The Forgotten Hours(90)
“The baby is good.” Zev put a cool hand onto her burning cheeks. Her mother brought over a damp washcloth, and he pulled it over Katie’s forehead.
“We’re going to have a baby,” she said, incredulous, realizing she had already decided this was what she wanted.
One life for another. Why there had to be this blistering reckoning, she didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure how she would accept it. There was so much to figure out about her father, her past, but she wanted to look forward. She wanted to look toward Zev and their baby. The past was inextricably linked to the present—she understood that—but for now she wanted to think about building her own future.
Zev smiled, creases springing from eyes to mouth. “We’re going to be a family, yakirati.”
“You’ll have to teach me Hebrew,” she whispered, spent.
“Precious,” he said. “It means my precious.”
Her body was broken in multiple places, her mind too weary and drugged up to think straight, but she’d held on; her life was not totally undone. She had not lost all agency, she thought, closing her eyes against the keen bite of her tears.
41
The leaves that fall were incredible: the brightest of yellows and oranges, red thrown in like splashes of blood. Katie turned off the highway at Winnisquam Lake, near Laconia. She passed Lake Kanasatka, and then, finally, after driving between two large ponds, she was in Moultonborough, a small town that lay beneath the White Mountain National Forest. The area was sparsely populated, the occasional wood-sided farmhouse and smaller suburban houses lining the roads. Number 89 Hartley Way came up on her right, and she pulled over.
There was an enormous yellow house with a sign jutting out from the roof: LULU’S DOG CARE, GROOMING AND SPA.
A large basket filled with muddy boots lay next to the front door. Dog toys were strewn over the painted floorboards of the porch. Two wicker rocking chairs looked as though they’d weathered severe winters, and an ashtray on a side table was filled with crushed cigarette filters. The front door had a sign tacked up on the top windowpane: “Back in ten!” The yellow paint on the side of the house was pale and peeling, stripped by the summer sun. Air conditioners hung from the windows.
Two crisp barks in the distance and a whistle. Katie stopped short.
At the back of the house, a meadow with soggy brown grass led to the edge of yet another pond. To the left was a collection of smaller houses, sheds that might have once belonged to a barn. Three people had their backs to her, looking out over the rippling water. One appeared to be a man, a giant, his broad back encased in a tan-colored Carhartt jacket with patches on the elbows. He must have been six five or even taller. His shoulders were vast, hunched against the wind. Next to him was a woman throwing something into the pond, a ball, maybe, or a stick. She appeared tiny in comparison, narrow and short, a child or perhaps a teenager. Her hair was cropped and blonde. Another woman was playing with a small yellow Labrador, a cloud of black curls bouncing around her head as she moved.
Katie pressed against the siding and caught her breath. Her nerves were live wires thrumming in her neck. It could only be Lulu. The man put his hands up to his face and let out a hoot. Three dogs emerged from the water, spraying droplets from their coats, causing everyone to step backward, laughing. The woman with the black curls hurled a ball, and the yellow Lab chased after it. She pushed the hair aside and called out, “Thatta boy!”
The blonde woman turned toward Katie and waved. She was older than she initially appeared, her hair more gray than blonde, her face lined like a piece of crumpled paper. The closer Katie got, the older she became. “Hi there,” she said in a friendly, businesslike tone. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Lulu. I’m a . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence, but she didn’t need to, because Lulu was staring at her, stock still.
“Katie,” she said. “Holy fuck. You came.”
“I thought we said today, didn’t we? When we talked?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I just didn’t think you’d actually turn up.”
“All right, let’s get these fellows dried off,” the older lady said. There was sly curiosity in her eyes, but she pressed her lips together and didn’t say more. When she headed toward the sheds, the dogs followed her.
“Give them dog food, and they’ll follow you to the ends of the earth,” said the giant.
“Trev, this is an old friend of mine. Katie Gregory,” Lulu said. “This is Trevor. My husband.”
They shook hands, and it was clear that Trevor knew exactly who Katie was. He crushed her hand in his as though to warn her to be careful with his wife. He’d have been the kind of boy who would hurt other kids by accident on the playground. Now he was a man who looked like he could knock you out with just a quick jab of his meaty fist, though he would never actually do it. His eyes, limpid and dark, settled on her. “Well, I’ll never,” he said. “Did not imagine her like this, Lu. Not one bit.”
Lulu’s face was more settled than when she was a child, her round cheeks flatter, her lips a little more compressed. In tight dark jeans, she was voluptuous in the way a model from the fifties would have been. When Lulu headed toward the house, Katie followed her. Now that she was here with her old friend, her breath slowed to a reasonable rhythm, and she could think more clearly. She’d never be able to make up for what had happened to Lulu, and she certainly didn’t expect them to become friends again. But at the very least Katie could break into the silence, let her know that Lulu had not, in fact, lost her silvery voice; she had it still, and it rang in Katie’s ears like a gong.