The Memory Key (12 page)

I WALK OVER TO MY AUNT'S APARTMENT BUILDING EXPECTING
she won't be home since it's a weekday afternoon and she's never home on weekday afternoons, but today she is. I give my name to the uniformed man behind the front desk, and when I get upstairs she's waiting at the door. “What a wonderful surprise!” she says.

“I was in the neighborhood. Are you busy?”

“Oh, I'm always busy, but never too busy for you. You just caught me. I'm leaving for the airport in an hour; I'm going to the capital for Joe Finney's funeral. You know about that, don't you?” she says.

I nod. Joseph Finney was the senator who'd been shot after a press conference a couple days ago. He had died from his injuries. “Were you friends with him?” I ask.

“We were allies, an even stronger bond. He was a good man. I can't believe they still haven't found the shooter.” Her expression warps and I see anger, I see fear.

“What does the Citizen Army even want?” I ask.

“It's hard to tell. Sometimes they say they want to bring the entire government down, other times they say they just want a political voice. The only thing the Citizen Army is really consistent about is destruction.”

I touch her arm. “You're careful, right? You have bodyguards and stuff?”

“Don't worry, my dear. I take all the necessary precautions.” She seems both moved and amused by my concern.

Aunt Austin asks if I'm hungry and tells me I'm welcome to whatever I find in the refrigerator. “I'm sorry I can't prepare something for you, but I have so much to do before I leave,” she says.

Then she goes to her bedroom to pack, while I ramble around in her kitchen. There is plenty to eat, but I'm surprised to find that her leftovers consist entirely of food in take-out containers. I always imagined my aunt returning from a long day at work and cooking herself an exquisite three courses. Maybe because she always makes us fancy meals when we visit. Or maybe because of the way my mother used to talk about her sister.

Whenever Mom made a particularly bad dinner—burned the chicken or added too much salt to the sauce—she would shake her head in solemn disapproval of her own self and say, “What would Austin think? I'm so ashamed.” But then she would laugh, clearly unashamed. In any case, it makes more sense that my aunt would come home exhausted and order in.

I warm up a bowl of soup, eat all of it, and throw out the
container. Still hungry, I cut a slice of bread from the loaf on the countertop. I cut another piece and top it with a dollop of egg salad from the refrigerator. Finally satisfied, I go looking for my aunt. Now that I've eaten, I feel calmer. My mind is working again.

Aunt Austin is still in her bedroom, briskly folding clothes. The room is all white: white walls, white carpet, white furniture, white linens on the white bed. The only blot of color is an orchid in a white pot on her white dressing table.

“Did you eat, my dear?” She smiles at me.

“Yes, thank you,” I say. “Can I ask you something? About my mom?”

Her hands freeze mid-fold. “What about her?”

“What was she like when she was little?” I ask, having decided this is a reasonable question for a girl to ask the sister of her allegedly deceased mother.

“She was stubborn and impulsive. Slightly naughty. Not so different from adult Jeanette.” Aunt Austin finishes folding what she's folding.

“Naughty?”

“I was always having to cover for her. Sometimes literally: I would cover her mouth with my hand when I knew she was about to say something she shouldn't. She was always saying something she shouldn't. But I tried to be patient. It was my duty to take care of her.”

“You were only a few years older.”

“After Daddy died, our mother had to work long hours to
support us. She was at the factory twelve hours a day, and when she came home she always had some beading or other handiwork to do to make a little extra money. Jeanette and I had to fend for ourselves.”

“It must have been tough,” I say softly.

Aunt Austin sighs as she looks around at her immaculate room. “When I remember how poor we were back then, it makes all of this seem unbelievable.”

“You've worked hard.” I nod as if I understand, though I know I can't possibly understand, not really. All I understand is the comfort of that two-story, one-family house in a nice residential neighborhood in the most southern part of Middleton—the house I've lived in my entire life.

“I worked no harder than my parents.” She clears her throat, a quietly bitter sound. “I was lucky. Being born here made all the difference, for me and for Jeanette.”

“That's why your parents immigrated. To give you those opportunities,” I say.

My aunt shakes her head. “Daddy had his own ambitions. But they came here with nothing, so he had to take the first job he could get while he learned the language, which he did, quickly. He started as a busboy at a restaurant downtown, and worked his way up to manager at a much nicer place. All the while, he saved his money because he planned to start his own business. But then the heart attack . . .” She goes to the window and straightens the white curtain. Once it's straight she keeps straightening.

“He'd have been proud of you,” I say.

“I hope so.” She is still straightening the curtain. She straightens until it's crooked again.

“Didn't your grandpa also live with you?” I ask, hoping I haven't disrupted the mood. Aunt Austin is not prone to reminiscence. She is not often nostalgic, almost never sentimental.

“Yes,” she says. “Grandpa moved in just before my father died.”

“So he was home with you while your mother was at work?”

“He read his newspapers and watched us play. Jeanette was his favorite. He spoiled her too much. But I can understand why, she was such a happy kid. Even though she drove me crazy, we were best friends. We had our made-up games and our secret jokes. Sometimes we'd just look at each other and start laughing.” Aunt Austin steps over to the potted orchid on her dresser. The flower seems especially vivid in all this whiteness, with its arcing green stem and bright purple blossoms.

“I felt so bad when I went away to college,” she says as she studies the plant.

“Because then your grandfather got sick,” I say.

“Yes, then our grandfather got sick,” she says.

“Why didn't your mother get him a memory key?”

“She wanted to. He refused.”

“My mom thought it was because Grandma thought he was too far gone.”

“Jeanette thought that because that's what she wanted to think. Even if he were too far gone, even if we had to use our
last cent to pay for it, our mother would have gotten him a key if he'd been willing. She knew her duty to her father-in-law. But the truth is, Grandpa had given up. He was ready to go. Jeanette believed what she wanted to believe. She always did.”

Aunt Austin frowns as she presses her fingers into the soil at the base of the orchid. “I need to water this before I go,” she says.

“Should I get some water?” I ask.

“That's all right. I'll do it.” She brushes the dirt from her fingers and comes toward me. “Lora, what a strange and terrible thing it is that you, your mother, and I have all lost the person we loved most at such a young age. For me it was my father. For Jeanette it was our grandpa. And for you—”

“I still have my dad,” I say quickly.

“Yes, you're lucky to have Kenneth. Even though Jeanette and I loved our mother, she wasn't there for us the way Ken is for you. She was always working, and when she wasn't working she was always so tired. She didn't understand her daughters, not like Daddy. In the old country, his parents were intellectuals, so he knew what we were striving for. He was striving for the same things. But my mother's family were peasants. For her it was only about survival. Not that I blame her. Your grandmother did not have an easy life.” She takes my hand. Her fingers are warm.

“And I have you,” I say.

Aunt Austin blinks once, twice, and smiles. “Yes,” she says. “Thank goodness we have each other.”

Then she glances at the white clock on the white wall. “I'm afraid I've got to go, my dear. The car will be here any minute.” She returns to her suitcase, inspects the tidy stacks, nods approvingly, and flips down the cover of the bag. But then her hands pause, palms hovering as if they don't know what to do next.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“I loved your mom, Lora. I really . . .” Her gaze drifts downward as her fingers jolt back into action. She zips her suitcase closed and turns to me.

“You are an extraordinary young woman and I know you can do anything you set your mind to. What I'm about to say is very important, and it's a lesson I learned the hard way. Are you listening?”

I nod.

“You can't let your life be defined by the loss of your mother.” Her face is earnest straight lines, her eyes imploring. “Do you understand?” she asks.

“I understand,” I say.

Aunt Austin stares intently at me, so intently I'm afraid she can see everything: all my suspicions and hopes and fears, my misbehavior at Grand Gardens, my falling-out with my friends, my lies to my father. She stares at me so intently I'm afraid she can see I just lied to her too, that I don't really understand, because how could I possibly understand?

She stares. She speaks. “Good,” she says.

MY AUNT TELLS ME I CAN STAY IN HER APARTMENT WHILE I
wait for Raul, but asks that I'm careful not to spill anything on the carpet or furniture. She shows me how to work her television, though her television works no differently than any other television, and she gives me instructions on how to lock her front door, though her locks work no differently than any other locks.

After she leaves, I lock the door as instructed. Then I go into the kitchen, look through the cabinets, and find a box of chocolate cookies. I eat one. No, two. Next I go into the living room and flip through the television channels for a while. Finally, I decide it's been long enough. Aunt Austin is probably halfway to the airport by now, and not coming back for a forgotten something. Not that she would ever forget anything. And so I do a little snooping.

My intentions are less insidious than they sound. I'm mostly interested in the normal snooping everyone does in other people's homes, browsing the pictures on the walls, the books on
the shelf, the bottles in the bathroom. It's only because my aunt's miscellaneous stuff is all tastefully concealed—in built-in closets and cabinets—that my snooping feels slightly sinister.

And so I'm glad to quickly find what I'm looking for. I remove the photo albums from a cabinet and bring the whole stack of them to the cream-colored couch. The top book is recent: Aunt Austin posed with various official-looking people, smiling her congresswoman smile. I set that one aside. The next is better, familiar. Many of these photos I've seen before, at my own house, in my own albums.

There I am, ecstatically hugging a package wrapped in silver paper. The memory beckons, but immediately I grit my teeth, straighten my shoulders, and I manage to send it away. I'm happy to discover I can still control my malfunctioning key. Sometimes. Somewhat.

I turn to the next page. There's my mom and dad in matching red sweaters, arms around each other. There's my mom and aunt standing proudly behind a table that's nearly buckling under all the food atop it. In both pictures my mother looks happy. She must have been happy.

But it's the next album that's the most interesting to me; this one contains the oldest photographs. First, several black-and-white shots of my grandparents looking very young and very serious in their formal clothes. Then two little girls smiling for the camera. I recognize my mom by the twist of her mouth and my aunt by the tilt of her chin. There are many more of the sisters, and in one of them they sit with an elderly man. My
great-grandfather, I guess, my mother's beloved grandfather. He stares solemnly at me, as if unaware of the girls grinning on either side of him.

I study my great-grandfather's face, the thinning hair, the sagging skin, the stern line of his mouth. I wonder if he already had Vergets when this photo was taken, whether his memories had already lost their sharp edges. But his gaze seems alert.

Still, I feel sad.

A blaring noise startles me out of my thoughts. I quickly close the album, imagining that Aunt Austin has come back to find me snooping. But it's only my cell phone ringing, echoing loudly in the white stillness of the apartment. I follow the sound to my backpack, and check the caller ID before answering.

It's Wendy.

Leaving my phone on the table, I go into the bathroom and smooth my aunt's scented lotion on my hands. I smell my palms, they smell like roses. As I close the medicine cabinet, I notice the tube of prescription painkillers perched in the corner, and stop closing. The pills are the same kind the doctor gave my dad when he threw out his back shoveling snow two winters ago.

I pluck the bottle from the shelf, thinking of my recent headaches.

I blink. I'm still standing in the bathroom, in front of the medicine cabinet, but now the room is sweetly fragrant: I am nine years old and while reaching for my aunt's scented lotion,
I've knocked over a bottle of perfume, and now the bottle is in pieces and the perfume is a puddle and the air is thickening with smell, smothering smell, too sweet, too fragrant, and I can't breathe, and I turn around, and there is Aunt Austin, standing in the doorway. She looks at me. She looks at the broken glass. She does not say anything; she doesn't have to.

I blink. I put the tube of prescription painkillers back on the shelf, setting it precisely in place.

Then I return to the living room. My cell phone is still ringing and I cannot believe it. Won't Wendy take a hint? No, of course not. Wendy has never taken a hint. She is constitutionally unable to take a hint.

I'm about to shove my phone under a pillow when I see it's not Wendy calling this time. It's Raul. He tells me he's leaving work so I give him directions to my aunt's building.

After I hang up, I pace around the room, thinking about what happened with Wendy and Tim, and I start getting angry again. Then I start getting sad. Wendy is my best friend. And Tim, despite the stupid
whatever
between us, is also my friend.

Yet I don't see how either relationship can be salvaged. There's too much hurt, too much history.

Wendy's voice in my head says:
Just fix your memory key, stupid
.

It's not that easy
, is my pretend retort to pretend Wendy.

I stop pacing. I sit on the couch and open up the photo album again. Past the pictures of my great-grandfather, I find the pictures from my aunt's wedding. They're surprising to me,
though I'm not sure why. They could be any old wedding portraits.

Perhaps that's why they're surprising, the ordinariness of them, just two people in love. My aunt looks much now as she did then: tall and thin and determined. She wears an ivory dress with oddly ruffled sleeves. In her hands is a small bouquet. The mysterious Jon Harmon stands next to her. He is also tall and thin, with black hair and glasses. He doesn't actually look very mysterious. In fact, he seems kind of nerdy with his thick glasses and tweed suit and wide-collared shirt.

The intercom buzzes. It's the uniformed man downstairs, calling to tell me that Raul is here. As I go unlock the properly locked door, it occurs to me that Aunt Austin would probably not approve of the fact I'm having a boy over without a chaperone. I hope the doorman doesn't tell on me.

Raul comes in with his blue jacket slung over his shoulder, and it reminds me of the fact I was escorted off the premises of Grand Gardens today, and I wonder if Raul knows, but he smiles at me so nicely that I decide he doesn't know. “Fancy apartment,” he says.

“Yeah, my aunt's a fancy person. How was work?”

“Endless.” He half sighs, half yawns.

We go into the living room and stretch out on opposite ends of the couch. The cream-colored sofa is so long that only our feet overlap. Raul nudges my heel with his socked toe. “That tickles,” I say, gently kicking him away.

“Sorry.”

“No, it's okay.”

“Okay.”

“Want to watch TV?” I turn on the television and skip through the channels until I find a documentary about tree frogs, which seems close enough to marine biology that I suppose Raul will be interested.

But when I glance over at him he's asleep. He looks like a little boy with his eyes shut and brow furrowed, with his mouth curled into a slight frown. A minute later, he begins to snore, and I giggle, hand over mouth to cover the sound.

I'm glad he's here. Raul is nice. He's cute and smart. He seems to really like me. And I like him back, don't I? I do. I must.

A lion roars, startlingly loud, on the television. The tree frogs have gone to commercial, and this commercial is advertising a show about noisy lions. I grab the remote to turn down the volume, but I'm too late.

“What? What is it?” Raul jerks awake. “Did I fall asleep? I'm so sorry.”

“It's okay, it's my fault. I bored you to sleep.”

“No, it's not, I mean, you didn't. I'm sorry.” He is blushing.

“It's okay, really.” I feel bad for teasing him.

“Okay,” he says uncertainly.

“Hey, do you want to see some pictures?” I smile at him.

“Sure.” He smiles back.

I turn off the television and show him the photographs in the family album: little me, my father, my mother, my aunt. I
point out my gap-toothed smile. Raul makes the appropriate comments about what a cute kid I was.

Then he abruptly stands.

“Is something wrong?” I ask as he strides across the room to where he left his blue jacket. I look away. I hate the sight of that jacket.

He returns and hands me an envelope. “I forgot. This is for you.”

My name is written in shaky script on the front. I flip it over and unseal the flap. Inside are two folded papers. The first is a sheet of stationery with a message written in that same shaky script. It reads:

Dear Lora,

I'm writing to properly thank you for helping me away from that car. The disregard people have for traffic laws is truly appalling. Thankfully there are Good Samaritans like you, keeping the world safe for the rest of us. I was very glad to see you at Grand Gardens today.

Pertaining to our intriguing discussion about medical technology, I've enclosed some information that may be of interest to you.

Yours truly,

Ms. Pearl
    

The other item in the envelope is a leaflet with black type
on green paper. At the very top, in large letters, are the words
KEEP CORP OUT
. Raul asks what it is, so I read aloud: “The KCO is an organization dedicated to spreading awareness about the memory key industry. Did you know Keep Corp has successfully blocked other companies from producing memory keys even though their patents should have expired decades ago? Did you know Keep Corp's overseas factories employ children under fourteen? Did you know the government has stopped funding efforts to find a cure for Vergets disease?

“We at the KCO are deeply concerned about the increasing power Keep Corp has over our government, and our lives. You should be too. For more information or to find out how you can help, please contact us at . . .”

I drop the sheet of paper on the floor. “Ridiculous,” I say.

Raul gazes at the leaflet and I can tell he wants to pick it up. “There
was
that scandal about twelve-year-old kids working at one of their factories,” he says. “But then they shut the place down and said they hadn't known.”

“My mom would never have worked for Keep Corp if those things were true.” I speak with certainty. But I am not as certain as I sound. How can it be that the more I learn of her, the more I remember of her, the less certain I feel?

All I want is some peace and quiet
, says my mother.

“Your mom worked for Keep Corp?” asks Raul.

“She did,” I say, gritting my teeth.

“But she doesn't anymore?”

“Do
you
think those things are true?” I ask.

“I don't know enough about it,” he says.

“I'm going to the bathroom,” I say, getting up to go.

I move slowly around the white-tiled room, phrases from the KCO flyer stuck in my mind, stuck like a song.
Stopped funding . . . Vergets disease . . . Children under fourteen . . . Increasing power . . .
I shake my head, trying to shake out the words, and concentrate on what I'm doing: soaping my hands, rinsing them, opening the medicine cabinet to get out my aunt's rose-scented lotion.

On the shelf is the tube of prescription painkillers, and despite my intention of taking out the lotion, I take out the painkillers. The top comes off with a pop. I slide a single tablet into my hand. The top goes on with a thump.

I stare at the tablet on my palm. I know I shouldn't take it. Not with Raul waiting for me, not after I've already ingested so many drugstore pain pills today. I reach for the bottle again, to put the tablet back. But then I decide that my aunt can't mind if I borrow just one little pill, in case of emergency. So I wrap my one little pill in a tissue to take with me.

In the living room, the KCO leaflet is on the floor where I left it, and Raul is flipping through another one of the photo albums. I pluck the leaflet from the rug, fold it up, slip it back into the envelope with Ms. Pearl's note, and shove it into my bag. The single prescription tablet gets tucked in there, too.

“I recognize some of these people,” says Raul.

I zip my backpack closed and go to look at what he's looking at. It's the book I skipped, the one of my aunt with various
strangers in various kinds of business and formal attire. I explain to Raul that my aunt is a congresswoman. He seems impressed. He points and asks, “Is that her with the vice president?”

But my gaze has drifted to a different photo. “Dad,” I say.

“What?” Raul tries to turn the page, but I'm holding it down, heavy-handed.

“That's my dad,” I say, my voice utterly toneless.

In the picture, my father's hair is thicker and less gray than it is now, and he's also thinner. He sits at a table cluttered with wineglasses and small plates, smiling the same slightly stiff smile he wears in all posed photographs. However, even as I notice these details, my attention is not on the familiar figure of my father but on the figures seated next to him.

The two blue-jacketed strangers.