The Paper Palace(97)

I lie down on Conrad’s grave, put my mouth to the ground, and though I know he will never hear me, talk to him. I tell him I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve this. You did something terrible, I say, but I did something worse. I tell him about the prices I’ve paid, hoping it will count for something, though I know the burden of carrying a secret is nothing compared to the burden of earth he carries. I tell him about Peter, about the kids. And, for the first time in almost thirty-five years, I cry for him.



* * *



—

Peter is at the hotel bar, shoulders slumped, drinking something amber on the rocks. I can tell from the doorway that he’s had a long day. I know he’s waiting for me, looking forward to unburdening himself. But all I want is to go up to the room and crawl under the covers, hide from him, from myself. I am backing out when he turns, sees me.

“Memphis is a truly crap city,” he says as I pull up a barstool next to him. “And I can’t smoke in the bar.”

“What are you drinking?” I pick up his glass and take a sip. “Rum? That’s a weird choice. You okay? You look tired.”

“I spent the day talking to the dead. It’s no wonder this city has fallen into economic ruin. These people are so numbed by poverty and violence. It’s tragic. I interviewed a schoolteacher who’s already had three of his students murdered this year. Kids. It’s like a war zone, but even more pointless. And you?”

“I spent the day talking to the dead, too.”

Peter drains his drink and signals the bartender. “You went to the cemetery?”

“I did.”

“How was that?”

“It was strange to see it after all these years.” I picture the grave—Conrad’s headstone already worn by time, my tears watering bare patches of dirt. “It took me a while to find it. In my memory, he was buried on top of a hill. But the grave was down in a low hollow. All I really remember about the funeral is how muggy it was, and Anna complaining that her hair was getting frizzy and refusing to say the Lord’s Prayer.”

“Classic Anna.”

“Conrad’s mother never said a single word to any of us. Not even to Mum. And my stepsister Rosemary, clinging to her mother—this little white ghosty thing.”

“Do they still live here?”

“I have no idea. We never saw them after that. Leo left Mum a few months after Conrad died.”

“How old was Rosemary?”

“When Conrad died?”

Peter nods.

“Maybe fourteen?”

“Were you friends?”

“With Rosemary? God, no.”

“Why not?”

“She was . . . I don’t know. Odd. Spectrum-y—like she missed all the normal social cues, if that makes sense. I remember she liked to sing hymns.”

“You should look her up, see if she still exists.”

“She probably moved away ages ago.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Anyway, it would be too awkward. Calling out of the blue after all these years of making zero effort.”

“Better late than never.” Peter gets up off his barstool. “I’m going outside for a smoke.”

“You really should quit.”

“One of these days,” he says. I watch him cross the lobby away from me, push through the revolving doors out onto the sooty sidewalk.





Two Days Ago, July 30. Memphis.


Rosemary lives in a quiet, nondescript neighborhood on the east side of the city. Block after block of almost identical ranch houses with tidy front yards. But I know her house the minute the taxi pulls up: on the front landing is the alligator umbrella stand from her mother’s porch, its mouth still agape after all these years. Rosemary comes to the door holding a small dog—a rescue, she tells me. Her hair is beige, cut short. She’s a professor of musicology. Her husband Edmund teaches quantum physics. They have no children.

“My area is Baroque,” she says as I follow her into the living room. “I have herbal tea or decaf. Caffeine makes me jittery.”

“Decaf’s great.”

“Make yourself comfortable. I made a carrot cake.” She heads into the kitchen, leaving me alone in the living room. The mantelpiece is covered with framed photographs: Rosemary looking drab in a cap and gown; Rosemary and her husband on their wedding day; Rosemary as a young girl riding on a trolley car with Leo. There isn’t a single photo of Conrad. I pick up a silver-framed photo of Rosemary with an elderly couple on a cruise ship. It takes me a moment to realize the man is Leo. He has his arm around a woman I recognize as Rosemary’s mother.

“They remarried,” Rosemary says, coming up behind me.

“I didn’t know.”

“A few years after my brother died.” She takes the photo from me and puts it back on the mantel. “They’ve both passed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, it’s what happens.” She hands me a slice of carrot cake. “I use applesauce instead of sugar. And how is Anna?”

“Anna died, too. Almost twenty years ago. As a matter of fact, tomorrow is the anniversary of her death.”

“You two never really got along, as I recall,” Rosemary says.