The Things We Keep (35 page)

At this, a soft laugh comes from Jack. “Wow,” he says. “You
do
know Anna.”

“Keeping her away from Luke won't change what has already happened. But it might change what happens in the future.” I take the notebook from Peter and thrust it out for Jack to see. “Anna
loves
this man. At this stage of their lives, they are all each other has left. Let her be with him,” I say. “Because if you don't, you might just end up blaming yourself for that. And as Anna would say, life's too short.”

 

48

Clementine

When Legs visited yesterday, I thought I was going to burst with all the stuff I had to tell her. It's weird, not going to school together, but it's great to have so much to talk about. I tell her about my new teacher, Mrs. Hubble, who is nearly as nice as Miss Weber, and my new friends, Billie and Scarlett and Pippa. What's so good about Legs is that she wants to hear everything. She's still my very best friend. She came to our apartment and we ate pizza and did each other's hair and danced around while we watched
Frozen.
Then Mom helped us make orange and poppy-seed muffins.

Today, Mom and me go to Rosalind House. The people at Rosalind House must not have many visitors, because when I walk in the door, it's like the man from the ice cream truck has showed up. Everyone grins like crazy. Angus is there and he gives Mom a kiss on the cheek when he thinks I'm not looking. It's a little weird, but it makes Mom smile. And I want Mom to smile. Anyway, Angus is pretty nice.

Mom scuttles off to see the new manager lady, and I do an Irish dance for Gwen in the hall. I give Laurie a high five and May a kiss. Then I have to excuse myself because, actually, I don't have all day.

Bert is in the parlor. “
There
you are!”

Bert looks up, blinks his yellow eyes, and after a million years, smiles. He needs to go to a dentist, but I don't tell him this, because it would be rude. “Well, hello there, young lady.”

I guess Bert still doesn't remember my name. And for the first time in ages, this makes me a bit sad. “I'm Clementine,” I say.

He nods.

I point to the chair next to him. “Is Myrna sitting there?”

“No. Would you like to sit down?”

“Yes. I'd like to talk to you about something.” I settle myself in the chair. “It's about Myrna.”

Bert's whiskery eyebrows shoot up. “Oh?”

“Well, it's about Myrna
and
my daddy. You know how I've been talking to my dad sometimes, these last few months? Well it's been good, but I think I need to stop now. You see, I've got all these other people to talk to, like my mom, Legs, and my other friends. So I probably should talk to them, since they're alive and stuff. And I thought maybe you should stop talking to Myrna, too.”

Bert frowns.

“So,” I ask, “what do you think?”

It takes him a long time to answer.

“You're very lucky to have all those people who love you,” he says finally. “Your mom and your friends. But the thing about me is that I don't have a lot of people like that.”

“But you
do.
” In the very next chair, on the other side of Bert, is Gwen, so I lower my voice. “How about Gwen? If you'd just speak to her, you wouldn't need to speak to Myrna.”

“I don't
need
to speak to Myrna,” Bert says. His voice is quieter than it was a moment ago. “I
want
to. And I'm not willing to let her go. Maybe I'm a foolish old man, but”—he smiles—“I'm an old dog, it's too late to start learning new tricks.”

I have no idea what he's talking about—dogs and tricks—but I'm pretty sure he's saying he wants to keep Myrna. I shrug. “Well, if you're sure.”

“I am.”

I slide off the chair onto my feet. “In that case, I guess I'd better get going. Bye, Bert.”

“I hope I'll see you again, young lady,” Bert calls after me.

When I turn back, Bert is giving me the biggest, brightest, crooked-toothed smile I've ever seen. If Myrna makes him feel like that, I decide, she can't be such a bad thing.

“Clementine,” I say. “My name is Clementine.”

He smiles, nods, tells me he'll try to remember that. And as I walk to the garden, I decide I want everyone to call me that from now on.

*   *   *

The sky looks like a huge white sheet. I can't even remember the last time I saw blue sky. Out here in the garden, it's cold and the snow drenches right through my shoes. I know I don't have to be in the garden at Rosalind House when I talk to Dad, but there's something about this garden that feels right, even with wet feet.

“Daddy? I need to talk to you.”

I close my eyes and bring him into the center of my mind. He's sitting in a chair with one leg crossed over the other and watching me really close.

“I'm still angry with you,” I say, “but I'm not
as
angry. Because everyone does bad things sometimes.”

Daddy doesn't say anything, but I know he's listening. His face looks like it did when he listened, tilted a little, soft eyes, smiling. I used to love it when Daddy looked at me like that.

“And you did good things, too. You were good at dancing. And … you used to sing to me in the bath when I was a baby.” My eyes get blurry and then I'm crying. “I love you. But I'm going to stop talking to you now. And Mom and I are going to look after each other.” I feel a tug of hurt in my heart. “If you ever need anyone to speak to, I'll be here. Or you can try ghosts.” Suddenly, an idea comes to me. “Or Myrna. I don't think Bert would mind.…”

I keep talking to Daddy for a little while, until my socks are wet through and I can't feel my toes. Then, slowly, I let him slip out of my mind, and I open my eyes. And right at that moment, there's a break in the white sky. And the sun comes shining through.

 

49

Eve

Three months later …

It's like a déjà vu. I'm standing in front of Rosalind House, my stomach a bundle of nerves. The only difference is, this time, I already have a job. Not at Benu or an up-and-coming Manhattan restaurant. A brand-new restaurant in the suburbs. It's not particularly fashionable and its patrons aren't photographed on their way in. The food is good, though, and I intend to make it better. I'm only the junior chef now. But that'll change.

At the moment, I do lunches at the restaurant, so I can drop Clem off at school every morning and pick her up every afternoon. We've moved into a house, a small one with two bedrooms, but Clem and I still sleep together most nights.

I've seen quite a lot of Angus, too, these past months. First a few trips to the grocery store, then a movie. Then another proper date. Then he started calling around the house every so often with a plant or some herbs. Clem has been warming to him. The pair of them started a vegetable patch in the garden at our house, and I've heard her giggling while they tend it together. Once, Clem even asked if he wanted to watch her Irish dancing.

Now, when the front door of Rosalind House swings open, Angus is standing there. I see him for only a second before he pulls me onto the step and into his arms. He bends to kiss me, but at the last minute he pauses, looks over my shoulder. “No Clem?”

“She's at school.”

“Then—” He kisses me in a way that makes me think I might faint. When he stops, I feel boneless, like I might slide down his body and end up as a puddle on the floor.

“Well.” He smiles. “Welcome to Rosalind House. Won't you come in?”

Inside, people buzz about. In the entrance to the parlor, I catch the pleasant scent of cinnamon and yeast, and I marry it to the plate stand of buns on the coffee table. My relief that they've found a good cook is only slightly marred by feelings of inferiority; after all, I never made cinnamon buns for visitors' day.

Bert is in the love seat between his granddaughter and her husband and their new baby, a girl if the bow around her head can be trusted. Laurie is surrounded by middle-aged men, possibly his sons, wearing earpieces and carrying pocket radios, listening to some kind of sport and announcing it for him. May is sitting with two women carrying rosary beads. Everyone is absorbed with their families, and they don't look up when Angus and I appear. There's a gentle hum of chatter, and I think of Anna. She won't like the noise. Then I realize she's not here.

“Where's Anna?”

“In her room, love,” says the woman pushing past, “with Luke.”

The woman carries with her the yeast scent I caught earlier.
The cook.
I crane my neck as she whizzes away, trying to get a good look. She's short and thick and in a hurry—yet even from that quick glimpse, she radiates warmth. Then again, it's no surprise. What person who bakes cinnamon buns doesn't radiate warmth?

Angus has told me a little about how Anna and Luke have been these last few months. The confusion. The repetition. Now her memory is less than two minutes long. At least she has round-the-clock access to Luke, though. They've moved into Clara and Laurie's suite now. Instructions to separate them have been rescinded. They are allowed to live and move as they see fit.

I reach Clara and Laurie's suite—now Anna and Luke's suite—and peer inside. Peter, Jack, and a little boy around Clem's age are gathered near Anna and Luke. The boy is sitting on Anna's lap, chatting nonstop about baseball, about his friend Tom, about the dinosaur he wants for his birthday.

Peter glances up first and smiles. Then he looks at his daughter. “Anna?” he says. “You have a visitor.”

Jack offers a small smile of his own. “Come on in, Eve.”

I remain in the doorway, inexplicably nervous. Angus steps forward, but I hold him back. “There are too many people,” I whisper. “She won't like it.”

“Hey, Eath,” Jack says. “Why don't we go climb that tree in the garden?”

The little boy slides off Anna's lap. After kissing Anna's forehead, Jack guides his son out of the room by the shoulders. Peter follows close behind.

When they are gone, I enter. “Hello,” I say.

Anna blinks up at me.

I scan her face for recognition, but I don't find it. “I'm Eve. This is Angus.”

“Is it breakfast time?”

I have no idea if she recognizes me or associates me with cooking or what. In any case, it's two thirty in the afternoon, so breakfast isn't likely. “Not yet,” I say. “But I can get you a cinnamon bun, if you like.”

“No.” She looks at Luke and suddenly, inexplicably, she breaks into a smile. “Would you like a cinnamon bun?”

He shakes his head, smiling back.

She's changed, even in the few months since I left. She looks older. Her face is more vacant and her shoulders have taken on a slight hunch. Still, there is a beauty to her. I think back to the day I met her, on the grass in the garden.
“Help me,”
she'd said. I hope, in some way, I did.

When Anna looks back at me, her expression is puzzled. I can almost hear her unspoken question.
When did you get here?
She cocks her head, perhaps searching for the information that her brain refuses to give her.

Instead of filling her in, reminding her of my name, I stay silent. Deep down, selfishly, I want the moment of recognition.

“Oh,” she says finally. “Is it breakfast time?”

We stay for fifteen minutes. And when we say our good-byes, Anna barely notices.

“Are you sad?” Angus asks me in the foyer. His face is concerned. “That she didn't remember you?”

“No,” I say. “Why would I be sad? Anna and Luke got what they wanted—they'll be together till the end.” I take Angus's hand and lead him toward the door. “If only everyone could be so lucky.”

 

50

Anna

Six months ago …

I think I'm in a garden. It's warm and bright and there's a pattern of light on the green spike-thingies at my feet. There is a man next to me. A young guy. He smiles a little, so I smile back. It makes me feel happy.

And just like that, a memory is coming at me. Sweeping through my mind and collapsing every part of my brain until there's nothing but a cloud of images. I'm as powerless to stop these visions as I am to, uh … what's the word, conjure?… them up. I'm in bed. This man and I lie tangled in each other. It's new, our relationship, maybe our first time together. He is smiling and I am happy.

“P-promise me we'll be together in the end,” he says. “No switching a button, no ending it. Promise?”

I groan, but his face is determined. There's no arguing.

“Fine,” I say.

“Say … it.”

I roll my eyes. “I promise. We'll be together in the end. Batshit crazy. And together. I promise.”

I swim out of the memory, and when I do, the man—Luke—is still smiling.
I remember,
I want to tell him. But for how long? If the memory starts in clouds, it finishes off a precipice, gone into blackness. This is what terrifies me.

Suddenly, a woman appears in front of me, planting a colorful thing on my lap. She smells of cream and cake. “You dropped this,” she says.

I don't think I know this woman, but she has kind eyes. She's waiting for me to say something, but my mind is somewhere else. I need to tell someone something before the memory goes. Maybe this woman? Maybe she can help me keep my promise to Luke? But my thoughts come slowly, and before I can ask her, she is removing her hand from my lap.

I lunge forward and clasp on to it.

“Oh.” The woman pulls back, but I just hold her tighter. In a minute, the memory will be gone, and who knows when it will be back? It may never come back. “I didn't mean to alarm you,” she says, “I … I just didn't want you to lose your lovely scarf.”