1982, Chapter 2 Summary
David is speaking with a professor of art history who is also the resident critic at the Carnegie Museum; she is probing David about his theories of form and beauty. She is a pretty woman, but David is more concerned about the woman waiting for him across the room. When he looks, Caroline is still there and he is relieved. He checks again several minutes later, sees she is waiting, and tries to concentrate on the critic. When he realizes the envelope with the precious pictures of his daughter is still in his hands, he places it carefully in his shirt pocket, hand trembling. As the woman drones on, David wonders if Caroline lives in Pittsburgh or one of the surrounding towns. When he looks again, Caroline is gone. He immediately excuses himself and begins to search for her. He let her walk away once, and he does not want to do so again. But she is gone.
Loss and sorrow wash over him, and his grief is palpable. He knows he has lived many years without Caroline Gill and that his grief is out of proportion, but he is still shaken. He looks at the photos of his daughter. She appears to be happy at her sweet sixteen party; in another picture she is shooting a basketball, the sport Paul refuses to play. He sees a crowd is still gathered, but he goes outside and begins to walk.
He does not think about where he is going, but he knows. He went to college in Oakland, and it is familiar to him. His thoughts are of that moment so many years ago, the moment that has kept him frozen all these years: a newborn baby in his hands, then placed in the hands of another. David thinks of Norah, his wife who has had many affairs over the years. Sometimes he catches a glimpse of the woman he married, but those moments are fleeting and rare. His son is hurt by her behavior, and David has tried to be a good father by giving him everything he can. However, no matter how hard he tries to make Paul’s life “smooth and easy,” David has built that life on a lie. David has tried to prevent his son from having to suffer poverty, worry, and grief—the hallmarks of his own childhood; yet his own actions have created losses he never expected.
He remembers his acceptance letter from the University of Pittsburgh. It was perfect in every way except one—the acceptance had been given to Henry David, not Henry David McCallister. Someone had inadvertently omitted his last name, and he used it as an opportunity for a fresh start. He registered as David Henry and began his new life. The name allowed David to become someone different, and he achieved a place in the world, at least in part, because of it. When he reaches the edge of the river, David feels acid rising in his throat, and he drops to his hands and knees, vomiting and heaving into the swirling water. He stays there for a long time before he walks back to the city.
David spends the night in the Greyhound terminal, and in the morning he takes the first bus to his home in West Virginia. After seven hours of driving through the hills, the bus stops in front of the grocery store on the main street, as it always had. David once worked in this store; today it is closed up and covered with graffiti. Several old men across the street look distrustfully at David, and probably...
(This entire section contains 1539 words.)
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with good reason. He is rumpled and wrinkled, his pants are stained, and his hair is flattened by his fitful sleep. David reflects that he never really fit in here. At school, he yearned for home; when he was home, the yearning remained. It takes David almost an hour to reach his old house as he walks through familiar but overgrown places from his childhood. He is so overtaken with the past that he almost expects his family to greet him from the porch. Although he is sure no one has lived in this house for years, when he steps through the door hanging crookedly on its hinges, he sees that someone is living here. In addition to a skillet on the stove, there are a few thick blankets on the bed frame, three crocuses in a jar in the window, and the floor is swept clean.
As a breeze blows through the window, David notices hundreds of paper cutouts hanging everywhere in the room. They are intricate and complex, showing entire scenes of things like the state fair and a picnic with exploding fireworks. He sees these as he does his photos, captured moments in time, though for him the images that emerge in the darkroom are already altered from the moment he took them. David is tired, and he sits on the hard bed and wraps the damp quilt around his shoulders. The walls are covered with newspaper that is now peeling, and he remembers just how poor they had been and how poor everyone around them had been. That is why they saved everything, “a hedge against want.” It is so quiet here, not like in Lexington, with Norah constantly on the phone and Paul always playing his guitar. No would be no phone ringing in the middle of the night to call him to the hospital. His eyes grow heavy, and soon he is asleep.
He hears someone, and David slowly revives enough to open his eyes and look around the room for the voice. She is standing at the stove in olive fatigues, and she is cooking eggs efficiently and gracefully. He wants to take a picture but realizes his camera is still locked in the hotel safe. He tries to rise but realizes his wrists have been tied to the bedposts, one by a red chiffon scarf and the other by strings from a mop. She tells him her boyfriend will be back any minute. When he asks, she tells David her name is Rosemary, then she experiences a moment of fear and says it may not be her real name. David asks her to release him; she refuses. He says he is thirsty; she brings him a metal cup of water from the stream and puts a dirty straw in it. He tells her this is his home, the deed in his safe, and she is trespassing. She eats her eggs and asks if he has come to claim his house. David realizes she has no boyfriend and asks her how old she is. Again she answers truthfully, sixteen, and then again she tries to dissemble. As she rinses the eggs from her plate, he sees that she is four or five months pregnant.
David asks again if she will untie him and tells her he is a doctor; she can check his wallet. She does, placing all the things from his wallet on the table. Rosemary is still not convinced, so he offers her the photos of his daughter. Rosemary thinks Phoebe is pretty, and her face softens with some kind of longing. With anguish in her voice, she tells him that her family does not know she is here and that she can never go back. David wants to comfort her as he wanted to comfort others—June, his mother, Norah—but cannot. He is shocked to hear himself tell this girl about Phoebe, about giving her away because she had Down’s syndrome. The room is full of memories and loss for David, but Rosemary starts to reveal her story because he has shared his.
She is from Pittsburgh, but her aunt used to live here, and Rosemary used to come to these hills and this empty house as a child. When she had to run, this is where she came. Rosemary gathers her scissors and paper and begins a new creation. When David compliments her work, she tells him her grandmother taught her; though she has died, creating these intricate pieces of art makes Rosemary feel closer to her. The girl seems about to untie him when she suddenly asks how he could have given his own daughter away. He wonders if she is worried about giving her own child away, but Rosemary fiercely tells him she will never do that. David tells her he realized it was the wrong thing to do, but by then it was too late. It is never too late, the girls says, but David reminds her that she is young and does not yet realize that sometimes it really is too late.
A silence falls over the room. While Rosemary cuts her intricate designs, David starts talking. Her silence makes him free to talk and weep. He tells her everything, starting on that snowy night. He talks until the words slow and finally cease. David sees anger in Rosemary’s eyes as he talks, and he closes his eyes in fear because he knows it has all been his fault. He hears footsteps and feels the metal scissors against his skin. She is wary, but she has freed him.
