The Memory Thief (27 page)

We leave for New York three days after I tell J. C. we're going, courtesy of Aidan's frequent flyer miles. My parents are out of town for a few weeks, visiting relatives in San Diego. They offer to postpone their trip, but I won't let them. They've been planning this for a long time, and I think it will do me some good to be on my own with Gabriel. We've been surrounded by people since the accident—well-meaning, loving family and friends, but still. If Gabe and I are going to be a family of two, we might as well start figuring out what that feels like.

It takes a while, but I finally convince them to leave their keys with a neighbor and let me look after the house for them while they're gone. They own a brownstone on Union Street in Park Slope, which they bought back when such things were affordable, renovated it top to bottom, and divided it into apartments. Now they live on the bottom two floors and rent out the top. My dad wants to sell it and get something more practical, but my mom won't let him. The neighborhood is fantastic for kids, and I think Gabriel's enthusiasm whenever we visit is one of her primary motivations for keeping the place. As for me, it's my childhood home. It will be a sad day for me when they sell it.

J. C. drives me and Gabe to the airport, as promised. He doesn't say much, and with his sunglasses on, it's hard for me to tell what he's thinking. Then again, maybe I don't want to know.

He unloads our stuff at the curb and makes sure we get checked in. Then he kneels down to Gabe's level and hugs him. “Take care of your mama, little man,” he says.

“I always do,” Gabe says, his small voice serious.

“Good.” He holds his palm up for a high-five. Gabe slaps it, hard, and J. C. grins. “Catch you on the flip side,” he tells Gabe.

“Later, skater,” Gabe says right back, the way his daddy taught him. Then he looks into J. C.'s face, his blue eyes as intent as I've ever seen them. “Be good,” he tells J. C., like he's channeling E.T.

J. C. looks puzzled and amused, all at the same time. “Right back at you,” he says to Gabe. Then he stands up and turns to me. “So,” he says.

“I'll be back,” I tell him.

“You better be.” He pulls me to him, holds me close. “I love you,” he says in my ear. And before I have a chance to react—to say anything, or to read his expression—he lets me go, gets back into his car, and pulls away from the curb.

When I open my wallet to retrieve my driver's license, so we can negotiate security—no joke at DIA—I find a small piece of paper inside. I've only seen J. C.'s handwriting a few times, but it's distinctive and I have no problem recognizing it now. On the white page, which looks like it was torn from a notebook, he's printed four words:
Just think about it.
It's what he said before he kissed me that first time, standing in his and Aidan's kitchen, before all hell broke loose. I know he knows I'll remember.

I fold the paper and put it in my pocket, where it feels like it's burning a hole. All the way to Charlotte, where we have to make our connecting flight, and from there to LaGuardia, I reach in and touch it, like a talisman, like a map that can show me the way home.

It is strange to be in my parents' house when they're not there. To make matters worse, I can't remember the last time I was here without Aidan. I keep expecting to encounter him on the stoop, smoking a cigarette, or in the library, sprawled full length on the couch, a book of poetry in his hands. It's as if my mind is playing tricks on me—surely he's only dead in Colorado! Here in New York, all will be as it once was—and every time I realize that's not the case, I have to fight off a dangerous sensation of vertigo. To combat it, I fill our days with activity. We visit the aquarium and the beach in Coney Island, we watch the boats come in while eating Thai food in Sheepshead Bay, we take the train into the city and hang out at the Museum of Natural History, looking at each and every dinosaur skeleton. Aidan used to climb at Chelsea Piers whenever we were in town, and at Gabe's request we go back there, just to check it out. We spend a lot of time walking. I don't have a jogging stroller, and it crosses my mind that most almost-five-year-olds would balk at trekking long distances in the New York sun, where the heat bakes up from the asphalt and down from the buildings—but not Gabriel. He's used to hiking with his dad and J. C., and he never complains.

In fact, Gabe's behavior is almost preternaturally good on this trip, which worries me a little bit. He's never been a complainer, but he is stubborn—wonder who he got that from?—and he's been known to sink into spectacular bouts of sulking when he doesn't get his way. He doesn't throw tantrums; he's not that kind of child. Instead, he broods. Since Aidan's accident, though, he's been sweet and helpful to a fault. There's clearly something on his mind; he watches me all the time, his jaw set and his eyebrows knitted like Aidan's used to be when he was trying to figure something out. And he asks strange questions. One time he asked me if I believed in ghosts; another time he asked me to pull out my parents' atlas so I could show him where North Carolina was. But when I ask him why he wants to know, he just shrugs, looking as mulish as his father. For a four-year-old, he is good at keeping secrets.

I always thought that Aidan's tendencies to “keep himself to himself,” as he described it, were a function of growing up in a skewed family system, but now I am beginning to wonder whether they are genetic. It's a little frustrating, and if I didn't have so much else on my mind, I would press Gabe to tell me what's going on inside his little head. As it is, though, I just answer his questions—no to the ghosts, and as for North Carolina, I show him where I used to live, where I met Aidan, but that doesn't seem to be what he's after. He thanks me, and then he goes off to play with Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and company, his source of endless entertainment.

The end result of all this is that during the first week we're in New York, I spend some quality time worrying about Gabe. He's always been an observant, selective child—my genes at work—though when he wants to, he can pour on the charm. Now he is so quiet, it scares me a little bit. He seems like he's waiting for something. On our visits to the musical playground in Prospect Park, our excursion to the Park Slope puppet theater, our dinners at the Pit Stop, a fabulous restaurant on Columbia Street where Gabe eats mini-burgers with gusto, I pick at my mussels marinière, and we watch a group of progressively drunken people mangle game after game of pétanque—he glances around like a fugitive on the run. Whenever I ask him what he's looking for, he gives me an innocent smile and says, “Nothing, Mommy. Just seeing what's going on.” If I had any extra emotional energy, it would probably manifest itself in the form of irritation.

As it is, when our adventures for the day are done and Gabe is tucked into bed, the sadness and bewilderment that I've held at arm's length come rushing in. I've put J. C.'s note—
Just think about it—
on my mom's bedside table, and it might as well be my mantra. Those long nights during our first week in New York, I don't do anything
but
think. That and cry, my other new pastime. I could give lessons in the fine art of sobbing without making a sound.

I think about J. C., like he asked me to. Was it wrong, being with him like that? In my heart, I don't feel that it was. It felt good and calm, an oasis. When we were together, it felt right. But my head is a different story. How could I do that to Aidan, no matter what he'd said about J. C. taking care of me?

If being with J. C. is something I decide to entertain, it has to be just that—something
I
decide, something I want and take responsibility for. And that's where everything falls apart. I feel guilty for sleeping with J. C., guilty for wanting him. I feel guilty for asking him to leave, guilty for thinking about asking him to come back. How can I miss Aidan so badly and think about being with someone else, no matter that I've known J. C. as long as I've known Aidan, that he can tell what I'm going to say or do before I've figured it out myself? After six days of this vicious cycle, I'm no closer to figuring out whether we should try to be together—an idea that, by turns, terrifies me and makes me feel like I can finally breathe—or whether it would be for the best to call the whole thing off, for good.

Then there's the issue of money. Aidan had what he called a bitch of a time finding life insurance, since few companies wanted to insure a guy who took his life in his hands on a near-daily basis. His predilection for extreme sports resulted in an exorbitant premium, and Aidan swore in particularly colorful fashion every time he had to write a check to the company that deigned to take him on. The end result is that, now that he's gone, Gabe and I have a sizable chunk of change coming our way—or we will as soon as I finish wrangling with the insurance company, an activity that I relish just slightly more than stomping on the huge cockroaches that used to invade my house in Durham, no matter how many times I sprayed. What to do with the money, though? Invest it for Gabe's college fund? Use it to live on while I gather my powers of concentration enough to start writing again? Start a memorial fund in Aidan's name? I spend a substantial amount of time tossing and turning, trying to determine the best route to take.

When I'm not worrying about Gabe, J. C., or my finances, I lie in my parents' bed and grieve. I could get a job missing Aidan—his exuberance, his crooked smile, the way he looked at me like I was the only person in the world. I feel like I've been hollowed out, like I can't breathe. I try and try, but my lungs won't fill. I wish that Aidan was next to me, holding me, and because I know that's impossible, I wish for the best alternative, the one I can have—J. C. Then I feel terrible for a whole variety of reasons, most of which lead me right back to worrying about whether J. C. and I have any right to be together … and the whole process begins anew.

This is the frame of mind I am in on the seventh day of our sojourn in New York, as Gabe and I make our way back home from Barnes & Noble. We're wandering along the tree-lined streets of the Slope, checking out the stoop sales, watching the squirrels scoop up the acorns that have tumbled from the trees. Then Gabe's head goes up like a hunter who's sighted the first buck of the season, and he points. “Mommy, look,” he says.

I look where he's pointing—toward my parents' brownstone, three houses away. There is a man sitting on the stoop. This far away, all I can see is that he has dark hair, and my heart skips a beat. Surely J. C. wouldn't have followed me up here, when I told him I needed space?

Before I can stop him, Gabriel takes off. He runs toward my parents' house as fast as he can, skidding to a halt right in front of the iron gates that enclose the front yard. I run after him.

“Wait, Gabe!” I yell, but there's no need. He's not approaching the man. He's just standing there.

When I catch up with him, I can see why. We don't know this guy; he's a total stranger. His hair is darker than J. C.'s, almost black, and longer. He looks at me as I come up behind Gabe, and I take in breath so quickly I start coughing. His eyes are the same blue as Aidan's, as Gabriel's, and they're filled with recognition.

“Hi,” he says. “Sorry if I scared you. I didn't mean to.”

Now that I am sitting here, on the stoop of Maddie's parents' house, looking at Maddie and Gabe in person, I don't know what to do or say. It's beyond strange to see them in the flesh, after all the dreams, the pictures, the images on Facebook. Here are his dimples, his lanky limbs, his blue eyes like his father's, his pale skin and heart-shaped face like his mother's. Here is her wavy chestnut hair, her wide-set eyes, her slender build. And here is her voice, unhappy, threatened.

“What are you doing on my parents' stoop?” she says, looking at me as if I might be closely related to Son of Sam.

I smile, in part because she's as bristly as a mama cat whose kitten is in harm's way, and in part because I am so happy to be talking to her, it doesn't much matter what she says to me. “Waiting for you,” I tell her.

Panic fills her features, and I realize that I've said the wrong thing. Now she's eyeing me like I'm a stalker who's laid a trap for her and her son. To buy time, I light a cigarette. Her eyes go from the pack on the stoop to me, and now they're not just alarmed; they are sad, too. “What do you mean, you're waiting for me?” she says.

This is, of course, the million-dollar question, and not one that can be tackled in thirty words or less. I'd hoped that Aidan would provide me with some magical words to say, something that would instantly persuade her of my identity (or, rather, of his) but—surprise, surprise—this doesn't happen. So instead I just tell her the truth. “It's a long story. I'd love to tell it to you, Maddie,” I say, blowing smoke rings over the railing.

She follows the progression of the smoke rings with dismay. And then she gets very defensive, very quickly. I'd hoped that using her name would relax her, but it's had the opposite effect: It's made her suspicious, and pissed. She starts firing questions at me, too fast for me to answer. “Who are you? How do you know my name? How did you know where to find me?” Then she sticks one hand in her pocket, like she's got a weapon in there … pepper spray, maybe, or a cellphone, in case she needs to call the cops about the crazy man on her porch who talks in riddles and won't go away.

Sighing, I put out the cigarette. All I want to do is hold her, but that would go over about as well as a lead balloon. So I just say, “It's all part of the same long story. I know your husband, is the shortest answer I can give you.”

She draws herself up to her full height, which is maybe only five four. “My husband is dead,” she says, each syllable like a bullet.

“I know that, too,” I tell her. Boy, do I. “Maybe better than anyone.”

Now she thinks I'm certifiable. Her face shuts down, like someone has pulled the curtains for the day. “I don't know who you are, but if this is a practical joke, it isn't very funny. I'm going inside. If you're not off my steps in the next five minutes, I'm calling the police. Come on, Gabe,” she says, and she grabs his hand.

Now what? I can hardly jump up and block her way, nor can I blurt out the truth—
I channel your husband while I sleep! The only memories I have are his! He made me come find you! And I love you! But I'm not crazy, honestly!
I sit there like an idiot, my mind going a million miles an hour, feeling desperate. And then Gabe saves me.

“Wait, Mommy. Don't get mad. I know him,” he says. He plants his feet, refusing to let her pull him.

You do? I think, just as Maddie says, “No you don't,” in a tone so definitive, it could slice diamonds.

“I do too,” Gabe says. “You're Nicholas, right? Nicholas Sullivan?”

Dumbfounded—although why I should be, I have no idea; it's not like anything else that's going on makes sense—I nod. “That's me.”

“You came all the way from North Carolina to see us?” Gabe asks.

Again, I nod. That strange feeling of
purpose
is sweeping over me again. “I sure did.”

“How do you know that, Gabe?” Maddie says, and she sounds freaked-out. I can't blame her. I'm a little freaked-out myself. Not to mention, I would also like to know how he knows who I am and where I'm from.

Gabriel takes a deep, deep breath. Then he says, real slow, “Daddy sent him. He said you might think he's crazy, or call him names, but I'm supposed to make sure you listen to what he says.”

Thanks, Aidan, I think. Couldn't do anything the straightforward way, could you? A four-year-old and an amnesiac. The ideal believable duo.

Maddie grabs Gabe's shoulders like she's getting ready to steer him up the stairs. “I don't know what you're talking about. How could Daddy send him? Daddy is dead, remember?”

A less self-possessed child might back down, but Gabriel stands his ground. “I told you he came to visit me. I told you it wasn't a dream. He told me Nicholas was going to come see us. And here he is.” He disengages himself from his mother's hands and steps toward me, and in that instant I can see what he'll look like as a teenager, as a man. “I've been waiting for you. I was beginning to think you weren't coming at all,” he says.

“Here I am,” I tell him. “I got here as fast as I could.”

“You do have eyes like mine and Daddy's. He said you would, but I wasn't sure.”

I smile at him, trying to look nonthreatening. And I guess I succeed, because he says, “It's dinnertime. We're having mac and cheese, with hot dogs all cut up. Plus, carrots and ranch. Are you hungry? You could eat with me and my mommy.”

When I am brave enough to look at Maddie, I see that she has gone even whiter than she was to begin with, which is quite an accomplishment. On a crazy whim I hold up my hands, palms out. “I come in peace,” I say. “I swear.”

“Don't move,” she says to me, and she takes Gabriel by the arm and tugs him under one of the oak trees on the sidewalk. Then she kneels in front of him and says something, in a voice too low for me to hear. He says something back; they look like they are arguing. She gesticulates; he shakes his head. This goes on for about five minutes, or maybe an eternity. Eventually they walk back over to the bottom of the stoop and she says, as if someone is holding her feet to the fire (or maybe a gun to her head), “Would you like to join us for dinner?”

“I would love to,” I say, and I get to my feet. As they walk by me, up the steps, Gabe looks over his shoulder. Though I wouldn't think it was possible, coming from a kid his age, he winks.

Over dinner, we make small talk, avoiding the elephant in the room. Maddie leaves her cellphone on the table, just in case I turn out to be a serial killer, I suppose. She opens a bottle of red wine and pours each of us a glass; Gabe has milk. Then he goes into the living room to eat a bowl of ice cream and watch TV, and I help her clean up.

“So,” she says. “How about that long story?”

“It really is long, Maddie. And it's going to sound crazy to you. I mean, it sounds crazy to me, and I'm stuck in the middle of it.”

“Try me,” she says, her hands on her hips.

I fumble around, trying to figure out where to begin. “Okay. Well, back in June—June seventh, to be exact—I was in a motorcycle accident. I woke up in the hospital, and physically I was fine. But otherwise, mentally speaking, I had some issues.”

I see her register the date of Aidan's accident, file it away for consideration. “Like what?”

“My memory. It was—it
is
—just totally wiped. I can remember cultural stuff, like music and movies and books, but not anything personal.”

“That's terrible,” she says. “But I don't get what that has to do with me. Or Gabriel.”

“Here's where it starts to get crazy. Before I woke up in the hospital, I had a dream. In it, I was climbing a mountain. The sun was rising, and I had stopped to look at it when I heard a horrible noise. It was an avalanche, and next thing I knew, it had swept me down the mountain. I got buried under the snow. And while I was under there, I saw these images—of you, and Gabe, and this guy. J. C., I guess he is. And then there was this poetry.”

She has gone white again. “What poetry?” she says.

So I recite the words that have been rattling around in my head for the past month and a half:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Her hand goes up to her throat, and her fingers close around the necklace she's wearing—a small white turtle whose shell glimmers in the light. She doesn't say a word.

“Anyway,” I go on, when it doesn't look like she has anything to add, “at first it was just that avalanche dream. I dreamed it every night. Then I started doing things, like smoking and drinking whisky, that apparently I didn't used to do. And then I started to dream more stuff, too, about that morning at high camp, and this picture, with you and Aidan and Gabe in it. On the back, it had your names, and the date, and it read,
Come back to me.
So when I woke up that time, I was able to look up Aidan's name … and that's when I realized.”

“Realized what?” She is bracing herself on the back of a chair now, her expression blank. I can't tell if she's getting ready to pass out or toss me into the street.

Here goes. I suck in air, then say, “Well, that the only memories I have … are actually Aidan's. After a while I started dreaming about other things … like when you met, I don't know how to say this without sounding rude … but I know the two of you were together, outside. It was wet and raining, and there was this railing … I dreamed about him running, thinking about how lucky he was, how he was determined not to turn out like his father, how he didn't want to mess up your relationship somehow. And then I dreamed about him and J. C., up on this monument, Devils Tower, it's called … they were talking about Aidan's dad, and he was thinking about how J. C.'s relationships with women never work out because you're the one he really wants.”

She is now so pale, I could use her to light my way on a darkened road. This makes me both gratified and sad; gratified, because it means that what I'm saying is resonating with her, and sad, because I don't want to upset her, and that seems inevitable. “A lot of the habits I have now, they're his, too,” I continue. “Ever since I woke up, I've had this compulsion … to come find you and Gabriel. It's gotten stronger and stronger. I just feel like I know you, like this is what I'm meant to do.” That's as far as I'm willing to go; there's no way I'm going to let her know how I feel about her, the weeks I've spent obsessing, seeing her face. That would end with me getting forcibly ejected from her apartment, for sure. “I don't know why, I don't know what I'm supposed to do now that I'm here,” I conclude. “But here I am.”

“You're right,” she says, her lips barely moving. “It does sound crazy.”

“Any crazier than Gabriel knowing my name?” I challenge her. “Or you thinking Aidan shouldn't climb McKinley?”

“How do you know that?” she says.

“I told you.” Shrugging my shoulders, I fold myself into a chair.

“This is insane.” She reaches for her glass of wine and downs it, then pours herself another.

“I couldn't agree more,” I tell her.

Our conversational impasse is breached by Gabriel, who has brought his empty ice cream bowl into the kitchen. “Here, Mommy,” he says. He smiles at me.

“Thanks, buddy,” she says, taking the bowl from him. “It's your bedtime, I think.”

Unlike most children, he doesn't whine. “Okay,” he says. “Will you read to me?”

“Of course.”

“Read me three stories.”

“We'll talk about it after you're in your PJs. Hurry up and get changed.” He trots off down the hallway, and she turns to me. “After he goes to bed, we'll talk more. Do you mind waiting?”

“Not at all.” I try to sound casual, but my heart speeds up, and I feel blood rushing to my cheeks. After all, what have I done for the past month and a half but wait, presumably for her? The hell of it is, I don't know for sure if it's me or Aidan who feels this way … but after weeks of confusion, grief and anger, I don't think I care. It's nice to feel certain about something for once; whether they are his emotions or mine, I'll take them.

Over her shoulder I see Gabriel, wearing blue flannel pajamas with rockets printed on them. He is half-in, half-out of the shirt, his head stuck just inside the opening like the world's most recalcitrant turtle. She goes to him and kneels, pulling the shirt into place. His head emerges, dirty blond hair standing up all over. “I picked our books,” he announces.

“Good,” she says.

“But I want Nick to read them.” His gaze goes beyond her, finds me.

“Really?” I say. He nods.

“If your mom says it's okay,” I say, looking at her.

“If that's what he wants,” she says. “But first go brush your teeth and pee.” She follows him into the bathroom to supervise. I stand there and look around the apartment—books, books, and more books; African soapstone sculptures; Oriental rugs. Then Gabe is out of the bathroom, and it's story time.

Maddie has tucked Gabe in, and the books are stacked neatly on the bed next to him. A worn white teddy bear is under one of his arms. “I'll be right outside,” she says to both of us, which I realize is meant to reassure Gabe and warn me. She kisses Gabe and then walks out of the room, leaving the door partially open. She stands there like a sentry, her arms folded; I can see her through the half-open door.

“Which book do you want to start with?” I ask Gabe.

“You don't have to read me anything,” he says. “I just want to know … did you know my daddy?”

“Not when he was alive,” I say, weighing each word.

“Then how did he send you?”

I think about this for a moment. “You know how you told your mom that you had dreams about your daddy?”