The Memory Key (11 page)

That's not allowed.
Wendy glares, but then she notices my swollen eyes and red nose and blotchy face. Her expression softens.
Lora, what's wrong?
she asks.

And I'm already struggling to hold in my sadness; I cannot hold in one thing more.
It's Tim
, I confess, and I tell her about seeing him with his new girlfriend, I tell her about the night we kissed, and I tell her that I've liked him for a very, very long time.

Wendy rubs my back while I cry and I'm glad I told her.

I'm glad until she sighs and says,
I can't believe you like Tim. You know better, Lora, you really should know better.

“Lora?” says Wendy, smiling a concerned smile.

I grit my teeth. I straighten my shoulders.

But I can't push back the past; it's too strong.

The memories are perfectly clear, painfully clear. They fall like an endless line of dominoes, each one knocking down the next, and I am flattened by every one.

Greg Lange asks me how serious it is between Wendy and her boyfriend . . .

Nick Jordan tells me Wendy is the most talented person in the whole school . . .

Girls cluster around Wendy, oohing over her dress, ahhing over her shoes . . .

Wendy complains about yet another boy who likes her . . .

Wendy advises that I should try being friendlier . . .

Wendy says she's trying to keep me from moping around . . .

And on, and on, and I hate it, and I hate her.

My best friend. I hate her.

But I also hate my jealousy, my insecurity. I hate how she bosses me, but I also hate myself for letting her boss me. I hate how she wants attention and gets attention, but I also hate myself for pretending that I don't want it when I don't get it. Yes, I hate Wendy, but I hate myself more. Much more.

“Lora, are you all right?” says Wendy, smiling a concerned smile.

My hand hurts. I'm clutching the pill bottle so tightly that my fingers have cramped around the narrow tube. Still, I don't let go. I don't let go even as the pain strikes my skull, pain like a punched face, a snapped limb, a broken heart. Pain like a dead mother . . . almost.

Now Wendy is speaking, and so is Tim, but from inside my headache it sounds like they're yelling at me from some vast distance. I can't understand what they're saying, and I don't want to understand. All I want is to get away from here, from them.

I prop myself up to standing and stagger out of the room. Down the long hallway I go, feet stumbling over air, one hand stretched forward, fingers feeling for direction, while my other
hand stays wrapped around my bottle of pain pills.

Footsteps echo behind me. Voices call out my name.

I tell them to leave me alone. I shout it.

Then there are no more footsteps, no more voices, nothing.

I swallow five small tablets, one at a time and haltingly, for I don't have any water and my mouth is dirt dry. I'm not quite sure how I managed it, but I made it outside, and now I'm sitting on a wooden bench, listening to a thundering chorus of bird chatter—there must be dozens of them around, yet I can't see a single one—while the breeze cools my flushed face. The pain seeps away so slowly, I don't notice it going until it's nearly gone.

“Lora?”

I don't answer. I don't look to see who it is. But the person walks over and I'm relieved to find it's only Raul. There are no memories with Raul. He is a blank slate, a new beginning, a clear conscience.

“Can I sit down?” he asks.

“Of course.” I wonder how he found me. They must have told him I was out here. I wonder what else they told him. He looks worried. I wish he didn't look worried. “Did you see Wendy and Tim?” I ask.

“Yeah. Wendy said you weren't feeling well.”

“That's all she said?” In the midst of all my anger, I'm grateful to her, and the feeling makes me flinch.

“She told me you went out for some air.”

I nod. I sigh. “I'm sorry about all this trouble,” I say.

“What trouble?” he asks.

“I guess, uh, nothing.”

Raul seems disappointed that I don't tell him more—that I don't tell him everything—but he's too nice to insist. Instead he asks what I think of Grand Gardens. I say I certainly wouldn't mind living here one day.

“Me too. It's expensive, though. Better start saving now.”

“Except for the south wing. Ms. Pearl made it sound scary.”

“That's because she's worried she'll end up there. They're all worried. Really, the south wing isn't scary at all, except the residents are older or sicker, and need more care. They don't have all the socializing and activities and field trips.”

“What do you mean
no field trips
?” I ask with mock-outrage. But it's not much of a joke, so he answers me with serious explanations about wheelchairs and medical equipment.

After a while, Raul asks if I'm feeling better. I tell him I am.

“Should we meet Wendy and her brother in the dining room?” he says.

“I'm not hungry,” I say.

“Well, I should eat something before I get back to work.”

“Of course,” I say sheepishly. “Go. I'll stay here.”

“You're sure?” He looks puzzled.

“What time do you get off? Can you give me a ride home?”

“Yeah, but I'm here until four. You want to wait till then?”

“I don't mind.” I grin broadly, perhaps too broadly.

“But what are you going to do for all that time?”

“I'll walk around Grand Lake. Maybe I'll visit my aunt. She lives nearby.”

“You must be really mad at your friends,” he says.

I feel a fresh rush of anger. Then one of remorse—all those memories, those screaming, kicking memories, happened so long ago that any hurtful offenses should already be forgiven and forgotten. But if I can't forget, how can I forgive?

“Yes,” I say. “I am.”

After Raul goes back inside, with instructions to tell Wendy and Tim they can leave without me, I get up from the bench. I walk across lush grass, past stately trees; I circle the fish pond and pause to study the orange fish glimmering at the bottom of the shallow pool, unmoving except for an occasional flick of fin or tail.

But all the while I'm thinking about the man who fell off the ladder and damaged his memory key. The man who damaged his memory key, attacked his wife, and had to be physically restrained for his own protection.

Why do I refuse to get my key fixed?

It's madness.

It
must
be madness to sacrifice my health and my friendships and my father's trust for the sake of a memory. It
must
be madness to exchange all that is real for dreams of the past.

And when I told Wendy I'd figured out how to control my key, that I could stop and start it on command—that's no longer true, if it was ever really true. For while it's become easier
to summon memories into being, it's become harder to send them away. I obviously wasn't able to manage it in the recreation room.

I look up. I'm at the other end of Grand Gardens now. Although Raul said there's nothing really scary about the south wing, I imagine people moaning in pain, bodies crashing against the walls in attempts at escape. But of course there's nothing like that. The windows are dark. The place seems uninhabited. Or abandoned.

Until I hear a sound, a squeaking. I tilt my head and see a man on the second floor, straining to open a window. It doesn't open far. The man disappears. My gaze drifts and lands on another window, caught there by a sense of movement. The blinds are up, but I can't see inside; it's too dark. I step slowly forward.

A moment passes before I make out what I'm seeing. The picture assembles slowly, like those optical illusions that require minutes of staring before the image becomes clear. A figure by the window. A woman. One arm across her chest, the other arm folded up so her fingers can gently tap against her cheek, as if she is in deep thought.

I've seen this pose a hundred times before, and all those hundred times beat through me at once.

She is standing at the window, tapping her face in deep thought.

She is sitting at the kitchen table, tapping her face in deep thought.

She is reclining before the television, tapping her face in deep thought.

She is pacing across the room, tapping her face in deep thought.

My mother.

THE WHITE-HAIRED WOMAN BEHIND THE RECEPTION DESK, THAT
same impossible woman from an hour ago, an eternity ago, stares up at me. I grip the counter and glance at the doors to the south wing. They're closed. I wonder if they're locked. But I make a second attempt at speech because my first attempt was—I admit it—fairly incoherent.

“I'm here to visit someone.” I'm still talking too fast, but now she raises one brown-penciled eyebrow and I take this as a sign that she understands. “On the second floor, in the south wing, please,” I say.

“Name of the resident?”

For a second I don't know what to say.

Then I say, “Jeanette Mint.” Then I say it again. Then I spell it. Then I begin spelling it again. She tells me she got it. She clicks through her computer. I notice I've left smudges on the countertop and attempt to wipe them away. I smudge it worse. She clears her throat. I stop wiping.

“There's no resident here with that name,” she says.

“What?” I say.

She gives me a look that is her response: she knows I heard what she said.

“Are you sure?” I ask. “Jeanette Mint. Will you please, please look again?”

The woman heaves a ten-ton sigh, but returns to her computer. A moment later, she shakes her head. “There's no one here with that name. No Jeanette, no Mint.”

My voice is half shout and half whisper. “But I saw her.”

No, that's impossible. All of this is impossible.

Without thinking, I step toward the closed doors. Perhaps the woman says something, though if she does, I don't hear her. I reach for the handle and push with all my weight. Perhaps the woman yells for me to come back, though if she does, I don't hear her.

I nearly fall over as the door flies open.

Then I'm running, running as fast as I can. Perhaps I pass people who tell me to stop, ask me what I'm doing, though if I do, I don't see them or hear them. All I see is that figure at the window. One arm across her chest, the other arm folded up so her fingers can gently tap against her cheek. I soar up the stairs and count the doors to my destination: one, two, three, four.

I stop. This is it.

The door is flat-white, unadorned, unremarkable. There's no doorbell, only a brass knob. With great concentration, I bend my fingers to form a fist out of my right hand and tap my knuckles against the flat-white, three gentle taps.

I wait. Then I knock again, less gently this time.

Still there is no answer and no sound from within the room. There is, however, the clatter of quick footsteps down the hall. They are coming for me. They are coming to take me away from her. My palm covers the brass knob. The door eases open. I'm inside.

And there's nothing.

Well, there is a bed and a nightstand, a lamp in the corner next to a chair upholstered in velvet. But there is nothing. No one. Only me and a thin skin of dust covering the entire room.

I touch my face and find my cheeks wet. I hadn't known I was crying. But now that I know, I sob harder, my body shaking so much I have to sit down on the bed. There is no blanket on the mattress, not even a sheet. It has clearly been a long while since this room was last occupied. I am choking, I am drowning in my disappointment.

For the first time I admit the truth: I thought I would find her here even before seeing that figure in the window; I thought I would find her here the moment I matched Raul's jacket with those worn by the strangers who took her from our house that night. Of course, I never spoke my expectation aloud; I did not even think it into actual words. Partly because I was afraid to jinx it, partly to avoid humiliation should I be proven wrong.

But now I'm humiliated anyway. It serves me right for imagining that the last five years of my life had been a lie, for daring to believe she could be alive, for trying to undo the past. My mother is dead. I have to remember. She is dead.

A woman in green scrubs comes into the room and says I have to leave. I tell her I know. I do not look at her. She takes me down the hall, down the stairs. I can't stop crying. I'm so embarrassed. I wish I could stop crying. We walk through the reception area. I ignore the lady behind the desk, though I feel her gaze cutting into me.

“Is your car in the parking lot?” asks the woman in green scrubs.

I shake my head.

“I'm sorry, I have to escort you off the premises,” she says, not unkindly.

“I understand.” My voice breaks and I would be even more humiliated if I had not already reached my maximum level of humiliation. We go past the parking lot to the front gate.

“This is fine,” she says. “Do you know where you're going?”

“I think so.” I look directly at the woman for the first time. She is fair-skinned and fair-haired and I guess she is about the age my mother would be if my mother were still alive. But she's dead, I have to remember. No matter that when I shut my eyes she is close enough that I can count the strands of silver in her hair, smell the soft-sweet of her skin. My mother is dead, no matter how much I remember.

“You take care.” The woman smiles sympathetically, and her smile wounds me. I have to explain. I have to make her understand.

“I saw someone by the window, but there was no one there when I got to the room. I guess I'm just seeing things now. It's
been a strange week,” I say. Then I look away, embarrassed again, embarrassed still. “I was just so certain I saw someone in there, someone I knew.”

“It was probably one of our residents. She likes to wander around to the empty rooms. It's not allowed, but we never manage to catch her in the act. When we go look for her, she's always back where she's supposed to be.” The woman shakes her head, chuckling a bit. “Guess you couldn't catch her either,” she says.

All at once, I stop crying.

Now I am walking toward Grand Lake Park, walking on the narrow sidewalk next to the wide black road. Now I am trying not to hope, but of course I am hoping. For now that my secret fantasy has been revealed, it won't return to hiding. And how ridiculous the fantasy: that my mother is not dead, that she resides in a luxurious retirement home and spends her days wandering around to the empty rooms.

Why would she go there? Why would she stay there?

I close my eyes and when I open them, I'm hungry, really hungry, stomach howling complaint. I glance at the clock. It's dinnertime. Dad is teaching an evening class and won't be home till late. Mom is in her study, all afternoon she's been in there. I go to her closed door and press my ear against the wood. I hear nothing. I lean on the closed door. It opens slowly, creaking softly.

She is sitting at her desk, pen in hand, writing in her notebook. She does not look up from her work. Maybe she does not
notice I'm here.
Mom?
I say quietly, careful not to startle her. She hates being startled.

What do you want?
Still, she does not look up from her work.

When's dinner? I'm hungry
, I say. She flips a page and continues scribbling. Her usually neat bun is falling off her head, the hair in wisps on her shoulders.
I'm hungry
, I say again, in case she didn't hear me the first time.

Finally, she looks up from her work, looking at me as if I've only just appeared.
I'm busy
.
Order something, okay? I need some peace and quiet right now.

What should I order? What do you want?

All I want is some peace and quiet
, she says.

Fine
, I snap. But there is no satisfaction in snapping at someone who is not paying attention; already she has returned to her notes and does not notice me stomping away.

An hour later, when the deliveryman arrives with our dinner, she will come downstairs, drawn by the smell of hot food, and ruffle my hair, kiss my cheek, pull up a chair and a fork, and act as if nothing bad happened between us. And I will let my hair be ruffled, let my cheek be kissed, let her sit beside me, and act as if I am nothing but pleased to see her.

A week later, while I eat my breakfast, my father will stumble into the kitchen and tell me she's gone.

“Watch it!”

“I'm sorry,” I say to the jogger.

“Pay attention!” he shouts as he runs past me.

I stare out at Grand Lake. The beach is crowded with
people enjoying the beautiful day. A woman plays with her two small children at the edge of the lake. They squeal as they splash their bare feet into the water, and she laughs.

Peace and quiet
, my mother says.

There's a rattling in my hand. The bottle of pain pills. I unscrew the top before remembering that I've already taken a couple tablets, not long ago. But I gulp down one more, anyway, because my head is aching again.

Except maybe it's not my head that aches, not exactly my head. I don't know. Something hurts.