The Memory Box (10 page)

The first page features a beautiful photo of Lilly on the day she was born wearing her blue and pink striped hat and swaddled in the hospital blanket.

I kiss her photo and wrap my arms around the book, my affection growing by the heartbeat. While it’s close to my chest, I inhale the scent of the past and vow to add to it from now on. Tessa’s baby book wasn’t on the shelf. I make a mental note to look in the den. My eyes focus back to the photo of baby Lilly. Oh gosh, how could I forget? She was so long and skinny. Just like my mother told me I was as a baby. Not like those quintessential diaper-ad babies, with ripples of fat and huge round cheeks. My little lanky lollipop; she was beautiful.

The next page says: Hospital: St. John’s Hospital, Lanstonville, PA. God, Lanstonville,
that
seems like a million years ago.

I finger through a few pages and come to where I’ve listed her first foods: carrots, peas, bananas, and there’s a photo of her on the day she started eating them. The kitchen looks like it was devastated by a very large pumpkin bomb; every surface is coated in orange—except if you look closely, there appear to be two blue eyes peeking through the orange muck.

A photo of her wearing one of those hideous headbands is next, and I’m shocked that I actually put one on what’s essentially a bald head. I must have been delirious from sleep deprivation. Pages later, a locket of hair from her first trim.

It’s not until page nine—First Spoken Words—that it finally occurs to me. None of what’s written is in my handwriting. Nor is it Andy’s. Quickly, I fan through the book to examine the rest and notice something strange about the photos. There aren’t many, and almost all of them are fragments of photos. Photos that have been cut or torn. Photos that have been violated. Heads cut off of bodies. I go back to the beginning and look at the pages I skipped. My First Photo with Mommy. I gasp. And cover my mouth with a trembling hand. Lilly is sitting in the lap of a decapitated body. How could someone cut my face out? That’s nuts!

Goosebumps migrate up my arms; they raise wisps of hair as they crawl to the back of my neck. Does Andy know about this? Has he seen this? Everything else about the photo seems normal—I’m wearing my post-pregnancy uniform—T-shirt and jeans. But no head. I start to turn the page and stop. Something catches my eye. Something’s not right. On the ring finger of my right hand is JD’s college ring. Why am I wearing JD’s college ring? It’s the one my mother gave her when she graduated Barton. It was my mother’s, given to her by my grandparents on her twenty-first birthday. JD always loved that ring when she was a young girl. She was so thrilled when Mom gave it to her. In fact, she never took it off. Ever. So what’s it doing on my hand?

It hits me like a sucker punch. It’s not
me.
In the photo. It’s JD. Those are JD’s
boots
. I hated those ugly freakin’ lumberjack boots. I begged her to bury them in the fashion-sins graveyard along with oversized sweatshirts and scrunchies. I swear she wore those boots to make me crazy. Her peace-sign watch is on her left wrist. It’s JD, all right. What the hell is she doing on
my
page? My First Photo with Mommy, not My First Photo with Aunty.

My heart pounds heavily, methodically, like a train speeding over broken tracks, bum-bum, bum-bum, bum-bum. With force it pounds up through my chest, making the back of my throat throb. But it doesn’t stop there—it keeps going—pounding on my head until it gets through to my brain and asks, “Don’t you get it? Don’t you get it? Don’t you get it?”

But I
don’t
get it. I
can’t
get it. I won’t get it. Lilly is
not
JD’s. She’s mine. And Andy’s. I gave birth to Lilly Thompson
. I
carried her in
my
body for nine bloated, gassy months. My rage and confusion twist like the fragile metal strands of steel wool.

I rip through the baby book to find every other picture guillotined. Then the pages go blank. Nothing for Lilly’s third birthday or after that.

I search every page again from the beginning—meticulously reading every word—wiping each sentence with my fingertip—dusting them off for clues. Until I get to the end of the book. There’s a pocket on the inside of the back cover. Something tucked into the bottom of the pocket creates a bulge, a small square. After all these years, it’s made an impression in the pocket that hides it. I look inside. It’s a piece of paper folded so small. If you didn’t go looking for it, you’d never know it was there. I reach my hand in.

“
Jesus Christ!”

My finger is pierced by something sharp. Next to the square of paper is a tiny gold cross adorned with the skinniest pink satin ribbon tied in a bow around it. “
Jeez
, I’m bleeding
.
” A tiny spot of blood has formed at the tip of my finger. It slowly grows. With my other fingers I retrieve the carefully folded paper and open it, pressing out the creases with the back of my hand.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Monday, September 25, 2006, 4:53 p.m.

I
t’s a birth certificate. I read the words through a smudge of blood:

Lilliana Spencer

Born February 10, 1998.

7 lbs. 3 oz.

21 inches

St. John’s Hospital, Lanstonville, Pennsylvania

Mother: Jane Dory Spencer

Father:

Date Issued: February 23, 1998

I gasp. So violently that my tongue is sucked up against the back of my mouth. Shutting out oxygen, blocking my airway. I panic. I try to breathe—but nothing gets through. I can’t get air.

I’m suffocating myself.

My hysteria escalates. The anxiety is paralyzing. I flail my arms like a shipwrecked survivor. I can’t move my legs. I start to convulse. I collapse doubled over.

Smarty barrels into the room and barks like mad.

Lilly rushes in screaming, “Tessa! Tessa! Mrs. H!!! Help!!! Mommy’s … choking!”

Lilly pleads, “
Mommy
, please,
please
don’t die … Help! Mrs. H!
Oh my God, Mommy … oh my God! Don’t die!”
Lilly throws her arms around me from behind and pulls me up. “Don’t worry, I know the Heimlich maneuver, remember, I learned it in Girl Scouts, don’t worry, Mom, I know what I’m doing.”

The problem is, I’m not choking on a foreign body; I’m choking on my own body. But I can’t tell her this. Lilly swiftly and deftly thrusts her fist up and under my rib cage. She’s sucking in noisy gasps of air, and I wish I could get some.

“Mommy, please don’t die!!!
Please
don’t …”

I manage to simultaneously rip her arms off me and gasp my first breath of air in an eternity. The momentum springs me backward. I collapse on top of Lilly, pinning her under me. Her head slams against the wood floor. A horrendous wail gushes from her. I clumsily roll over onto my knees. Lilly doesn’t move except for tears streaming down the sides of her face, dropping off her cheeks onto the rug. Even her mouth doesn’t move—it’s frozen open, an agonizing sound pouring out of her.

“Oh,
God.”
My chest heaves for its first few lungsful of air.

I’m hunched over in a doggy position when Mrs. Hildebrand comes stumbling into the room, followed by Tessa.

“Mrs.
Thompson—Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
, I must have—what’s—” Mrs. Hildebrand is flitting back and forth between me and Lilly, “Lilly,
dear, oh my
—” she reaches out for Lilly.

“
Don’t
 … touch
her
—” I spatter, gasping. I can’t lift my head. “Call … nine …one-one … Missus … I … think she … brok—” My arms give in and I collapse again—this time forward, onto the rug.

Smarty scampers five feet one way, five feet another. Mrs. Hildebrand makes a U-turn out of the room, mumbling, “
911
,
Jesus, Mary and Joseph
,” and pulls Tessa into the hall with her. She hurries down the stairs, breathless, the stairs thumping under her weigh “
Tessa,
sweetheart—where does your mother keep the brandy, dear?”

“
Stay put—Lilly
 …
okay?
” I pant, “Someone’s … coming … to help …” I cough between each word. I look over at her. Her eyes are leaking. A steady stream flows down her ears, wetting her hair. Silent now. Her body frozen. Her arms outstretched—perpendicular to her body—like a cross. I reach my hand over her cheek to wipe the tears. When I pull away a streak of red is left behind across her face. Her tears dilute the stain, and it gets carried away in the stream before I can wipe it. “Can you move your fingers? Your toes?” She wiggles both. “Where does it hurt, Lilly? Your head?” She points to her collarbone. “Okay. Rest your arm. Don’t move, sweetie.”

Slowly, I move my head toward her hand and softly kiss her palm without moving it, “Lilly,” I whisper, “I love you … I love you so much—do you know that?” My heart chokes up, and for the first time I’m afraid of all the love I have for her. It scares me. “No matter what—I love you. No matter what—I’m your mother.”

I curl into a fetal position next to her, outstretching my arm across her legs. My head is throbbing. My cheek gingerly touches her jeans—soaked from the shower. I take in every inch of her. Her feathery breath flows faintly in and out of her mouth. Mrs. H’s voice floats in and out of my awareness. But all I can think about is Lilly. Something flashes across my mind. A memory of when the girls were about five and we were shopping for school clothes. The thought of it thrills me. A real memory. Clear as a blue sky. I want to cling to every detail of it.

It was the end of summer the year the girls were to start kindergarten. We were in a dressing room of a store in town, trying on fall clothes. Nothing fit right. Everything was too big. I wanted to go grab the smaller sizes, and because the rack was so close to the dressing room, I wanted Lilly and Tessa to stay put. “Sit on the bench with the door closed,” I told them. The door was only eight feet away from the toddler section. I should’ve just left the door open. Why didn’t I just leave the door open? But I closed it and told them to wait there while I went to get the right size. “Don’t open the door for anyone but me,” I said to them, “I’ll be right back, I’m just going right there, see?” I pointed. Before I closed the door, Lilly said, “No problem, Mom-
my!
” while saluting me with her left hand. Tessa slumped on the bench, her bottom lip curled. She stuck her pinky in her mouth to suck on. Not a minute later I returned and knocked softly on the door, “It’s Mommy, I’m back. Open up, please.” One of them twisted the knob. Grabbed and twisted. Grabbed and twisted. But they couldn’t open it. It was locked and stuck.

The manager of the store came over to “help.” She put her nose very close to the door, nearly touching it, and scolded, shouting into the door, “What do you girls think you’re doing? This is not a playground; this is not a game you know. Open this door!” Then she turned to me and said, “Do you have
any
control over your girls, ma’am?”

I couldn’t believe the way she was talking to them—or me. I thought I could possibly hit her. She was standing uncomfortably close to me, and Tessa was crying behind the door.

“Don’t talk to my girls that way—” I grabbed the door knob and shook it. “There’s something wrong with this door! Do I have to call the police, or will you do the responsible thing and get my girls out of there?!”

Another store employee came over and was somehow able to open the door. Tessa was curled up on the floor like a slug. Lilly, however, was standing up on the bench with her feet a yardstick apart, hands on her hips wearing nothing but her panties and a shirt tied around her neck as a cape. She splayed her arms triumphantly above her head, Rocky-style.

“I did it!” Lilly yelped in sheer disbelief. “I did it! I got the door to open!” She crouched down to tell her sister, “Tessa, Tessa, I did it—I got the door open! Look! Come on, Tessa—pick up your head! Open your eyes—see, Mommy’s here—see, it’s okay—lift your head, Tessie. Mommy, you should have seen me, I climbed up onto this thing with my Super Girl cape on and said ‘I huff and I puff and I blow the door down!’ And look what happened, I blew it open! Can you believe it! Tessa, don’t cry—we’re
freeeeee
!” she said as she sailed off the bench with her arms outstretched, believing she could fly. She didn’t even mind when it didn’t work; she brushed herself off and said, “The cape is new, it needs some practice.” She knelt on the floor and hugged Tessa and said, “It’s okay, Tessa, I saved us … and Mommy’s here. You can stop sucking your finger.”

The siren of the ambulance pierces through everything. I can’t stand that sound. I clutch my ears to shut it out. But these people are here to help Lilly. The siren stops as they pull up to our house.

I reach down to Lilly’s feet and caress the tops of them. I’m careful not to touch her toes, painted sparkly blue, because of how ticklish she is. I love her so much, so incredibly, with every ounce of my being. The vision of the baby book and birth certificate in my mind repulses me. A rancid wave turns over in my stomach. I don’t give a damn if it’s true. If my sister gave birth to her … I don’t care. She’s
my
daughter. And I love her. Nothing will change that.

Nothing can change that.

My sister is dead.

Monday, September 25, 2006, 9:42 p.m.

When we get
home from the emergency room, where it’s confirmed that Lilly fractured her collarbone—or more correctly, I fractured Lilly’s collarbone, we sit without sound, weary, hunched over at the kitchen table eating cold pizza. Andy is by my side sweeping his hand in big circles on my back, staring off into space. He has no idea the kind of hell that’s scorched me today. Singed my soul. The weight of it is smothering.

I wish I could tell him.

I need to tell someone.

I need my sister.

She would know what to do. JD is—
was—
the kind of girl, who, if you told her a piece of the sky had fallen, would help you look for it and then figure out how to get it back where it came from. No questions asked.

“Today really, really stunk, guys,” Andy breaks the silence, shaking his head, his shoulders slumped.

Multiply that by infinity.

Then he claps his hands and jumps out of his chair. His display of energy is painful. “Who’s up for one of my world-famous, obscenely gigantic hot fudge sundaes? Extra whipped cream.” He looks over at me for approval.

Great. Pizza and whipped cream. I’m too tired to argue. We haven’t had this much saturated fat in a month. We own whipped cream?

“I’m too tired, Daddy,” Tessa mumbles, her eyes swollen and pink. She barely lifts her head.

“How ’bout you Lilly?” He’s still trying, hands on hips, urging his team to get pumped up for the second half of the game.

Ever since the nurse in the emergency room gave Lilly a painkiller, she has said nothing. Not one word. Her head is tipped forward, hovering over a slice of congealed cheese; strands of hair rest in a patch of oil on top of it. Lilly’s one arm is crossed in front of her chest, Pledge-of-Allegiance style, held in an arm sling to take stress off her collarbone. Her eyes have a codeine glaze. Her skin is so pale that her freckles looked bleached. She’s done.

“Lilly?” Andy bends down and gets his face up close to hers to see if that’ll do the trick. “I’m gonna help you upstairs, okay? It’s time for you to call it a day. Tessa, why don’t you take a quick shower, or at least wash up, and brush your teeth? You can take a shower in the morning. Okay?”

“All right, Daddy.” Tessa slides her chair back from the table and heads upstairs.

It’s hard for me to look at Lilly now and not see JD. Her freckles are JD’s, and so are her long eyelashes. It’s unsettling. Lilly asked me a question in the hospital, and I thought for a split second that she was JD. It was bizarre. I know I’m exhausted and terrified. My nerves are splintered.

Why is Lilly with
me?
What happened to JD? And her husband? What about Tessa? I’ve been glued to Tessa’s every move, every word, for the last five hours. Searching her face like it’s a map. Looking for leads—something. Where does she come out in all of this? Her name wasn’t in JD’s obituary.

While Andy helps Lilly up the stairs, I wait for the bathroom door to close, and become a burglar in my own home, sneaking into the den to steal five minutes at the computer.

I type my name and hit the Google search box. I can’t stop myself. I need five minutes.

I scroll down the screen to find JD’s obituary. It could have information I overlooked. There’s no time to browse, so I scan the page quickly.

Even with the best of intentions, something new snags me.

When there are no signs of suicide. The clear-cut signs of someone planning suicide aren’t always there. When Psychology Review spoke to Elaine Spencer regarding the suicide of her daughter, JD Spencer …

www.psychologyreview.com/week962/suicide/...

What. The. Hell?

I gawk at the screen. Then close my mouth and skim the page quickly and try to pluck out the main parts.

A noise comes from the doorway of the den. My trigger finger fires at the “x” to shut down the document. I freeze. Trepidation creeps through me like an ant army. I shouldn’t be doing this. I should be upstairs helping my hurt, fragile girls.

I spin around.

Smarty slips under the wing chair with something in his mouth. His jaws are shut, cheeks full, and a long, skinny tail hangs out of clenched teeth.

“Smarty Pants! No! Where’d—” A tiny squeak stops my rant, and he pushes the rubber mouse from his mouth.

“You and those freakin’ mice—you scared the crap out of me.” He looks at me in confusion. I forgot about those damn toy mice. The girls hide them around to see if he’ll find them. I wag my finger at him, “No more real mice for you.” I turn back to the screen.

A new document is open. It’s not the suicide article. I must’ve clicked on it by mistake:

Lanstonville Press, August 14, 2000. CAROLINE SPENCER IS AWARDED CUSTODY OF LILLIANA SPENCER.

I fall into my chair.

After the shocking turn of events, Caroline Spencer, the sister of the deceased, Jane Dory Spencer, is awarded legal custody of her niece, Lilliana Spencer, says the ruling by Judge William Lenox.

When asked to comment on the ruling, Ms. Spencer said, “I’ve always had faith in our legal system. My sister wanted it this way, and justice prevailed. Clearly, her Will and Testament is, and should be, the last and only word. I will see to it that my niece is raised in a loving home. I will surround her with the memories and goodness of her mother, Jane Dory Spencer, the warmest, most generous, and loyal person that has ever touched my life, and without question the closest and most important relationship in my life. Until now. I will miss her immensely.”

When asked about the girl’s father and if he will have a role in the girl’s life, Ms. Spencer had this to say, “For me and for Lilly, he does not exist.”