The Memory Thief (27 page)

We had finished making quilts and began a new pattern for aprons. It was my job to attach the pocket. That night I picked
up the apron I had started earlier and began a row of new stitches.

“I thought we could make ornaments tonight. There are some bare places on the tree.”

She showed me a snowflake pattern, and I watched as she attached tiny pearls to soft velvet.

“Cut this pattern. I’ll do the sewing.”

From my quick glances up, I noticed fresh snow was falling and sticking to the window.

“We had so much snow when I was growing up,” she said. “That’s why I like this pattern. It might start falling in October
and last till May.”

“I was born near the ocean. It don’t snow there. And in Tennessee, if it snowed it usually just skimmed the ground. There
were a couple of real good ones, though. Once snow came all the way up to the front door of our trailer. That meant it was
real high, too, ’cause our trailer wasn’t planted to the ground like a real home.”

“Finish your pattern.”

“Yeah.”

When I finished, I handed it to her but she didn’t give me more velvet. Instead she stood up, laid her snowflake to the side.
“I have an extra wool coat. Your clothing is enough for quick trips outside, but tonight you will need more. Come.”

She got the coat, then led me out the alley door and past the back gardens. There was a trail into the forest there, made
smooth by the men of Red Castle for the guests to hike. Snow covered it, but we could still tell where it began.

“That’s how you know it’s really snowing,” she said. “It takes more to cover a forest ground.”

The moonlight glowed on the snow, and I could see the old woman perfectly. The sideways glances she kept giving me. But soon
I forgot all about her and remembered the bacca.

It had been months since it had hidden me. But those dark woods, with twists and bends, with paths glowing of moonlight, reminded
me of home. I saw myself, just a baby, laughing and running through the fields, my hair lit up with moonlight streaming behind
me. I saw myself, just a baby, hiding beneath bacca leaves. Clutching my blanket and waiting for stars to move.

“I git why you didn’t wanna go home,” I whispered.

“Not even my husband knows I come out here. There is something special about a mountain, with only a moon to guide you through
it.”

“Tender mercies, like you spoke of before. As good as food or raiment. Mine was only the bacca. Just like this mountain trail,
only with stalks and leaves growin’ over my head.”

She turned to me. “No food?” she whispered. “No raiment?”

I shrugged my shoulders, and was careful not to look at her. “Just bacca.”

She sighed. “My prayer is that you’ve found more here.”

I nodded. “The food is good. My clothes are warm. But I still wonder—”

“Remember what I said before, about not wanting what God has not seen fit to provide.”

“But it wasn’t him that said no.”

“What do you mean?”

“Somebody else got in the way.”

“But what about
now
… I’ll never let you hunger.” She turned to me and grabbed my hands firmly. “Oh child, you will never be cold again.”

Her promise, her strength as she grabbed my hands, took my breath. She was just an old woman, a stranger. Yet she offered
something Momma and Daddy never had. Perhaps it was just comfort. But it sounded like safety. Like the rustle of tall bacca
leaves in the wind. Like a promise that harvest would never arrive, that my fields would always be full.

I followed her back to Red Castle. We walked without speaking or looking at one another. I handed her my coat and walked toward
Bedroom Hall.

“If you’re not tired, we could finish our sewing,” the old woman called out. “Or perhaps you’d like a cup of warm cider. Angel?”

“I am,” I said without stopping or turning around, “tired.”

“Tomorrow then.”

I nodded, raised my hand to wave good night. But we never shared that cup of cider together. Because later that night there
was another knock at my door. I assumed it was the old woman again and I was already sipping sweet whiskey. I lay quietly
and pretended to sleep. Something slid under my door.

“Mailman brought this today,” Tabby whispered. “Said you’d want to see it.”

I stared at the thin paper on my floor, sat up in bed and took a quick gulp of whiskey for courage. But it didn’t work. I
trembled as I walked to the door, as I reached for the envelope. Addressed to Mr. and Mrs. H. Rey. I trembled as I held it
up to the moonlight pouring in from the window.

“
No
,” I whispered.

I ran to my closet, found the crumpled business card the old woman gave me at the hospital. I held it next to the envelope.
The addresses matched. But something was different. Something burned.

Names.
At the bottom of the business card in little black letters:
Mr. and Mrs. H. Reynolds.
But on that envelope, handwritten and stamped out of New York, important things were missing. Letters vanished.
Mountain Top Lodge. Care of Mr. and Mrs. H. Rey.

I paced the floor. Surely it was a mistake. Some careless person must’ve addressed the envelope. But then I thought of the
old man, holding my hair up with awe. I thought of the old woman’s special interest in me. Teaching me things she taught none
of the other workers. Finding reasons to spend time with me, to laugh and talk together. I thought of that moment when she
first came to see me in the hospital. How, for one quick moment, I thought she could be the one. I had asked her, “Are you
a Holy Roller?” But she shook her head, and in a hard Yankee tongue that could never come from Carolina, called herself a
businesswoman. Handed me a card with her name,
Mrs. Reynolds…

I opened my door, peeked around the corner and up and down Bedroom Hall. It was three hours past the worker curfew. I crept
down the hall, not knowing where I was going but hungry for answers. I walked past the stairs and library until I stood outside
the old man’s study, a room no one was invited to, a place no one but the old woman ever cleaned. I took a breath and pushed
the door open.

The room was black with darkness. I bumped into the corner of a desk. Felt my way to the window and pushed back the heavy
drapes. My eyes adjusted to the room and used the light from the window to look around. I saw the desk, the one that bruised
my hip, huge and messy in the middle of the room. I saw maps framed behind it. Stacks of books, the titles I couldn’t read
for lack of light. Couldn’t find anything that said
Rey
on the desk. I turned toward the window again. Saw the picture frames centered around it.

There was a strange drawing scribbled on a sheet of notebook paper. With lines stacked across more lines. And words like
Wife, Family, Work, Unity of thought, Unity of purpose
, carefully centered across the lines. I stared at that picture. I had no idea what it was supposed to be. But maybe I was
supposed to be there, somewhere on one of those lines. Maybe somebody got in the way…

I thought of Momma. The way she laughed as she described the
old Holy Roller woman
. How all these years I doubted her. Wondered whether I could ever trust the story of drunken trailer trash.

“I was cleanin’ the toilet,” Momma told me, the day the milk spilled. “On my hands and knees scrubbin’ when I heard the doorbell
ring. Preacher’s wife was in a bad mood that day. She needed to cuss, but wouldn’t go ahead and shout somethin’ bad and git
it out of her system.” She laughed. “I don’t blame her for being in a bad mood, though, ’cause the front porch was trashed.
Biggest storm I can remember passed through that night. Your daddy and me was just in a little ol’ shack, too. We huddled
down in the tub together ’cause that’s what the man on the news said to do. We heard Janie cryin’ in the bedroom and argued
over who had to go git her. But somehow we made it through the night okay. I showed up for work the next day and saw a palm
tree had been lifted up by its roots. Smashed through the front porch. That old woman didn’t care, though. She charged up
them steps and rang the front door bell all the same. The preacher’s wife groaned loudly. I crawled, close as I could, still
scrubbin’ so I wouldn’t seem like I was snoopin’. ‘Here she is,’ the old woman said when the door opened. ‘It’s a girl.’ That
old woman’s gray hair was loose and tangled all the way to the floor. A little cap sittin’ crooked on her head. She was scary-lookin’,
like a crazy nun or somethin’. She tried to shove a bundle out, but the preacher’s wife backed away. ‘The baby?’ the preacher’s
wife said. ‘It’s too early. Has she seen a doctor?’ The old woman shook her head. ‘Take her. Say you found her on your doorstep.
Or that you had her on your bathroom floor. She’s yours now.’ The preacher’s wife took another step back. ‘I wanted to tell
you, Ms. Ray,’ she said. ‘I was gonna call you later today, in fact. There’s been a miracle, you see. Doctors said never,
but God said yes.’ The old woman held the baby out again. ‘Please, I have to get back to my daughter,’ she said. ‘You don’t
understand,’ the preacher’s wife said. ‘I can’t take this baby. I’m havin’ my own.’

“They started to argue. The old woman nearly shoutin’ through gritted teeth. The preacher’s wife tried to stay polite. ‘I
really wanted to tell you before,’ she kept sayin’. ‘Had no idea it’d come so early. You should really get it to a doctor
soon.’ But the old woman wouldn’t leave, and finally the preacher’s wife started to shut the door. ‘Ever think this baby is
your gift? That it’s the reason I’ve got my own on the way?’ The old woman started to weep like nothin’ I’d ever seen. ‘I’ll
pay you,’ she begged, as the door shut. ‘Five thousand dollars!’ The preacher’s wife kept on shuttin’ the door, though. And
that’s how I knew for certain she was the craziest lady I’d ever met. Shuttin’ the door in the face of good money. Desperate
money. I wasn’t crazy, though. I knew opportunity when I saw it. I ran out the back door, around the side of the house, and
met that old woman in the yard. ‘Five thousand dollars,’ I said, as I reached for you. The old women seemed like she was gonna
say no. And then she reached down in her apron. Pulled out a stack of money.”

Momma turned up the whiskey bottle. It was empty. “Go git under your daddy’s pillow. Bring me what’s there.”

I shook my head. “You told him I was the one that did it last time.”

She tried to sit up but couldn’t. “Git in there and bring me what’s under his pillow. Then I’ll tell you somethin’ funny.”
She started to giggle. Rolled over onto her side. I brought her the half-empty bottle from under Daddy’s pillow.

“It was so hot,” she laughed. “Ain’t no heat like Charleston’s. It’ll bake you quicker than any oven. But that Holy Roller
was scared to show even the tiniest bit of skin. Her face drippin’ with sweat. She wouldn’t unbutton her collar. But she sold
her baby without even blinkin’.”

“You didn’t buy me. You got paid to take me.”

“Darn straight she sold you. And I paid her what she wanted most.”

“What?”

“The right to be rid of you for good.”

“And then Daddy bought the car?”

“Yeah.” She laughed. “Old woman handed me the cash. Said, ‘A thousand for you. But the five is hers. Take care of her with
it.’ I looked down and counted as she walked away. And I’ll tell you now what I never told nobody.” She turned the whiskey
bottle up, laughed as she took a drink.

“There was six thousand dollars. Not five like Daddy always yells. I went straight home, but before I went inside, you better
believe I hid that extra thousand under the porch. And handed Daddy the five. Like that old woman said, that thousand was
for me. When somethin’ caught my eye, maybe a pair of jeans or a new pair of sexy boots, I could buy it without askin’ your
daddy. I never told him, not even when we ran out of money and couldn’t pay the rent. Or when that sheriff showed up and kicked
us out. That money was mine. My prize.”

“And he bought the car with my five.”

Momma nodded. “Your first crib. You know he never once asked me before he bought it, only barely thanked me. Left me at home
with two cryin’ babies and went and got that car. You spent your first night out in it. You had the worst colic of any baby
I’d ever seen. Born early, not a bit of meat on you, your legs were all twisted and kickin’ with pain. Our house was just
two rooms. None of us could sleep for you. I tried walkin’ you. Tried givin’ you a warm bath. Tried bottle after bottle but
nothin’ helped. Daddy picked you up. Laid you on the porch. But we could still hear you screamin’ and the nights were still
cold. So I took you to the car. Wrapped you up in your blanket and laid you in the seat. Come mornin’, you’d worked it all
out. You never cried like that again.”

She sobbed suddenly. “It ain’t been easy, you know. Sometimes I think about that day and wonder if we all wouldn’t have been
so much better if I’d just kept on cleanin’ that toilet. Wouldn’t have the heartache of a car that keeps breakin’ down. Wouldn’t
have the worry of another mouth to feed.” She started to weep. I helped her stretch out on the couch. Pulled her legs from
under her, straightened her neck so she wouldn’t get a cramp in the morning.

“Go bring me a prize,” she slurred, as she started to fall asleep.

“It ain’t due yet,” I said.

Her eyes were closed but her hands were still tight around that bottle when she whined, “But I gave you a home when nobody
else would.”

Stars fall sometimes. Without warning, light plunges in wild streams before disappearing. I read once in a fairy tale that
I was supposed to make a wish when it happened.

But I only wished on
living
stars. Not the dying, falling, disappearing kind. The kind that disappointed me. Sometimes I’d build a perfect picture. Draw
glittery eyes and reaching arms. Then something would change. A star would fall and my picture would collapse. You’d disappear
all over again.

I returned to Bedroom Hall and knocked on the old woman’s door. “Ma’am?”