The Memory Thief Read online

  “Yeah.”

  When I finished, I handed it to her but she didn’t give me more velvet. Instead she stood up, laid her snowflake to the side. “I have an extra wool coat. Your clothing is enough for quick trips outside, but tonight you will need more. Come.”

  She got the coat, then led me out the alley door and past the back gardens. There was a trail into the forest there, made smooth by the men of Red Castle for the guests to hike. Snow covered it, but we could still tell where it began.

  “That’s how you know it’s really snowing,” she said. “It takes more to cover a forest ground.”

  The moonlight glowed on the snow, and I could see the old woman perfectly. The sideways glances she kept giving me. But soon I forgot all about her and remembered the bacca.

  It had been months since it had hidden me. But those dark woods, with twists and bends, with paths glowing of moonlight, reminded me of home. I saw myself, just a baby, laughing and running through the fields, my hair lit up with moonlight streaming behind me. I saw myself, just a baby, hiding beneath bacca leaves. Clutching my blanket and waiting for stars to move.

  “I git why you didn’t wanna go home,” I whispered.

  “Not even my husband knows I come out here. There is something special about a mountain, with only a moon to guide you through it.”

  “Tender mercies, like you spoke of before. As good as food or raiment. Mine was only the bacca. Just like this mountain trail, only with stalks and leaves growin’ over my head.”

  She turned to me. “No food?” she whispered. “No raiment?”

  I shrugged my shoulders, and was careful not to look at her. “Just bacca.”

  She sighed. “My prayer is that you’ve found more here.”

  I nodded. “The food is good. My clothes are warm. But I still wonder—”

  “Remember what I said before, about not wanting what God has not seen fit to provide.”

  “But it wasn’t him that said no.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Somebody else got in the way.”

  “But what about now… I’ll never let you hunger.” She turned to me and grabbed my hands firmly. “Oh child, you will never be cold again.”

  Her promise, her strength as she grabbed my hands, took my breath. She was just an old woman, a stranger. Yet she offered something Momma and Daddy never had. Perhaps it was just comfort. But it sounded like safety. Like the rustle of tall bacca leaves in the wind. Like a promise that harvest would never arrive, that my fields would always be full.

  I followed her back to Red Castle. We walked without speaking or looking at one another. I handed her my coat and walked toward Bedroom Hall.

  “If you’re not tired, we could finish our sewing,” the old woman called out. “Or perhaps you’d like a cup of warm cider. Angel?”

  “I am,” I said without stopping or turning around, “tired.”

  “Tomorrow then.”

  I nodded, raised my hand to wave good night. But we never shared that cup of cider together. Because later that night there was another knock at my door. I assumed it was the old woman again and I was already sipping sweet whiskey. I lay quietly and pretended to sleep. Something slid under my door.

  “Mailman brought this today,” Tabby whispered. “Said you’d want to see it.”

  I stared at the thin paper on my floor, sat up in bed and took a quick gulp of whiskey for courage. But it didn’t work. I trembled as I walked to the door, as I reached for the envelope. Addressed to Mr. and Mrs. H. Rey. I trembled as I held it up to the moonlight pouring in from the window.

  “No,” I whispered.

  I ran to my closet, found the crumpled business card the old woman gave me at the hospital. I held it next to the envelope. The addresses matched. But something was different. Something burned.

  Names. At the bottom of the business card in little black letters: Mr. and Mrs. H. Reynolds. But on that envelope, handwritten and stamped out of New York, important things were missing. Letters vanished. Mountain Top Lodge. Care of Mr. and Mrs. H. Rey.

  I paced the floor. Surely it was a mistake. Some careless person must’ve addressed the envelope. But then I thought of the old man, holding my hair up with awe. I thought of the old woman’s special interest in me. Teaching me things she taught none of the other workers. Finding reasons to spend time with me, to laugh and talk together. I thought of that moment when she first came to see me in the hospital. How, for one quick moment, I thought she could be the one. I had asked her, “Are you a Holy Roller?” But she shook her head, and in a hard Yankee tongue that could never come from Carolina, called herself a businesswoman. Handed me a card with her name, Mrs. Reynolds…

  I opened my door, peeked around the corner and up and down Bedroom Hall. It was three hours past the worker curfew. I crept down the hall, not knowing where I was going but hungry for answers. I walked past the stairs and library until I stood outside the old man’s study, a room no one was invited to, a place no one but the old woman ever cleaned. I took a breath and pushed the door open.

  The room was black with darkness. I bumped into the corner of a desk. Felt my way to the window and pushed back the heavy drapes. My eyes adjusted to the room and used the light from the window to look around. I saw the desk, the one that bruised my hip, huge and messy in the middle of the room. I saw maps framed behind it. Stacks of books, the titles I couldn’t read for lack of light. Couldn’t find anything that said Rey on the desk. I turned toward the window again. Saw the picture frames centered around it.

  There was a strange drawing scribbled on a sheet of notebook paper. With lines stacked across more lines. And words like Wife, Family, Work, Unity of thought, Unity of purpose, carefully centered across the lines. I stared at that picture. I had no idea what it was supposed to be. But maybe I was supposed to be there, somewhere on one of those lines. Maybe somebody got in the way…

  I thought of Momma. The way she laughed as she described the old Holy Roller woman. How all these years I doubted her. Wondered whether I could ever trust the story of drunken trailer trash.

  “I was cleanin’ the toilet,” Momma told me, the day the milk spilled. “On my hands and knees scrubbin’ when I heard the doorbell ring. Preacher’s wife was in a bad mood that day. She needed to cuss, but wouldn’t go ahead and shout somethin’ bad and git it out of her system.” She laughed. “I don’t blame her for being in a bad mood, though, ’cause the front porch was trashed. Biggest storm I can remember passed through that night. Your daddy and me was just in a little ol’ shack, too. We huddled down in the tub together ’cause that’s what the man on the news said to do. We heard Janie cryin’ in the bedroom and argued over who had to go git her. But somehow we made it through the night okay. I showed up for work the next day and saw a palm tree had been lifted up by its roots. Smashed through the front porch. That old woman didn’t care, though. She charged up them steps and rang the front door bell all the same. The preacher’s wife groaned loudly. I crawled, close as I could, still scrubbin’ so I wouldn’t seem like I was snoopin’. ‘Here she is,’ the old woman said when the door opened. ‘It’s a girl.’ That old woman’s gray hair was loose and tangled all the way to the floor. A little cap sittin’ crooked on her head. She was scary-lookin’, like a crazy nun or somethin’. She tried to shove a bundle out, but the preacher’s wife backed away. ‘The baby?’ the preacher’s wife said. ‘It’s too early. Has she seen a doctor?’ The old woman shook her head. ‘Take her. Say you found her on your doorstep. Or that you had her on your bathroom floor. She’s yours now.’ The preacher’s wife took another step back. ‘I wanted to tell you, Ms. Ray,’ she said. ‘I was gonna call you later today, in fact. There’s been a miracle, you see. Doctors said never, but God said yes.’ The old woman held the baby out again. ‘Please, I have to get back to my daughter,’ she said. ‘You don’t understand,’ the preacher’s wife said. ‘I can’t take this baby. I’m havin’ my own.’

  “They started to argue. The old
woman nearly shoutin’ through gritted teeth. The preacher’s wife tried to stay polite. ‘I really wanted to tell you before,’ she kept sayin’. ‘Had no idea it’d come so early. You should really get it to a doctor soon.’ But the old woman wouldn’t leave, and finally the preacher’s wife started to shut the door. ‘Ever think this baby is your gift? That it’s the reason I’ve got my own on the way?’ The old woman started to weep like nothin’ I’d ever seen. ‘I’ll pay you,’ she begged, as the door shut. ‘Five thousand dollars!’ The preacher’s wife kept on shuttin’ the door, though. And that’s how I knew for certain she was the craziest lady I’d ever met. Shuttin’ the door in the face of good money. Desperate money. I wasn’t crazy, though. I knew opportunity when I saw it. I ran out the back door, around the side of the house, and met that old woman in the yard. ‘Five thousand dollars,’ I said, as I reached for you. The old women seemed like she was gonna say no. And then she reached down in her apron. Pulled out a stack of money.”

  Momma turned up the whiskey bottle. It was empty. “Go git under your daddy’s pillow. Bring me what’s there.”

  I shook my head. “You told him I was the one that did it last time.”

  She tried to sit up but couldn’t. “Git in there and bring me what’s under his pillow. Then I’ll tell you somethin’ funny.” She started to giggle. Rolled over onto her side. I brought her the half-empty bottle from under Daddy’s pillow.

  “It was so hot,” she laughed. “Ain’t no heat like Charleston’s. It’ll bake you quicker than any oven. But that Holy Roller was scared to show even the tiniest bit of skin. Her face drippin’ with sweat. She wouldn’t unbutton her collar. But she sold her baby without even blinkin’.”

  “You didn’t buy me. You got paid to take me.”

  “Darn straight she sold you. And I paid her what she wanted most.”

  “What?”

  “The right to be rid of you for good.”

  “And then Daddy bought the car?”

  “Yeah.” She laughed. “Old woman handed me the cash. Said, ‘A thousand for you. But the five is hers. Take care of her with it.’ I looked down and counted as she walked away. And I’ll tell you now what I never told nobody.” She turned the whiskey bottle up, laughed as she took a drink.

  “There was six thousand dollars. Not five like Daddy always yells. I went straight home, but before I went inside, you better believe I hid that extra thousand under the porch. And handed Daddy the five. Like that old woman said, that thousand was for me. When somethin’ caught my eye, maybe a pair of jeans or a new pair of sexy boots, I could buy it without askin’ your daddy. I never told him, not even when we ran out of money and couldn’t pay the rent. Or when that sheriff showed up and kicked us out. That money was mine. My prize.”

  “And he bought the car with my five.”

  Momma nodded. “Your first crib. You know he never once asked me before he bought it, only barely thanked me. Left me at home with two cryin’ babies and went and got that car. You spent your first night out in it. You had the worst colic of any baby I’d ever seen. Born early, not a bit of meat on you, your legs were all twisted and kickin’ with pain. Our house was just two rooms. None of us could sleep for you. I tried walkin’ you. Tried givin’ you a warm bath. Tried bottle after bottle but nothin’ helped. Daddy picked you up. Laid you on the porch. But we could still hear you screamin’ and the nights were still cold. So I took you to the car. Wrapped you up in your blanket and laid you in the seat. Come mornin’, you’d worked it all out. You never cried like that again.”

  She sobbed suddenly. “It ain’t been easy, you know. Sometimes I think about that day and wonder if we all wouldn’t have been so much better if I’d just kept on cleanin’ that toilet. Wouldn’t have the heartache of a car that keeps breakin’ down. Wouldn’t have the worry of another mouth to feed.” She started to weep. I helped her stretch out on the couch. Pulled her legs from under her, straightened her neck so she wouldn’t get a cramp in the morning.

  “Go bring me a prize,” she slurred, as she started to fall asleep.

  “It ain’t due yet,” I said.

  Her eyes were closed but her hands were still tight around that bottle when she whined, “But I gave you a home when nobody else would.”

  VI

  Stars fall sometimes. Without warning, light plunges in wild streams before disappearing. I read once in a fairy tale that I was supposed to make a wish when it happened.

  But I only wished on living stars. Not the dying, falling, disappearing kind. The kind that disappointed me. Sometimes I’d build a perfect picture. Draw glittery eyes and reaching arms. Then something would change. A star would fall and my picture would collapse. You’d disappear all over again.

  I returned to Bedroom Hall and knocked on the old woman’s door. “Ma’am?”

  After a moment, the door opened slightly. “This is against house rules, Angel. You’re never supposed to leave your room after curfew without—”

  “But there’s work for us to do.”

  She started to protest, but peered from behind the door and saw my face. She nodded. “Very well. I’ll come to the library in five minutes.”

  In the library I laid out a picture. Of a slick green car with a muscled man washing it. There was a bare-chested little girl holding a tin full of water behind him. Five years old and nothing to cover. I stared at the picture and tried to remember the speech I had rehearsed for so many years. But the words wouldn’t come. All I could think about was how that car belonged to me. My first crib.

  “Mrs. Rey?” I whispered when she walked in.

  She bowed her head as she sat down across from me. We sat in silence for several minutes. I waited, watching her, until finally she answered, “Yes.” She looked up then, tried to smile. “It’s no accident that you are here, Angel.”

  “I left Tennessee to find my mother. And instead I found you. The one that got in the way. Where is she?”

  “I found you, Angel. First in the newspaper. A story about a young girl lost in the mountains. The right age, the right build, the right hair color. I sent my Bethie to see you. Why do you think the same volunteer kept showing up day after day? Did you really think she just wanted to be your friend? She watched you. Heard the things you cried out for in your dreams. And reported it all back to me.”

  “The gook?” I whispered in disbelief.

  “She’s Filipino. She’s your aunt. She lives down the mountain. After she told me the things I needed to hear, I knew I had to see you. One look and I knew. You were the child.”

  I watched as tears filled her eyes. As she started to speak and then stopped, because she didn’t trust herself not to weep.

  “Is she dead?” I asked.

  “We lost her years ago.”

  “And I look like her?” I cried.

  She nodded again. “So much.”

  “And you’re the one that sold me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she want you to?”

  She shook her head. “There are so many things I must explain.”

  I held my hands up in the air between us. “I don’t want your excuses.”

  “Let me just—”

  “What about me? Don’t you want to hear what you did? I’ve carried it all, here in my pockets, like tourist souvenirs. Just so one day I could show her. Give her back a piece of everything you took away.”

  “I turned your past over to prayer years ago. It’s your future I need you to trust me with. Whatever happened, whatever fills your pockets, give me a chance to replace it. I’ll give you new treasure.”

  I slid the picture over to her. “This was my daddy. He’s the one that taught me how to pray.”

  She stared at the picture, but I wanted more.

  “Pick it up,” I growled. I wanted her to see me, a five-year-old baby girl. The one she gave away. “You bought that car, you know. It’s how I learned about love. I’d watch Daddy’s face, the way he looked at it, the way he called it Baby. That
’s how I learned what love looks like.”

  “Forgive me,” she groaned. “Please.”

  “No,” I said, as I grabbed for the picture, held it tight against my chest.

  I stared out the window behind the couch, as the old woman wept. The sky seemed darker than ever before. Like every star tumbled at once and left behind a perfect sheet of black. A place where a mother could never be born. A place where a daughter would always be lost.

  “Turns out Daddy was right all along.”

  “No, that’s not what love is supposed to look like.”

  “He was right about you.”

  “What?”

  I smiled. “ ‘Woman,’ Daddy used to shout. ‘If you scare her enough, she’ll give more money.’ They spoke of you, nearly every day. They hunted for you. Cursed each other for not knowin’ how to find you. Because they wanted one thing. Because to us, to my family, you are only good for one thing.”

  I looked at her as she waited for me to speak. My eyes went dry. My throat tightened so sobs could not escape. And my face twisted into something ugly. Something mean and cruel, that belonged at Black Snake trailer. “More,” I whispered.

  “Money? You think money will fix you?”

  I nodded.

  “I want you to stay. I’ll pay you to stay.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars to stay.”

  “You’ll pay more, and you’ll want me to leave.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I want twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  She sighed loudly. “But where will you go? What will you do?”

  “Live,” I whispered.

  “And you think money is all that’s needed to do that? What about after it’s spent? How will you live then?”

  “I’ve turned profits dancin’ half naked on a biscuit counter. I did it for the money, but the woman you gave me to would have done it for free.”

  “You’ll end up right back in the trailer. Is that how you want to live?”

  “Livin’ was always the easy part. It was the not dyin’ that was hard. My momma had this gun, kept it by her bed at night. Sometimes I couldn’t sleep for the way it called out to me through the night.” I looked at her, the misery across her face. I felt a surge of victory. “You want to know what it said to me?”