Thanks for the Memories (17 page)
anything, because I’ll probably know the answer, and I’ve no idea how.”
Kate and Frankie are too stunned to even exchange looks.
“Maybe with the stress of constantly worrying about you and Conor over with, you’re able to concentrate on other things more,” Frankie suggests.
I consider that before continuing. “I dream almost every night about a little girl with white-blond hair who gets bigger every time. And I hear music—a song I don’t know. When I’m not dreaming about her, I have vivid dreams of places I’ve never been, foods I’ve never tasted, and strange people that I seem to know well. A picnic in a park with a woman with red hair. A man with green feet. And sprinklers.” I think hard. “Something about sprinklers.
“When I wake up, I have to remember all over again that my dreams are not real and that my reality is not a dream. I find that next to impossible, but not completely so, because Dad is there with a smile on his face and sausages in the frying pan, chasing a cat called Fluffy around the garden, and for some unknown reason hiding Mum’s photograph in the hall drawer. So after the first few moments of my waking day, when everything is crap, I try to focus on all those other things. And a man I can’t get out of my head, who I don’t even know.”
The girls’ eyes are filled, their faces a mixture of sympathy, worry, and confusion.
I don’t expect them to say anything, and so I look out to the kids again on the gymnasium floor and watch as Eric takes to the balance beam. The instructor calls out to him to do airplane arms. Eric’s face is a picture of nervous concentration. He stops walking as he slowly lifts his arms. The instructor offers words of encouragement, and a small proud smile starts to form around the boy’s mouth. He raises his eyes briefly to see if his mother is watching, and in that one moment, he loses balance and falls straight down, the beam quite unfortunately landing between his legs. His face is now one of horror.
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Frankie snorts again. Eric howls. Sam starts to cry lightly in his stroller. Kate looks from one son to the other.
“Joyce, can you take care of Sam for me?” she says in a panic, rushing to the child, who’s rolled in a ball on the floor, surrounded by the teacher and the entire gym class.
I look into the stroller at Sam, at his bright red lips wobbling with fright, tears starting to form in his worried eyes.
“He better not start screaming.” Frankie puts her hands over her ears in preparation.
I move toward Sam and begin fidgeting with the clasp on his safety straps. My heart is banging in my rib cage, and my hands are trembling so much, the buckle won’t open. Sam becomes more impatient and squirms about like a worm, his cries getting louder and attracting the attention of the other mums, mums not like me, who know exactly what to do, who watch on judgmentally.
“Oh, please stop him,” Frankie moans. “Does he want a breast or something?”
I finally manage to unlatch the straps, and Sam looks at me, tears spilling from his blue eyes, his arms up in the air, looking to be pulled out. But I can’t do it. I just can’t. I leave.
r i v i n g b a c k t o D a d ’ s , I try not to glance at my former D house as I pass. My eyes lose the battle with my mind, and I see Conor’s car parked outside it. Since our final meal together a couple weeks ago we have talked a few times, each conversation varying in degrees of affection for each other. The first call came late at night the day after our dinner, Conor asking just one last time if we were doing the right thing. His slurred words and soft voice drifted in my ear as I lay on my bed in my childhood bedroom and stared at the ceiling, just as I had years ago during those all-night phone calls when we first met. Living with my father at thirty-three years of age after a failed marriage, with a vulnerable husband on the other end of the phone . . . it was so easy right then to remember only the good times together and to doubt our decision. But more often than not, the easy decisions are the wrong decisions, and sometimes we feel like we’re going backward when we’re actually moving forward.
The next call was a little more stern—an embarrassed apology, and a mention of something legal. The next, a frustrated inquiry into why my lawyer hadn’t replied to his lawyer yet. The
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next, his telling me his newly pregnant sister was going to take the crib, something that made me fly into a jealous rage as soon as I hung up and throw the phone across the room. The last was to tell me he’d boxed everything up; he was leaving for Japan in a few days. And could he have the espresso machine?
Each time I hung up the phone, I felt that my weak good-bye wasn’t a good-bye. It was more of a “see you around.” I knew that there was always a chance to back out, that he’d be around for a little while longer, that our words weren’t really final. I pull the car over and stare up at the house we’ve lived in for almost ten years. Doesn’t it deserve more than a few weak goodbyes?
I ring the doorbell, and there’s no answer. Through the front window I can see everything in boxes, the walls naked, the surfaces bare, the stage set for the next family to move in and tread the boards. I turn my key in the door and step inside, making a noise so as not to surprise Conor if he’s here. I’m about to call his name when I hear the soft tinkle of music drifting from upstairs. I make my way up to the half-decorated nursery and find Conor sitting on the soft carpet, tears streaming down his face as he watches the musical mouse chase the cheese. I cross the room and reach for him. On the floor, I hold him close and rock him gently. I close my eyes and drift away for a moment.
He stops crying and looks up at me. “What?”
“Hmm?” I snap out of my trance.
“You said something. In Latin.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. Just there.” He dries his eyes. “Since when do you speak Latin?”
“I don’t.”
“Right,” he says sharply. “Well, what does the one phrase that you do know mean?”
“I don’t know.”
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“You must know, you just said it.”
“Conor, I don’t recall saying anything.” He glares at me then, a look of something pretty close to hate, and I swallow hard.
“Okay.” He gets to his feet and moves toward the door. No more questions, no more trying to understand me. He no longer cares. “Patrick will be acting as my lawyer now.”
Fantastic, his shithead brother.
“Okay,” I whisper.
He stops at the door and turns round, grinding his jaw as his eyes take in the room. A last look at everything, including me, and he’s gone.
The final good-bye.
I have another restless night at Dad’s as more images flash through my mind like lightning, so fast and sharp they light up my head with an urgent bolt before they’re gone again. Back to black. A church. Bells ringing. Sprinklers. A tidal wave of red wine. Old buildings with shop fronts. Stained glass.
A view through banisters of a man with green feet, closing a door behind him. A baby in my arms. A girl with white-blond hair. A familiar song.
A casket. Tears. Family dressed in black.
Park swings. Higher and higher. My hands pushing a child. Me swinging as a child. A seesaw. A chubby young boy raising me higher in the air as he lowers himself to the ground. Sprinklers again. Laughter. Me and the same boy in swimming togs. Suburbs. Music. Bells. A woman in a white dress. Cobbled streets. Cathedrals. Confetti. Hands, fingers, rings. Shouting. Slamming. The man with green feet closing the door.
Sprinklers again. A chubby young boy chasing me and laughing. A drink in my hand. My head down a toilet. Lecture halls. Sun and green grass. Music.
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The man with green feet outside in the garden, holding a hose in his hand. Laughter. The girl with the white-blond hair playing in the sand. The girl laughing on a swing. Bells again. The view from the banisters of the man with green feet closing a door. A bottle in his hand. A pizza parlor. Ice-cream sundaes.
Pills in his hand now. The man’s eyes seeing mine before the door closes. My hand on a doorknob. The door opening. Empty bottle on the ground. Bare feet with green soles. A casket. Sprinklers. Rocking back and forth. Humming that song. Long blond hair covering my face. Whispers of a phrase . . . I open my eyes with a gasp, heart drumming in my chest. The sheets are wet beneath me; my body is soaked in sweat. I fumble in the darkness for the bedside lamp. With tears in my eyes that I refuse to allow to fall, I reach for my cell phone and dial with trembling fingers.
“Conor?” My voice is shaking.
He mumbles incoherently for a little while until he awakens.
“Joyce, it’s three a.m.,” he croaks.
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine, it’s just that, well, I—I had a dream. Or a nightmare, or maybe it was neither. There were flashes of, well . . . lots of places and people and things and—” I stop myself and try to focus. “Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim?”
“What?” he says groggily.
“The Latin that I said earlier, is that what I said?”
“Yeah, it sounds like it. Jesus, Joyce—”
“Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you,” I blurt out. “That’s what it means.”
He is quiet and then he sighs. “Okay, thanks.”
“Somebody told me that once. Tonight, they told me.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
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Silence.
“I’m going back to sleep now.”
“Okay.”
“Are you okay, Joyce?”
“I’m fine. Perfect.” My voice catches in my throat. “Good night.”
Then he’s gone.
A single tear rolls down my cheek, and I wipe it away before it reaches my chin. Don’t start, Joyce. Don’t you dare start now.
s I m a k e m y wa y downstairs the following morning, I A spy Dad placing Mum’s photograph back on the hall table. He hears me approaching, whips out his handkerchief from his pocket, and pretends he’s dusting it.
“Ah, there she is. Muggins has risen from the dead.”
“Yes, well, the toilet flushing every fifteen minutes kept me awake for most of the night.” I kiss the top of his almost hairless head and go into the kitchen. I sniff the smoky atmosphere again.
“I’m very sorry that my prostate is bothering your sleep.” He studies my face. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”
“My marriage is over, and so I decided to spend the night crying,” I explain matter-of-factly, hands on hips. He softens a bit but sticks the knife in regardless. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“Yes, Dad, you’re absolutely right, the past few weeks have been every girl’s dream.”
He moves up and down, down and up, to the kitchen table, takes his usual seat in the path of the sun’s beam, props his glasses on the base of his nose, and continues his Sudoku. I watch him for t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
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a while, mesmerized by his simplicity, and then continue my sniffing mission.
“Did you burn the toast again?” He doesn’t hear me and keeps scribbling away. I check the toaster. “It’s on the right setting, I don’t understand how it’s still burning.” I look inside. No crumbs. I check the bin—no toast thrown out. I sniff the air again, grow suspicious, and watch Dad from the corner of my eye. He fidgets.
“You’re like that Fletcher woman or that Monk man from TV, snooping around. You’ll find no corpses here,” he says without looking up from his puzzle.
“Yes, but I’ll find something, won’t I?”
His head jerks up, quickly. Nervously. Aha. I narrow my eyes.
“What’s up with you?”
I ignore him and race around the kitchen, opening drawers, searching inside each one of them.
He looks worried. “Have you lost your mind? What are you doing?”
“Did you take your pills?” I ask, coming across the medicine cabinet.
“What pills?”
With a response like that, there’s definitely something up.
“Your heart pills, memory pills, vitamin pills.”
“No, no, and . . .” He thinks for a second. “. . . no.”
I bring them over to him, line them up on the table. He relaxes a little. Then I continue searching the cupboards, and I feel him tense again. I pull on the knob to the cereal cupboard—
“Water!” he shouts, and I jump and bang the door closed.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says calmly. “I just need a glass of water for my pills. Glasses are in that cupboard over there.” He points to the other end of the kitchen.
Suspiciously, I go and fill a glass with water and deliver it to him. I return to the cereal cupboard.
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“Tea!” he shouts. “Let’s have a cup of tea. I’ll even make it for you. You’ve been through such a tough time, and you’ve been great about it all. So brave. Trophy brave, as they say. Now sit down there, and I’ll fetch you a cuppa. A nice bit of cake as well. Battenburg—you liked that as a wee one. Always tried to take the marzipan off when no one was lookin’, the greedy goat that you were.” He tries to steer me back to the table.
“Dad—,” I warn. He stops dithering and sighs in surrender. I open the cupboard door and look inside. Nothing odd or out of place, just the porridge I eat every morning and the Sugar Puffs that I never touch. Dad looks satisfied, lets out a hearty harrumphing sound, and makes his way back to the table. Hold on a minute. I open the door again and reach for the Sugar Puffs that I never eat and never see Dad eat. As soon as I lift it, I know that it’s empty of cereal. I look inside.
“Dad!”
“Ah, what, love?”
“Dad, you promised me!” I take out the packet of cigarettes and hold it in front of his face.
“I only had one, love.”
“You have not had only one. That smell of smoke every morning is not burned toast. You lied to me!”
“One a day is hardly going to kill me.”
