The Stories We Tell (10 page)

“I can't, Max.”

“Come eat with me. You need food.”

There are things I don't say out loud because speaking makes the thoughts real, like pulling a dream from the subconscious dark night into the brightest day. And here, now, I don't say this: If I go with you, I will rest on you. I will find a way to place my head on your shoulder; I will need that kiss and your eyes open during that kiss so I can see you.

We can't help the first thought; it's the second I can stop. And I do. “No, I can't. I need to go home.…”

“I know,” he says. “Get some rest. I'll see you tomorrow.”

We've kissed only once, and it was a long, long time ago—before my marriage, before Gwen. In seconds like this, when Max walks away after a tender conversation, I wonder if he ever remembers that one kiss or if it is lost in all the other ones he's had since then.

 

eight

The hallway leading to Willa's room smells like a school bus that's just been cleaned—an antiseptic odor covering a sour smell. She can go home now. I met with the neuro practioner yesterday and I'm learning a new language, a foreign vernacular, which includes words like
memory impairment, bed rest,
and
postconcussion.

I've found a spark of hope for Willa in some new research the practitioner has told me about: Scientists have identified a portion of the brain that acts like a digital camera by placing a geotag on episodic memories. Memory and place are fused together here. Remember the hug good-bye with your childhood best friend and you can conjure up the longing, and then the image will be united with the dock on the summer camp's lake in Vermont, the dock where you said your farewell. Just like photos on social media that are tagged with a town or restaurant, a bar or concert: Here, the tag says, here is where you were; this is the location where the photo's image is indelibly printed. The brain, I learned, does the same in the hippocampus, that small sea horse–shaped portion of the brain located in the temporal lobe. And this is exactly where Willa's brain damage pulses with mangled neurons. This is where memories are mapped in time and place. “If only,” I said to the practitioner, “we could access Willa's memory as easily as a digital camera card, as simply as turning on a computer.” She told me it could happen. Willa might remember because image and location are ultimately entwined.

I've also talked to the social worker about the bills and payments. Willa doesn't have insurance—nothing. How can she possibly afford the care she'll need? No matter the outcome, or how Willa grabbed the wheel, or if she was stoned or drunk; the truth of the truth is that Cooper drove. He admitted to driving. We are responsible.

Willa stands fully dressed in the outfit I brought her the day before: a pair of jeans and a bright blue cotton tie-dyed T-shirt. Her curls, tangled and wet, fall onto her shoulders. Willa holds me close and then backs up, and when she smiles, she's there, fully Willa. “Ready?” I ask.

“More than,” she says.

“Well, let's go, then. Can I carry anything?”

“All I have is my purse,” she says. “I told them to throw away the clothes from that night.”

“Do we have to talk to anyone or sign anything before we go?” I ask.

“I already did all that. I have a pile of papers we have to go through. All kinds of instructions and…”

“I'll read it all with you,” I say, taking her hand. “I've met with the neuro practitioner, and together we'll have lots more meetings.”

“I know.” She exhales in some kind of resignation.

We walk down the hallway, and Willa thanks her nurses. She doesn't speak to me again until we're in the car and I reach a stoplight at Bull Street. Turning in her seat, twisting against the seat belt's restraint, she says. “I don't expect you to take care of me or anything, Eve. I want you to know that. This isn't your problem. I'll figure it out. This is all my fault and I'm not going to take you away from your family and job and life. I'm not.”

It's obviously a well-rehearsed speech, until the end, when her voice breaks and she covers her mouth with her hand, as if to stop further unpracticed sentences.

“Stop,” I tell her. “Just stop. You're not taking me away from anything more important than you. I want to be here with you.”

The car behind me honks, and I look up and see the light is green. I drive straight ahead and pull into the parking lot at Cameron's shop. Willa places her hand on my arm. “This is different. I'll understand if you can't … help.”

“Why is this different?”

“Because it involves your husband, and I refuse to mess up anyone else's life but my own. I don't want this to affect Cooper or Gwen or your marriage. I don't want to … be the cause of anything even more terrible. I've thought a lot about this in that hospital room.”

“Did you write that speech in your head while you stared at the ceiling?”

“Yep. But my head doesn't seem to be working all the way right yet. I think things and then they fall out. I have a thought and then it fades and then comes clear again. It's scary. It's freaking me out.” Her voice is uneven, bumping along the fears.

I take her hand. “I've been reading a lot about this,” I say. “And it will be fine. There are all kinds of therapies and exercises.”

“That's what they say.” She doesn't sound like she believes anything
they say.

“I have to run in here”—I motion to the print shop—“and grab a part. Want to come in or wait in the car?”

“I'll come.”

Cameron sits in his same spot he always does, reading the paper, as if I'd last been there only a moment ago. He looks up when the bell over the door announces our entrance. “Look at you two, like a breath of fresh air coming through my door.”

“I'm not sure ‘fresh air' is exactly the right description,” Willa says. “But I'll take what I can get.”

Cameron comes over to Willa and takes her hands in his. “I'm so glad you're okay, my dear. If I'd have known it was you in the accident that night, I'd have run down there.”

“Run down there?” she asks.

“I live on that block,” he says. “I heard all the sirens and hullabaloo, but I had no idea it was you.”

“Oh…” She looks at me.

“Been the quietest neighborhood all these years, and now we've been in the paper twice in a week.” He rubs his hand along the scruff of his chin. “So you here to pick up Max's part?”

“Yes, sir,” I say. “Glad you got it in so fast.”

“You're lucky to have Max. Don't know anyone who understands presses like he does. Better hold on to him.”

“I'm planning on it,” I say, following Cameron through the crowded aisles to the back room.

Willa follows and says, “Why was your street in the paper two times?”

“Oh, that homeless man they found.” Cameron reaches up and pulls down a small box and hands it to me.

“What man?” I ask.

“Don't you read the papers?” His grin is lopsided and teasing.

“I've been a little preoccupied,” I say. “Tell me.”

Willa is still as a tree—Firm, rooted.

“Some kids found this poor guy in the alley between two houses. You know the kind of skinny no-man's-land where the houses are so close that you can barely walk between them? Like that, except he was squeezed into there. Like he'd gone to get out of the rain or something, which doesn't make sense to me, because there wasn't any cover. But anyways, he died in there and—”

“He died?” I envision this man stuck between buildings … dying. I shiver. “Poor guy. Did he die because he got stuck?

“Don't think so. Something about getting beat up,” Cameron says, walking out of the storage room when the front door rings, announcing an incoming customer. “Don't know nothing about him except they took him away.” He stops and turns to me. “The saddest part is that no one knows who he is. In this world, how can someone not know? It's terrible.” He shudders and moves on as he says, “Go on. I'll put it on the tab.”

I follow Cameron, and it isn't until I reach the front door that I notice Willa isn't with me. I walk back to the rear of the store and into the storage room, where I find her staring into space. “Willa!”

She doesn't startle, just slowly looks up at me, her gaze traveling in its sleepy-time way. “That is the most horrible story.” Tears glaze her eyes. “Some guy crawled between houses and died? Poor, poor man.” She covers her face; racking sobs rise from her throat. Her body shakes with the released force.

I wrap my arms around my sister, pulling her close. Emotional lability, this is called. The neuro practitioner told me to expect these displays of “mood-incongruent” behavior. I was warned that Willa might laugh at something sad, or cry fiercely at something mild. The emotion might not match the circumstance. But being warned about a behavior and experiencing it are not the same thing. Besides, this doesn't seem so incongruent as completely excessive. What did the practitioner say to do? I can't remember. At the time, I didn't believe I needed to know. My sister wouldn't have this weird emotional reaction with the initials PBA, which stands for something I will never be able to pronounce. Now I don't know what to do, or how to act. I hold her. “It's okay,' I say, as though she's a child.

“No, it's not okay.” She pulls from my embrace and rubs at her eyes, grimacing as she swipes the stitch. “It is just
not
okay.”

“What can I do?” I ask, helpless.

“I don't know.” She shakes her head. “I don't know … anything.”

“Let's get home,” I say. “Tea and macaroons. How does that sound?”

She nods and turns, walking the wrong way, toward another closet.

“This way,” I say, pointing to the doorway.

Willa stares at me; obvious frightened. “What if I stay this way?”

“You won't,” I say, flinging these words at the universe in defiance, in earnest.

*   *   *

I decorated the cottage years before Willa came to stay, and yet it looks as if I knew that one day she'd arrive. The walls are painted a dove gray over board and batten walls. The artwork is eclectic and scattered: a painting of an old circus tent I bought at an arts festival; multiple framed posters and sketches of the Fine Line, Ink work; black-and-white photos of my parents' younger years. There's one photo of Willa and me as youngsters, standing on top of a rock with our arms looped together. We are smiling in the photo, happy and free—all of life ahead of us.

The kitchen is bright and painted white. The table is round and wooden. I found it in the barn and painted it with Gwen one summer afternoon. A multicolored glass chandelier dangles above the table like a discarded necklace. This space was fun to decorate, and now Willa adds her own style. Mismatched painted pottery plates are piled on open shelves around the room, most of which she found at flea markets. Linen napkins of every pattern spill from a wire basket. Music sheets and handwritten lyrics are piled in an old milk crate in the corner.

At the table, I unwrap the day's newspaper, spread it out, and flip through the pages, looking for the article Cameron mentioned. The story is buried in the last page of the “Metro” section.

The man's death is summarized in one paragraph, and I have the horrible thought that if Willa or Cooper died on that same street during the accident, they would have garnered more than a few sentences in the back section. The man was an African-American and obviously homeless. It appeared that he'd been in a fight and then crawled between houses, where he died of internal injuries.

Willa enters the kitchen. “I forgot where the bathroom was.” Her voice shakes.

“What?” I look up.

“You know how sometimes you have a really bad hangover and you can't find your words, or a thought escapes, or you can't remember where you are?”

“Sadly, yes.”

She slumps into a chair and drops her face into her palms. “Well, it's just like that, but a billion times worse. It took me way too long to remember where the bathroom was.” She looks up at me, her eyes red-rimmed. “In this house where I've lived for a year.”

I close the newspaper and busy myself making two cups of tea, placing the macaroons on a pink plate. I sit next to my sister. “Maybe working with us again will help. You think you're up for it?”

“Of course.” She leans her head back to stare at the ceiling. “You know, while I was in the hospital, I had a ton of weird memories. It was like mud from the bottom of my life all stirred up. But I thought of Caden and how you two made up those commandments. How could I forget him?” Then she laughs again, but this time it has a more manic, high-pitched sound, and for a moment I think it's the emotional lability hitting. “I guess right now that is the wrong question to ask.”

“Huh?” I ask, confused.

“
How could I forget
? That was the wrong thing to say.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, I remembered so much about that time—you getting in trouble. Big, big trouble. Willa closes her eyes. “I wish
that
memory had been hit right out of my head.”

“Me, too.”

“I wonder what ever happened to Caden.” She closes her eyes, as if the answer is behind her eyelids. “He had those green eyes, and he always carried a baseball.”

Maybe this is one of those times when the past is clearer than the present—another symptom. Willa can't remember the bathroom location, but she remembers Caden's eyes.

“Yes,” I say. “The last I heard about him, he'd married and moved to Seattle, as far away from the South as he possibly could.”

“I was madly in love with him. As much as an eleven-year-old can be in love. But he loved you.”