"Mine too," Doro said, putting one arm around Phoebe's shoul?ders. "I'm going on a trip, don't forget, so it's my cake too. And your mother's and Al's because they've been married five years."
"I'm coming on the trip," Phoebe said.
"Oh, no, sweetie," Doro said. "Not this time. This is a grown-up trip, honey. For me and Trace."
Phoebe's expression was touched with a disappointment as acute as her earlier joy. Mercurial, quicksilver—whatever she felt in each moment was the world.
"Hey, sweetie," Al said, squatting down. "What do you think? You think that kitty cat might like some cream?"
She fought a smile and then gave in, nodding, distracted for the moment from her loss.
"Great," Al said, taking her hand, winking at Caroline.
"Don't take that cat inside," Caroline warned.
She filled a tray with glasses and moved among her guests, still marveling. She was Caroline Simpson, mother of Phoebe, wife of Al, organizer of protests—a different person altogether from the timid woman who had stood in a silent snow-swept office thirteen years ago with an infant in her arms. She turned to look at the house, the pale brick strangely vivid against the graying sky. It's my house, she thought, echoing Phoebe's earlier chant. She smiled at her next thought, strangely apropos: I'm confirmed.
Sandra was laughing with Doro by the honeysuckle bush, and Mrs. Soulard was walking up the alley with a vase full of lilies. Trace, wind pushing his gray hair into his face, cupped a match in his hand, trying to light the candles. The flames flickered, sput?tered, but finally held, illuminating the white linen tablecloth, the small transparent votive cups, the vase of white flowers, the whipped-cream cake. Cars rushed past, muted by the laughing voices, the fluttering leaves. For a moment Caroline stood still, thinking of Al, his hands reaching for her in the darkness of the night to come. This is happiness, she told herself. This is what happi?ness means.
The party lasted until eleven. Doro and Trace lingered after the last guests had left, carrying trays of cups and leftover cake, vases of flowers, putting tables and chairs away in the garage. Phoebe was asleep by then; Al had carried her inside after she dissolved into tears, tired and overstimulated, overcome with Doro's leaving, weeping with great heaving sobs that left her breathless.
"Don't do anymore," Caroline said, stopping Doro at the top of the steps, brushing past the dense, supple leaves of the lilacs. She had planted this hedge three years ago, and now the bushes, just twigs for so long, had taken root and shot up. Next year, they would be heavy with flowers. "I'll clean up tomorrow, Doro. You have an early flight. You must be eager to be off."
"I am," Doro said, her voice so soft Caroline had to strain to hear her. She nodded to the house where Al and Trace were working in the bright kitchen, scraping plates. "But Caroline, it's so bitter?sweet. Earlier, I walked through all the rooms, one last time. I've spent my whole life here. It's strange to leave it. Yet, all the same, I'm excited to be going."
"You can always come back," Caroline said, fighting a sudden swell of emotion.
"I hope I won't want to," Doro said. "Not for more than a visit, anyway." She took Caroline's elbow. "Come on," she said. "Let's go sit on the porch."
They walked along the side of the house, under arching wiste?ria, and sat in the swing, a river of cars moving by on the parkway. The high leaves of the sycamores, big as plates, fluttered against the streetlights.
"You won't miss the traffic," Caroline said.
"No, that's true. It used to be so quiet. They used to close the whole street off in the winter. We rode our sleds straight down the middle of the road, right here."
Caroline pushed the swing, remembering that long-ago night when moonlight flooded the lawns and fell through the bathroom windows, Phoebe coughing in her arms and herons rising from the fields of Doro's childhood.
The screen door swung open and Trace stepped out.
"Well?" he asked. "Are you about ready, Doro?"
"Just about," she said.
"I'll go get the car, then, and bring it around front."
He went back inside. Caroline counted cars, up to twenty. A dozen years ago she had come to this door, Phoebe an infant in her arms. She had stood right here, waiting to see what would happen.
"What time is your flight?" she asked.
"Early. At eight. Oh, Caroline," Doro said, leaning back and stretching her arms wide. "After all these years, I feel so free. Who knows where I might fly?"
"I'll miss you," Caroline said. "Phoebe will too."
Doro nodded. "I know. But we'll see each other. I'll send post?cards from everywhere."
Headlights poured down the hill, and then the rental car was slowing and Trace's long arm was lifting in a wave.
"It's the call of the road!" he shouted.
"Be well," Caroline said. She hugged Doro, feeling her soft cheek. "You saved my life all those years ago, you know."
"Honey, you saved mine too." Doro pulled away. Her dark eyes were wet. "It's your house now. Enjoy it."
And then Doro was down the steps, her white sweater catching in the wind. She was in the car and waving goodbye; she was gone.
Caroline watched the car merge onto the crosstown and disap?pear into the river of rushing lights. The storm was still circling in the hills, flashing the sky white, dull thunder echoing far away. Al came out with drinks, pushing the door open with his foot. They sat down in the swing.
"So," Al said. "Nice party."
"It was," Caroline said. "It was fun. I'm exhausted."
"Have enough energy to open this?" Al asked.
Caroline took the package and undid the clumsy wrapping. A wooden heart fell out, carved from cherry, smooth as a water-worn stone in her palm. She closed her hand around it, remembering the way the medallion had glinted in the cold light of Al's cab and how, months later, Phoebe's tiny hand had caught it.
"It's beautiful," she said, pressing the smooth heart against her cheek. "So warm. It fits right here exactly, in the palm of my hand."
"I carved it myself," Al said, pleasure in his voice. "Nights, on the road. Thought it might be kind of hokey, but this waitress I know in Cleveland said you'd like it. I hope you do."
"I do," Caroline said, linking her arm in his. "I got something for you too." She handed him a small cardboard box. "I didn't have time to wrap it."
He opened the box and took out a new brass key.
"What's this, the key to your heart?"
She laughed. "No. It's a key to this house."
"Why? Did you change the locks?"
"No." Caroline pushed at the swing. "Doro gave it to me, Al. Isn't that amazing? I have the deed inside. She said she wanted a completely fresh start."
One heartbeat. Two, three, and the creak of the swing, back and forth.
"That's pretty extreme," Al said. "What if she wants to come back?"
"I asked her that same thing. She said Leo had left a lot of money. Patents, savings, I don't know what-all. And Doro was thrifty her whole life, so she doesn't need the money. If they come back, she and Trace will get a condo or something."
"Generous," Al said.
"Yes."
Al was silent. Caroline listened to the porch swing creaking, the wind, the cars.
"We could sell it," he mused. "Take off ourselves. Go anywhere."
"It's not worth much," Caroline said slowly. The idea of sell?ing this house had never crossed her mind. "Anyway, where would we go?"
"Oh, I don't know, Caroline. You know me. I've spent life wan?dering. I'm just speculating here. Taking in the news."
The comfort of the darkness, the steady swing, gave way to a deeper unease. Who was this man next to her, Caroline wondered, this man who arrived every weekend and slipped so familiarly into her bed, who tipped his head at a particular angle every morning to slap Old Spice on his neck and chin? What did she really know about his dreams, his secret heart? Next to nothing, it suddenly seemed, or he of hers.
"So you'd rather not have a house?" she pressed.
"It's not that. This was good of Doro."
"But it ties you down."
"I like coming home to you, Caroline. I like coming down that last stretch of highway and knowing you and Phoebe are here, in the kitchen cooking, or planting flowers, or whatever. But sure, it's appealing, what they're doing. Packing up. Taking off. Wandering the world. It would be nice, I think. That freedom."
"I don't have those urges anymore," Caroline said, looking out into the dark garden, the scattering of city lights and the dark red letters of the Foodland sign, mosaic pieces amid the dense summer foliage. "I'm happy right where I am. You'll get bored with me."
"Naw. That just makes us compatible, honey," Al said.
They sat in silence for a time, listening to the wind, the rush of cars.
"Phoebe doesn't like change," Caroline said. "She doesn't handle it well."
"Well, there's that too," Al said.
He waited a moment, and then he turned to her.
"You know, Caroline. Phoebe's starting to grow up. She's start?ing not to be a little girl anymore."
"She's barely thirteen," Caroline said, thinking of Phoebe with the kitten, how easily she slipped back into the carefree joys of childhood.
"That's right. She's thirteen, Caroline. She's—well, you know— starting to develop. I feel uncomfortable picking her up like I did tonight."
"So don't," Caroline said sharply, but she was remembering Phoebe in the pool earlier in the week, swimming away and then returning, grabbing hold of her underwater, the soft rising buds of her breasts pressed against her arm.
"You don't have to get mad, Caroline. It's just that we've never once talked about it, have we? What's going to become of her. What it'll be like for us when we retire, like Doro and Trace." He paused, and she had the sense that he was choosing his words carefully. "I'd like to think we might consider traveling. It makes me a little claus?trophobic, that's all, to imagine staying in this house forever. And what about Phoebe? Will she live with us forever?"
"I don't know," Caroline said, weariness around her, dense as night. She had fought so many fights already to make a life for Phoebe in this indifferent world. For the time being she had all the problems solved, and for the last year or so she'd been able to relax. But where Phoebe would work and how she might live when she grew up—all this remained unknown. "Oh Al, I can't think about all this tonight. Please."
The porch swing glided back and forth.
"We'll need to think about it sometime."
"She's just a little girl. What are you suggesting?"
"Caroline. I'm not suggesting anything. You know I love Phoebe. But you or I, we could die tomorrow. We're not always going to be around to take care of her, that's all. And there may come a time when she doesn't want us to. I'm just asking if you've thought about this. What you're saving all that money for. I'm just raising the topic for discussion. I mean, think about it. Wouldn't it be nice if you could come on the road with me now and again? Just for a weekend ?"
"Yes," she said softly. "That would be nice."
But she wasn't sure. Caroline tried to imagine Al's life, a different room every night, a different city, and the road unfurling in the same gray ribbon. His first thought had been a restless one: sell the house, hit the road, roam the world.
Al nodded, drained his glass, and started to stand up.
"Don't go just yet," she said, putting her hand lightly on his arm. "I have to talk to you about something."
"Sounds serious," he said, settling back into the swing. He gave a nervous laugh. "You're not leaving me, are you? Now that you've come into this inheritance and all?"
"Of course not; it's nothing like that." She sighed. "I got a letter this week," she said. "It was a strange letter, and I need to talk about it."
"A letter from who?"
"From Phoebe's father."
Al nodded and folded his arms, but he didn't speak. He knew about the letters, of course. They'd been arriving for years, bearing cash in varying amounts and a note with a single scrawled sentence. Please let me know where you are living. She had not done this, but in the early years she'd told David Henry everything else. Heartfelt confessional letters, as if he were a friend close to her heart, a confi?dant. As time passed she'd become more efficient, sending photos and a line or two, at best. Her life had become so full and rich and complicated; there was no way to get it all down on paper, so she had simply stopped trying. What a shock it had been, then, to find a fat letter from David Henry, three full pages, written in his tight script, a passionate letter that started with Paul, his talent and his dreams, his rage and his anger.
/ know it was a mistake. What I did, handing you my daughter, 1 know it was a terrible thing, and I know I can't undo it. But I would like to meet her, Caroline, I would like to make amends, somehow. I'd like to know something more about Phoebe, and about your lives.
She was unnerved by the images he'd given her—Paul, a teenager, playing the guitar and dreaming of Juilliard, Norah with her own business, and David, fixed in her mind all these years, as clearly as a photograph in a book, bent over this piece of paper, filled with regret and yearning. She'd slipped the letter into a drawer, as if that might contain it, but the words had hovered in her mind through every moment of this task-filled and emotional week.
"He wants to meet her," Caroline said, fingering the fringe of a shawl Doro had tossed over the arm of the swing. "To be a part of her life again somehow."
