The Memory Thief Page 4

  The preaching started. There was no lecture and no peaceful devotional. There was only a hallelujah shout, as the preacher paced around the stage yelling out a message with jumpy rhythms. Hannah closed her eyes so she could listen without the distraction of his pacing, or the women down front waving their hands in ecstasy. He was speaking of redemption and forgiveness. Of a holy table, where mercy is served. Hannah smiled. Her father would have enjoyed this sermon.

  People started to stand. Some raised their hands and swayed back and forth in time with the preacher’s pacing across the stage. The woman in front of Hannah started a high-pitched mumble, her volume gradually building. The preacher ignored her, even as others began to join the woman in their own private conversations.

  Something about her shoulders, even through that lemon-yellow dress, seemed familiar. And as her head jerked back, and her eyes rolled to heaven, Hannah realized it was Cora. Broken syllables spilled from her tongue. A mystery chant to heaven.

  Hannah ran. Pushed her way out of the pew and through the front doors. And as the door closed behind her, she saw Bethie. On her feet, hands waving in the air.

  It wasn’t the words, or lack of words, that sent her running. Even the shrill pitch and trembling bodies seemed almost safe. But the thing that didn’t, the thing that sent her running to that live oak, was the boldness. That someone would have a private conversation with God in the middle of church. Claim access to his ear with mystery words invented for the two of them. It seemed greedy somehow.

  Later, Cora told her it was little tongues of fire being poured over them by the Holy Ghost. But no matter how many times Hannah returned to that church, no matter how much she envied Bethie the ecstasy, the mystery was never revealed to her.

  IV

  When the sisters arrived home from church, they saw Mother had prepared a picnic. She carried a basket with ham salad sandwiches, peaches, and little square brownies wrapped in foil. Father drove them to the beach, and they carried their lunch close to the water. He wore swimming trunks and a T-shirt, not being bound by the same rules of modesty. After they ate he waded in deep, while the girls dipped their toes in the water. Hannah was jealous of how he looked like everyone else, swimming and floating in cool water on a ninety-degree day. While she sat dying in polyester.

  “Ours is a different pleasure, daughter,” Mother said softly, guessing Hannah’s thoughts. “And it will be your time to enjoy it soon, too. You are sixteen. Only two years from graduating. Not long, and you’ll be a woman.”

  “You said I was a woman when I was thirteen.”

  She shook her head and grabbed Hannah’s hands. “No. It’s becoming a wife, having a husband to care for and later a child. Your own precious child. My grandchild.”

  Mother glowed when she said it. Her face lit up like the sun that beat down on them. And her mouth paused to linger and enjoy the sweetness of the words my grandchild. But it meant little to Hannah.

  “Father said I’d meet my husband at college.”

  “College,” Mother groaned, as she rolled her eyes. “Not a single other girl we know plans for such nonsense. It will fill your head with discontentment. Bethie doesn’t want to go. You were raised the same as her. Why do you?”

  Hannah remembered all the books she had received as presents from her father. And all of the knitting supplies he gave Bethie.

  “You toured that college with us last spring. You said you liked it.”

  “Not as much as I’d love to plan your wedding and help you organize your own household. Think of it, your own household. At eighteen you could have that. There are plenty of good young men at our church. Did you know John Hadley asked to court you last spring? Your father said no, that you were too young. I didn’t agree, but it wasn’t my place to say. You are older now; you could have more of a say in these matters. And of course, Father and I would take the money we would have spent on college and help you get started in your new life. Think of all the lovely new furniture. A nice house of your own. And Hannah,” she said, smiling triumphantly, “think of all the pretty new dishes.”

  It was vanity. The only one that her parents turned a blind eye to. Even indulged. It began with the porcelain tea set she and Bethie received when they were four. Tiny cups and saucers with pink rosebuds painted across them, the perfect size to fit little doll hands. Bethie was pleased with them and played with them like any child. A fifteen-minute game of pretend before moving on to something new. But not Hannah. She would spend whole days arranging those dishes on their little art table, a pink pillowcase thrown over it for a tablecloth. Each year after that, her parents bought her a new set. They’d pack away the old one, wrapping up pink rosebud saucers in layers of cloth. “We’ll save these for your own daughter one day,” Mother would say.

  Then Hannah would open a new one. She would sit with delicate china cups in her hands and stare at the paintings on them. Garlands of rainbow pansies. Little English cottages nestled by foamy waterfalls. Or beautiful little girls, with braids and ribbons and curled eyelashes. She’d hold the dishes up, and the light would pour through and make the paintings glow. Make their beauty shine down on her.

  “Hannah”—Mother laughed softly, that day on the beach—“do you think I didn’t notice the way you held the cups to your lips as you stared in the mirror? Children never hide things as well as they think.”

  Bethie laughed. She looked at Hannah and signed the letter T. Hannah laughed, too. They shared a T-shirt secret that made Bethie feel more like her sister than the polyester ever had.

  “You still wonder, don’t you?” Mother asked. “You wonder whether you are pretty, more than you think of goodness.”

  “No. If there is any beauty here,” Hannah said, looking down upon herself, “it’s well hidden.”

  “That’s the point. Or else you end up like Leah.”

  Aunt Leah was the family scandal, with two divorces by the time she was thirty. Years ago, Hannah found a picture of Leah, taken in the parking lot of a church after a family funeral. Hannah stared at the red face, the swollen eyes. “That’s Leah,” Mother explained. “We barely knew our great-uncle. She cried like a baby that day, though. Always did like to make a scene.” Hannah stared in awe at that woman in black pants, the kind that made a woman look so slim. And at her deep red turtleneck, a perfect match to the shade of her lipstick.

  All through her childhood, Hannah had stumbled into hushed conversations. “Looks just like Leah,” she’d hear relatives whisper, when they thought Hannah couldn’t hear. “Their hair so blond it doesn’t look real.”

  Sometimes at night, when Hannah couldn’t sleep, she would close her eyes and think of Leah and her red lips. Leah with her black pants and slim curves. She pretended that picture of Leah answered her heart’s question. Of who she might be, what she might look like, if she had only been born to the Presbyterian family across the street.

  “Leah was always set on being pretty,” Mother continued. “And no matter how hard your grandmother tried to train her, to cultivate her inner beauty, Leah was too selfish. Thinking only of what she wanted, and that was boys. Not a family. Or a good husband. Just lots and lots of boys and good times. Did I ever tell you about when I first met your father?”

  “You met him at church.”

  “He wasn’t raised in the faith like me. But he started coming with his grandparents. After he joined the church, he could have had his pick of any girl he wanted. And I prayed for him to make me his wife the way some people pray for money or fame. But it wasn’t me that caught his eye. It was Leah. The man in him saw the way she unbuttoned her blouse just enough to make her modesty questionable. He heard her giggle, her teasing ‘Hey there,’ every time he walked past her. He asked my father if he could court her. And I’ve never cried like I did that night. It was so awful to have him there in our family home, eating meals with us, taking walks with us, only so he could see her. And she did not appreciate him. Only I saw the way she made eyes at common, dangerous boys
on the street. Only I saw the way she would pin her skirt, above her knees, and hang out by the bus stop waiting for the neighborhood boys. Did you know your father proposed to her? I overheard it all. How lightly she took it. None of us knew it then, but she was already sneaking around seeing that pizza delivery boy. ‘I can’t,’ she said simply. He asked her why. All she said was, ‘I want something different.’ She left the room and I went to him. He looked so tired sitting on the couch. I sat on the floor, almost kneeling before him. ‘She’s a fool,’ I whispered. We were married six months later. The night he proposed, he told me about his plans for mission work after he finished his doctorate in engineering. ‘It’s the reason your sister said no,’ he said cautiously. I laid my hand on his and promised him, ‘I’ll hold your hand while you build bridges through cannibal jungles.’

  “It was wanting that was Leah’s undoing. No matter what the doctors said. They only wanted to discuss her childhood, every time I went there. They didn’t mention all the chemicals that she had poisoned her body with over the years. They didn’t mention the bad choice after bad choice that left her mind in so much pain. Once a doctor stopped me in the hall. ‘She doesn’t seem to want to get better,’ he said. ‘We need to find a way. Perhaps if you talked to her.’ I didn’t. I’ve never admitted that to anyone until now. But I didn’t ask her to get better, and I didn’t ask her to try. When I went to get her paperwork, after she did what she did, the doctor was there, a clipboard in his hand. He told me he was sorry. That he had hoped for better. And I told him the truth. Told him more than all his years in college could ever teach him. Some people only do what they want. Never what they should. Never what you hope them to do. They spend their days crying I want and I want and I want. They spend their lives consuming and grasping and swallowing whole whatever is in their reach. Even if it’s boys. Even if it’s other women’s husbands. Even if it’s…” Mother stopped and caught her breath. “Even if it’s death.”

  Hannah turned toward the ocean to give Mother time to hide the pain that swept over her face. It had been fifteen years since Leah’s suicide. Sometimes Hannah believed she remembered the day of the call. She didn’t; she was only one when it happened. But she imagined the ringing of the phone. The way Mother answered, probably knowing what the news would be. How Mother nodded as she listened, her face turning to stone like Bethie’s. What Hannah never imagined, what she’d never remember, was what happened behind that stone. All the new fears that were born after the phone rang that day. All the new promises that Mother whispered over her beautiful baby girl.

  “The doctor didn’t understand,” Mother finally whispered. “Hannah, I need you to.”

  “I do,” Hannah lied.

  Mother sighed and squeezed her hand.

  “Father,” Hannah whispered, as she watched him. He laughed as a giant wave crashed over him, and waved to his girls sitting on the beach. “It will break his heart if I don’t go to college.”

  “His heart is my job, not yours. Look at John Hadley when we return in a couple of months. Let him see you look at him. He’ll know. Think about a family. About babies. Think of all the pretty dishes. And if that doesn’t help, remember Leah.”

  Hannah nodded, and forced a smile for Mother. But her mind begged to know, What was missing? When Leah cried I want and I want and I want. She spent her life grasping blindly, for something. Was there a word for the missing thing? Did it ever have a name?

  V

  Hannah was seven years old the first time she called herself ugly. She was standing in her front yard on Easter morning. Up and down the streets of her neighborhood she saw other little girls twirling bright floral skirts that poofed out at their knees. Their hair was curled and piled with ribbons. Their feet were shiny with black patent. Lace socks, trimmed with ribbons to match the ones in their hair, showed off how tiny their ankles were. Their little hands, some covered in lace-trimmed gloves, clutched baskets filled with treats. They looked like storybook ballerinas, twirling and twirling in blurs of pink and lace. Hannah couldn’t take her eyes off them. She caught her breath with excitement whenever a new Easter ballerina appeared.

  Hannah was dressed the same on Easter as any other day. Even so, she ran to her room. Twirled around and around, her arms held out, her fingers pointed, just like she saw the other little girls doing. But no matter how fast she twirled, her skirt would not poof. Ribbons did not appear in her hair. And she knew she was not beautiful. As she stared at herself in the mirror, she searched for another word. Too little to know the word plain, she settled for something else. That word was ugly.

  Nine years later, and Hannah was still twirling. Only this time she was inside the Steampot Motel. One of her jobs was to receive the coolers unloaded off the back of Cora’s truck, filled with the day’s fresh catch. She’d pick them up and take them inside to rinse off the seafood and store it properly.

  The boy from the oyster roast was usually the one who made the deliveries. They would talk as he unloaded. About how hot it was, or whether he thought a thunderstorm was coming. She enjoyed his attention, even if it was just weather talk, as he handed her an iced-down cooler. He was seventeen and he was not a safe boy. Sometimes he cussed. Sometimes she saw him drinking beer while sitting with Cora.

  The moment she gave herself to him was long before they ever touched. It was Friday night, and she was inside the kitchen rinsing buckets for Cora. She heard the truck pull up.

  “I’ll git it,” Cora told her.

  Hannah nodded, but listened to see who was delivering.

  She heard Cora say, “Hand it out, Sam.”

  Then she heard him answer, “Where’s my pretty Yank tonight?”

  The bucket she was rinsing dropped straight into the sink. Pretty was the ocean. Pretty was the first November snowfall. Or a porcelain tea set. Perfect as God made her, she should’ve had no use for pretty.

  And yet, no matter how carelessly he threw that word around, there was a place reserved inside her heart. Waiting for someone, anyone, to claim it with that seductive word.

  After that day, Hannah worked for his attention. If she saw him sitting out front finishing up a bucket, she’d step outside to take it from him instead of letting him toss it in the sink.

  “Workin’ you hard, ain’t they? Makin’ you rinse buckets nonstop.”

  “We’ve been real busy,” she said, aware that her words were suddenly less Yankee.

  “I’ll rinse this out for you then.”

  She followed him inside and watched as he emptied the shells from his bucket, then soaped and rinsed it. She showed him where to stack it so the hot air could dry it.

  Sissy came in and started talking to him about repairs the boat needed. When Sissy stepped out into the yard, Sam started to follow her. Then he turned around and reached toward Hannah.

  His fingers twirled through her hair. “Ever pull the husks back from an ear of sweet corn?” He winked at her and left.

  If Mother’s rules had worked, if Hannah had managed to swallow them whole until they were the very bones that held her up, then she would have run. She would have smelled the flames of hell all around that boy. With his assumption, his arrogant assumption, that it was okay to twirl his fingers through her hair. That it was okay to comment on a part of her body. But she didn’t run. She didn’t even acknowledge the alarm that was going off inside her. Instead, she whispered the words pretty Yank to herself. And lingered over the sweet corn at the fruit market.

  She invented reasons to be near him. Whether collecting buckets or dodging outside to unload when the truck pulled up. Sometimes, especially if she was going outside, she would slip off her apron. Let him see her in that extra-small T-shirt.

  One Saturday the boys didn’t show up with their cooler run. Cora told Hannah to bike down to the dock and see what the problem was. When Hannah got there the boat had just pulled in.

  “We’re goin’ fast as we can,” one of Cora’s boys yelled when he saw her. “I’m runnin’ this loa
d back to her. You stay and rinse the coolers, then fill ’em with ice. Sam’ll do the rest. I’ll be back in twenty.”

  Sam sat on an overturned cooler, working a net filled with fish.

  “Hey,Yank.”

  Hannah picked up a hose and started rinsing out coolers. Water splashed back, soaking her. She stepped away and slipped off her shoes and socks. There was nothing she could do about her skirt dragging in the water.

  “You’d be cooler in shorts,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t got any?”

  She shook her head.

  “How come?”

  It was the moment she was trained for. When people noticed her separateness she was supposed to become a lighthouse, a ray of hope in a dark world. She was supposed to consider their questions an invitation to open up her heart and tell why she followed the rules that she did. It was the whole reason her family lived the way they did.

  But Hannah shrugged her shoulders and loosened her Yankee tongue. “Just ’cause.”

  “It’s a church thing, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well good thing for ya’ll heaven’s got air-conditionin’,” he said, smiling. “I go to church, too. With my grandma sometimes. Ladies there don’t dress like you, though. Ain’t so pretty, neither.”

  There was that word again. That sweet, sweet word, handed to her like a surprise gift. She wanted to respond in kind. To show him how much she liked his gift. Not knowing what else to do, she thought of her mother when she was eighteen, only two years older than Hannah was now. She kneeled before him, her shoulders next to his knees. Her skirt was tucked beneath her, hiding the long layers of polyester. Her T-shirt showed the milk of her arms and her hourglass shape. And then there was her hair. Unbraided and spilling across her shoulders, down her back until its tips brushed across the water on the boat deck.

  He looked down at her, and Hannah believed him. She knew for the first time in her life, yes. She was pretty. Like an Easter ballerina. Like a porcelain tea set. She reached her hands into the net and began to pull out the treasure inside.