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 re?ceded, scraps of conversation drifting like bits of paper borne on the wind. Streams of people, dressed in silk and heels and dark expen?sive suits, flowed up the museum's stone steps. The sky was a dark?ening 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. Think?ing 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 Caro?line 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 al?most no attention to what he was saying. Instead, she studied the fa?miliar 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 possi?ble 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 disap?pear 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 Pitts?burgh? 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 photograph, 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, unac?knowledged, 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, / 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, al?ways, and something for Phoebe. When she'd worked in David Henry's office she had been so young, so lonely and naive, 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 ad?dress. 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 flow?ing 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 for?ward 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 plea?sure 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 hap?pened 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 Ias't.
"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 me?morial 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 imag?ined 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 high?way, 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?"
