimmering against the expansive blue sky. They arrived in Pittsburgh amid returning Fourth of July traffic, traveling through the tunnel that opened onto the bridge in a breathtaking view of the two rivers merging. They crawled through downtown traffic and followed the Monongahela, traveling through another long tunnel. At last they pulled up at Caroline Gill's brick house on a busy tree-lined street.

She had told them to park in the alley and they did, getting out of the car and stretching. Beyond a strip of grass, steps led down into a narrow lot and the high brick house where his sister had grown up. Paul took the house in, so much like Cincinnati, so different from his own quiet childhood, its suburban ease and comfort. Traffic rushed by on the street, past the little postage-stamp yards, into the city sprawling all around them, hot and dense.

The gardens all along the alley were thick with flowers, hollyhocks and irises in every color, their white and purple tongues vivid against the grass. In this garden a woman was working, tending a row of lush tomato plants. A hedge of lilac bushes grew up behind her, the leaves flashing their pale green undersides in a breeze that pushed the hot air without cooling it. The woman, wearing dark blue shorts and a white T-shirt and bright flowered cotton gloves, sat up from where she was kneeling and ran the back of her hand across her forehead. The traffic rushed; she hadn't heard them coming. She broke a leaf off a tomato plant and pressed it to her nose.

"Is that her?" Paul asked. "Is that the nurse?"

His mother nodded. She had folded her arms tightly, protectively, across her chest. Her sunglasses masked her eyes, but even so he could see how nervous she was, how pale and tense.

"Yes. That's Caroline Gill. Paul, now that it's come to it, I'm not sure I can do this. Maybe we should just go home."

"We've driven all this way. And they're expecting us."

She smiled a small tired smile. She'd hardly slept in days; even her lips were pale.

"They can't possibly be expecting us," she said. "Not really."

Paul nodded. The back door swung open, but the figure on the porch was hidden in the shadows. Caroline stood, brushing her hands on her shorts.

"Phoebe," she called. "There you are."

Paul felt his mother grow tense beside him, but he didn't look at her. He looked instead at the porch. The moment stretched out, extended, and the sun pressed down against them. At last the figure emerged, carrying two glasses of water.

He stared hard. She was short, much shorter than he was, and her hair was darker, thinner and more flyaway, cut in a simple bowl shape around her face. She was pale, like his mother, and from this distance her features seemed delicate in a broad face, a face that seemed somewhat flattened, as if it had been pressed too long against a wall. Her eyes were slightly upslanted, her limbs short. She was not a girl anymore, as in the photographs, but grown, his own age, with gray in her hair. A few gray hairs flashed his beard too, when he let it grow. She wore flowered shorts and she was stocky, a little plump, her knees brushing together when she walked.

Oh, his mother said. She had placed one hand on her heart. Her eyes were hidden by the sunglasses, and he was glad; this moment was too private.

"It's okay," he said. "Let's just stand here for a while."

The sun was so hot, and the traffic rushed. Caroline and Phoebe sat side by side on the porch steps, drinking their water.

"I'm ready," his mother said at last, and they went down the steps to the narrow patch of lawn between the vegetables and flowers. Caroline Gill saw them first; she shaded her eyes, squinting against the sun, and stood up. Phoebe stood up too, and for a few seconds they looked at one another across the lawn. Then Caroline took Phoebe's hand in hers. They met by the tomato plants, the heavy fruit already starting to ripen, filling the air with a clean, acrid scent. No one spoke. Phoebe was gazing at Paul, and after a long moment she reached across the space between them and touched his cheek, lightly, gently, as if to see if he was real. Paul nodded without speaking, looking at her gravely; her gesture seemed right to him, somehow. Phoebe wanted to know him, that was all. He wanted to know her too, but he had no idea what to say to her this sudden sister, so intimately connected to him yet such a stranger. He was also terribly self-conscious, afraid of doing the wrong thing. How did you talk to a retarded person? The books he had read over the weekend, all those clinical accounts-none of this had prepared him for the real human being whose hand brushed so lightly against his face.

It was Phoebe who recovered first.

"Hello," she said, extending her hand to him formally. Paul took her hand, feeling how small her fingers were, still unable to say a single word. "I'm Phoebe. Pleased to meet you." Her speech was thick, hard to understand. Then she turned to his mother and did this again.

"Hello," his mother said, taking her hand, then clasping it between her own. Her voice was charged with emotion. "Hello, Phoebe. I'm very glad to meet you too."

"It's so hot," Caroline said. "Why don't we go inside? I have the fans on. And Phoebe made iced tea this morning. She's been excited about your visit, haven't you, honey?"

Phoebe smiled and nodded, suddenly shy. They followed her into the coolness of the house. The rooms were small but immaculate, with beautiful woodwork and French doors opening between the living room and dining room. The living room was full of sunlight and shabby, wine-colored furniture. A massive loom sat in the far corner.

"I'm making a scarf," Phoebe said.

"It's beautiful," his mother said, crossing the room to finger the yarns, dark pink and cream and yellow and pale green. She'd taken off her sunglasses and she looked up, her eyes watery, her voice still charged with emotion. "Did you choose these colors yourself, Phoebe?"

"My favorite colors," Phoebe said.

"Mine too," his mother said. "When I was your age, those were my favorite colors too. My bridesmaids wore dark pink and cream, and they carried yellow roses."

Paul was startled to know this; all the photos he had seen were black-and-white.

"You can have this scarf," Phoebe said, sitting down at the loom. "I'll make it for you."

"Oh," his mother said, and closed her eyes briefly. "Phoebe, that's lovely."

Caroline brought iced tea, and the four of them sat uneasily in the living room, talking awkwardly about the weather, about Pittsburgh's budding renaissance in the wake of the steel industry collapse. Phoebe sat quietly at the loom, moving the shuttle back and forth, looking up now and then when her name was mentioned. Paul kept casting sidelong glances at her. Phoebe's hands were small and plump. She concentrated on the shuttle, biting at her lower lip. At last his mother drained her tea and spoke.

"Well," she said. "Here we are. And I don't know what happens now."

"Phoebe," Caroline said. "Why don't you join us?" Quietly, Phoebe came over and sat next to Caroline on the couch.

His mother began, speaking too quickly, clasping her hands together, nervous. "I don't know what's best. There are no maps for this place we're in, are there? But I want to offer my home to Phoebe. She can come and live with us, if she wants to do that. I've thought about it so much, these last days. It would take a whole lifetime to catch up." Here she paused to take a breath, and then she turned to Phoebe, who was looking at her with wide, wary eyes. "You're my daughter, Phoebe, do you understand that? This is Paul, your brother."

Phoebe took hold of Caroline's hand. "This is my mother," she said.

"Yes." Norah glanced at Caroline and tried again. "That's your mother," she said. "But I'm your mother too. You grew in my body,

Phoebe." She patted her stomach. "You grew right here. But then you were born, and your mother Caroline raised you."

"I'm going to marry Robert," Phoebe said. "I don't want to live with you."

Paul, who had watched his mother struggle all weekend, felt Phoebe's words physically, as if she'd kicked him. He saw his mother feel them too.

"It's okay, Phoebe," Caroline said. "No one's going to make you go away."

"I didn't mean-I only wanted to offer-" His mother stopped and took another deep breath. Her eyes were deep green, troubled. She tried again. "Phoebe, Paul and I, we'd like to get to know you. That's all. Please don't be scared of us, okay? What I want to say- what I mean-is that my house is open to you. Always. Wherever I go in the world, you can come there too. And I hope you will. I hope you'll come and visit me someday, that's all. Would that be okay with you?"

"Maybe," Phoebe conceded.

"Phoebe," Caroline said, "Why don't you show Paul around for a while? Give Mrs. Henry and me a chance to talk a little bit. And don't worry, sweetheart," she added, resting her hand lightly on Phoebe's arm. "No one's going anywhere. Everything's okay."

Phoebe nodded and stood up.

"Want to see my room?" she asked Paul. "I got a new record player."

Paul glanced at his mother and she nodded, watching the two of them as they crossed the room together. Paul followed Phoebe up the stairs.

"Who's Robert?" he asked.

"He's my boyfriend. We're getting married. Are you married?"

Paul, pierced with a memory of Michelle, shook his head. "No."

"You have a girlfriend?"

"No. I used to have a girlfriend, but she went away."

Phoebe stopped on the top step and turned. They were eye to eye, so close that Paul felt uncomfortable, his personal space invaded. He glanced away and then looked back, and she was still looking straight at him.