The Memory Thief Read online

  Mother walked over to the window and pulled the curtain back so Hannah could see more. “Look how high they rise. Like Jacob’s ladder.”

  “When are we leaving?” Hannah whispered.

  Mother shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe we won’t.” She kept her back turned as she spoke. She stared at the mountains so that Hannah wouldn’t see the fear that had gripped her. Over how easy it was for her daughter to fall prey to the world.

  Mother and Father were scared. And every scared person needs a place to hide. The mountains were perfect. Not just because of the land. How the clouds settled over the top, or how sometimes the trees grew so thick they hid the sky. But because of the people, too. If ever there was a place where people liked to keep to their own, it was the mountains. Neighbors could live within walking distance for years, but never know each other existed.

  “What about our home?” Hannah whispered.

  “All we need is each other. All we need is a chance to make a fresh start. We don’t need a brick house. We don’t need a fancy neighborhood.”

  They built a fortress. It was the first step in Mother’s plan. If the gated neighborhood up north had failed to keep them safe, then surely a castle on top of a mountain would.

  Mother returned to her sewing. But soon, her daughters had enough clothes. Her husband had enough socks. And there was so much time to think. About babies, and how busy they can keep you. About babies, and how much sewing a new one requires.

  There was plenty of time, too, for Mother to notice Hannah. How despite the new home, despite the return of her girlish shape, Mother’s promise had not come true. Hannah was not the same as she had been before.

  Mother wanted a distraction. Something that would absorb her family, keep them busy, and protect them from their secret memories. She convinced her husband to draw up plans for a major home expansion. She opened up the kitchen. Added a Great Room. Took down a wall and built two new wings of bedrooms. She called the tourism board and listed their address as a mountain retreat. Then she visited shelters. Street corners. Church charity closets. Anyplace where she could find desperate people. She lured them to her home with promises of work, food, and shelter.

  Through it all, Father remained in his study. He focused on his drawings. New and complex designs that he mailed away to patent attorneys and sold for crisp checks with large numbers typed across them. When his trembling hands made new drawings difficult, he finally went to the doctor. He accepted the sentence of Parkinson’s. Returned to the chair in his study and passed his days in silent thought.

  But for Hannah, at least, Mother’s plan seemed to work. She settled into her new routine and stretched herself toward a whole new level of piety. She stared at the bridge hanging in Father’s study until she felt it rise within her. Until it was the very bones that held her up. She spent her days tending guests and mumbling old prayers from her childhood. She quit the color yellow. She decided there was something redeeming about the colors gray and black. She hated the golden halo of her hair. She worked hard every morning to pull it back tightly. She watched closely as Mother taught her how to tie on a proper head covering.

  This new submission, this new zeal from Hannah, was a victory for Mother. But there was one detail of the plan still missing. Hannah was isolated, just like she had been when she was three years old. Her modesty set her apart even from Bethie, who would never cover her head and was looking more and more like just another mountain hippie with every week that passed. She wore chunky knit purple sweaters, and patchwork scarves that she sewed together and then draped around her waist. Her hair was still long, but loose now, or with just one small section braided.

  Mother heard the guests whisper about Hannah. About how odd it was for such a young and pretty girl to dress so plainly, so severe. Mother ordered a new dress code for all female hotel staff. It included long black skirts and gray tunics. Aprons and head coverings. Soon Hannah was surrounded by a dozen polyester twins.

  Hannah may have blended in, but there were some things that polyester twins couldn’t fix. Like the crying. At night, she woke to the sound of babies. Sometimes it was just her. She’d wake herself up screaming into her pillow. But other times, it wasn’t. She’d sit straight up in bed and listen, as she went over and over each guest who was staying at the hotel.

  It was Hannah’s job to check them in. It was her job to notify the workmen when a guest requested a crib or a cradle. If she woke up to the noise and remembered a baby, she’d lay down and sleep again. But if she couldn’t, if she knew there were no babies on Bedroom Hall, then she’d dress quickly and step out of her room. Usually, all that met her was the silent hum of a sleeping hotel. The quiet kitchen crew getting an early start on the workers’ breakfast. The sound of heat or cool air being pumped into the building. But sometimes, she’d hear the cry again. She’d hurry downstairs. Run through the Great Room to the front porch. She’d listen and know: Somewhere there’s a baby. She’d run through the woods until she came to the edge of the mountain. The sun would start to rise, and she would see all the land that stretched for hundreds of miles below her. She’d realize there was a whole world living and growing. It seemed a brand-new discovery each time: a whole big world carrying on without her.

  It was Father who brought up school. Not college like before. But there was a little school, down the mountain. It offered courses like pottery and watercolors. Some business and technology classes, too. Mother didn’t approve. If it was up to her, she’d never send her daughters out into the world again.

  “Remember,” Father told her. “When you first convinced me to turn this into a hotel. You said they’d never marry. Not with Bethie unable to talk. Not with Hannah, now that she’s…” He shook his head. “Your point was that they would have to take care of themselves. I agreed. I wrote the check that built this place. Don’t you think once we’re gone, it’d help if they had a bit more education? They’ll have to compete with the rest of the tourism industry. Who knows what that will be like in thirty years?”

  Hannah was signed up for Business Administration 101. And when Father picked her up after her first class, he showed her a surprise in the trunk of his car. It was the green bike, straight out of Carolina.

  “I sent for it by mail,” he said. “I remembered how you loved it before. I thought now that you’re starting to get out of the house, you might want to explore.”

  Hannah thanked him, but she never used it. She was scared of what she might find. Of all the things that lay at the end of gravel roads. She was pained by the color green. The shade that first wrapped the baby. The baby Mother said was never hers. The baby that everyone, but her, seemed to have forgotten.

  If only I could, Hannah thought sometimes. If only she could forget the sound of her first cry, the quick rise and fall of her little chest as she sucked in air. If only Hannah could forget how full she felt as she held her. How empty she felt as Mother walked away.

  The pain was distracting. The memory was crippling. Hannah earned a C minus in her business class. The only reason she didn’t fail was that her small school needed all the tuition money it could bring in. Teachers didn’t give Ds or Fs, simply because parents didn’t like to pay for failing grades.

  “Try pottery,” Father said. “You’ve been out of school for a while. It takes time to remember how to think academically. Try art instead.”

  Hannah did, and she fell in love again. It was the mud that she found irresistible. That something could start out dirty. And with enough pressure, with enough force, change. Become something. Maybe not pretty, because that word scared her. She’d stare at her creations—vases, bowls, a little dish for Father to store paper clips in—and she’d see value.

  Everyone noticed the difference in Hannah. How she came home from her pottery classes shining, so close to the way she used to look. Father wrote another check and had a potter’s workroom built for her at the end of the hotel. Sometimes Hannah wouldn’t go to bed; she’d spend the night pounding
her fists against mud. In the morning, Bethie would go to the workroom while Hannah slept. She’d carry out any vases, bowls, or jugs and proudly show them to Mother and Father. Over breakfast, everyone would talk about the miracle of it. How all this time, Hannah was an artist. All this time Hannah had a gift. And if she hadn’t taken that one little class, if they hadn’t stayed on the mountain, they would have never known.

  While Mother and Father were admiring Hannah’s art with the guests, Bethie would sneak back to the workroom and take the babies. Dozens of little muddy dolls with blank clay faces that Hannah formed during the night. They were laid in a shallow bowl that was in the shape of a loose rectangle. Mother admired that bowl often, said it looked like an antique dough tray. The kind made of wood and used long ago for kneading.

  Only Hannah and Bethie knew the truth about that bowl. How it really was a cradle. Only Hannah and Bethie knew that the plates and vases were just afterthoughts.

  Because, finally, Hannah had a way to pretend she was full again. There was a way to imagine the rise and fall of tiny little lungs, breathing for the first time. All she needed was found in the mud. Perfect little clay babies.

  IV

  Hannah repeated the basic pottery class over and over, so that she could watch other people pound the clay and watch strangers respond to her creations. The teacher took an interest in her. Called her an artist instead of a student. Gave her a set of paints and encouraged her to embellish her dried pottery.

  Hannah returned to her old pieces, the ones scattered around the mountain hotel home, and began to paint them. Guests frequently would gather at the door of the workroom to watch her. She had a messy technique that splashed colors dizzily across the clay, across her apron.

  Mother stood with the guests and watched. It made her uneasy. All those blurry images. All those clashing colors. She stared at the paintings on the pots, and felt the same way she did the first time Bethie signed to her. There was a message hidden there. A warning of some kind. One that she would never understand.

  “I’d love a pot with flowers,” she said to Hannah. “Imagine a nice vase, painted with mountain wildflowers and filled with them, too.”

  Hannah said yes, but she never painted the flowers. Instead she painted swirls in clashing shades and waves. Mother thanked her, pretended she could see mountain wildflowers somewhere in the picture. Hannah’s teacher called the technique Hannah’s Mist. It was the best description anyone had given that cloudy design, that reckless mixing of odd colors. People were drawn to it. They would turn each piece over and over, convinced that somewhere hid a purposeful design.

  “Is something there?” a guest would sometimes ask. “The way these colors meet here… it’s almost as if you were drawing something… but I can’t quite tell what…”

  Hannah always shrugged her shoulders. But her eyes would rest against the piece and stare at all the colors. There was the golden of a Carolina sunrise. The green ripple of a baby blanket. The pink skin of a screaming newborn.

  “You should sell them at the artisan’s fair,” her teacher encouraged her. “Your pieces are quite striking.”

  Father thought the idea was wonderful. He rented her a little booth and bought her shelves to display her work. She sold several pieces those first few months and took a few special orders. Over time, she became a local celebrity. People started coming to the fair just to stop and look at Hannah’s table.

  It was something new for Hannah, to be known and celebrated instead of mocked. For the first time in her life, looking different, being different, was a part of what made her successful. People didn’t just talk about the pottery, they talked about that long-haired Amish-looking girl with the pretty pots. The long hair, the long black skirt, the sad eyes, the headcap, all of it worked together with her pottery. All of it fit the image of what people expected, of what people wanted to see in the rare true artist.

  Hannah’s family soon learned something new about mountain people. Though they keep to their own, they are also fiercely proud when one among them does something remarkable. They ignored her Yankee tongue and adopted her as a true Appalachian. Her work became something to collect. Conference room tables at all the best businesses in town displayed a piece of Hannah’s Mist, often filled with ripening fruit. Housewives placed her work across their fireplace mantels. Brides-to-be who were in the know always registered for at least one piece of Hannah’s pottery.

  Hannah was financially independent. She stayed with her parents, not because she had to but because she couldn’t think of anywhere else she would have liked to go. Her parents celebrated her success. Just as they had indulged her love for tea sets when she was a baby, they indulged her pottery. They called her gifted and blessed. When they went to bed at night, both of them knowing that Hannah was still working feverishly in the workroom, they smiled at each other with new peace. “It’s going to be okay,” Father whispered. Mother nodded. “Yes. It’s all going to be okay.”

  And then Hannah met Daniel. The first day he saw her, she was running late. A lady had placed a special order for a set of twelve dinner plates. The agreed exchange time was Friday afternoon at three. Hannah had worked late into the night every day that week. As the sun rose on Friday, she fell asleep. When she woke up it was two thirty in the afternoon.

  She jumped to her feet and carefully packaged each plate, wrapping them individually before boxing them up. She ran down the steps and cried out for the hotel driver to come quickly.

  She was out of breath, running through the fair with her arms full of pottery. Her headcap was off, her hair was unbound. Golden chaos spilled all around her. Her hands were covered with mud. Green paint was smeared across her chin. She still wore her pottery apron. Once white, it was now covered with its own mist. A wild rainbow of colors that suited her better than anything she’d ever worn.

  She came to her booth. Dropped the box gently on the table.

  Daniel walked over, peeked inside the box.

  “New pieces?”

  She nodded.

  “Can I look?”

  “They’re already sold.”

  He laughed. “But can I look?”

  She shrugged her shoulders and he opened the box. Unwrapped a plate and held it up next to her.

  “I get it,” he said, as he glanced at her paint-covered apron. “It’s you.” He looked at the other pieces on the shelf, then back at Hannah. “You’re the picture hiding in this paint.”

  He had come to the fair because it was his mother’s birthday. He had no idea what to buy her, but he knew that his law partners often bought their wives things from the artisan’s fair. He had seen Hannah’s pieces brought into work. Secretaries wrapped them carefully for the partners’ wives. They all turned the pieces over and over, studying the designs. Like looking for pictures in the clouds.

  He bought his mother a vase that day. And she loved it so much it gave him a reason to return. Over the next year, for every holiday, every birthday, Daniel went only to Hannah. He was her best customer.

  “Can you do something just in blue?” he’d ask. “Nothing else, just blue.”

  She’d always say yes and take the order. But when it was time to deliver the piece she’d hand over something different. It would have started out blue and only blue. But by the time she finished there would always be an edge of green. A touch of gold.

  “It didn’t look right otherwise,” she’d apologize. “I understand if you don’t want it.”

  “No, it’s perfect.”

  One day he asked to see her gallery. “It’s my parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary and I’d like something special. Like I’ve never bought before.”

  “I don’t have a gallery.”

  “Is there a place you store your work? A place where maybe you keep back pieces that you like for yourself?”

  “That’d just be my home.”

  “Great,” he said. “When can I come?”

  V

  “Welcome,” Mother said, st
anding behind the front desk. “Reservation name, please?”

  “No ma’am, I’m here to see Hannah Reynolds.”

  “What?”

  “The artist? She rents a room here. Or maybe…” Daniel paused as his eyes searched the old woman.

  “One moment, please,” Mother whispered. She turned around, pretended to look through paperwork, and fought the urge to raise her hands in blank surprise. There was a man. And he was all grown up. Wearing gray corduroys and a thermal shirt. With a bit of stubble for a beard. He had called her ma’am. He had asked for Hannah.

  Another woman walked up to the front desk. “Mrs. Reynolds, the guests in room three are requesting the off-season discount. They said it was guaranteed at reservation time, but didn’t show up on their receipt.”

  “Mrs. Reynolds? You’re Hannah’s mother?” he asked.

  Mother turned around. “Yes.”

  He reached his hand out to greet her. The surprise of it all made her hesitate for an awkward moment, until she put her hand in his.

  “I’m Daniel Phillips. A friend of your daughter’s.”

  “Nice to meet you.” She motioned for Tabby across the room and waited for her to join them. “Tabby, if you’ll please show Mr. Phillips to the Great Room and offer him tea and coffee service. I’ll try and locate Hannah.” She watched him walk away with her sharp, busy eyes. She searched him out for any evil intentions. She willed that he was good. She willed that he would be careful. So careful with her daughter.

  Hannah was busy in her workroom. The door was closed, and it was a firm rule of the house that if the door was closed Hannah’s privacy was to be respected.

  “Hannah,” Mother said, as she burst through the door. “A man is here for you.”

  Hannah blushed and Mother noticed. “No,” she whispered. “He’s not here for me. He’s an art collector. He wanted to see all of the pieces we have here. He’s looking for something special.” She stood up from where she was working, didn’t bother to rinse her hands before she walked toward the door. “Please don’t worry. He’s not here for me.”