The Memory Thief Page 5

  From that day on, Hannah gave up wearing the canvas apron altogether. And she could never be sure when he might appear beside her. Sometimes he snuck into the motel rooms she’d be cleaning. Sometimes he’d pull her to the bed. She’d let him kiss her quickly before running away.

  It was easier for Hannah than it should’ve been. Partly because her polyester life was so unconnected to the Steam pot Motel. Her family didn’t know about the T-shirt, about bleaching the toilets or sneaking childlike kisses in between her work. And as long as she could do both well, live by the polyester rules at home and enjoy life at the motel, she didn’t think she was hurting anyone.

  One slow day, after Cora dismissed her from the Steampot, Hannah biked down to where the boat docked.

  “Cora need somethin’?” Sam asked.

  “No, she’s not busy.”

  He sighed. “Good, cause I don’t have any fish to send her.”

  “She didn’t need my help, either. You have some coolers that need washin’ or somethin’?”

  He shook his head. “We git Mondays off. She uses whatever we caught over the weekend on Mondays. I’m fixin’ to head out, though, if you wanna come.”

  “On the boat?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “Will Cora mind?”

  “Ain’t her boat,” he said proudly. “She rents it from my granddaddy during the summers. When school’s in, I live back in Columbia. You might even call me a city boy. But I live with my grandparents from middle of May till almost September. Now I’m old enough, Granddaddy lets me drive it while Cora’s boys do the fishin’.” He held his hand out to her and smiled. “Ever seen the deep water?”

  “No,” Hannah said, as she took his hand and climbed in. She held her breath and looked away from him as the boat sped away from the land. She had been close to him before, but never so alone with him. She tried to focus on the water, watching it change from murky brown to something cleaner. And as the land slowly disappeared, Hannah discovered the ocean was blue after all. Not a sparkling gentle blue like she had seen in postcards. But something darker. Something that teased of black.

  He cut the motors back and the boat became quiet.

  “Let’s jump.”

  Hannah smiled but shook her head.

  “Keep your clothes on. The sun and wind’ll dry ’em before we get back.”

  “I can’t swim.”

  He laughed. “We ain’t tryin’ to git anywhere. All you have to do is float.”

  “I’ve never been in the water. Never floated.”

  “Well you can’t come to James Island and not jump in the water. Least once.”

  He tossed a life ring into the water and jumped. His whole body submerged for several seconds before he rose again. “Jump,” he yelled. “I got you.”

  There was a quick pulse of pain as Hannah’s body tensed with fear and cool water swallowed her whole. But it was followed by a rejoicing, as Hannah became numb to polyester and let the ocean pull her long skirt away from her skin.

  Hannah started spending every Steampot slow day with Sam. Her parents never knew she wasn’t working, but instead, was headed on a boat out to the deep water. It was there that Hannah liked to pretend there was nothing else. Only black ocean water, her, and Sam.

  They talked about things she was used to hiding from everyone but Father. Like The Grapes of Wrath. She was surprised when he said his favorite parts were the hungry ones. The ones that described what is was like to go days without a meal. Those were the parts that she hurried through, preferring even the dull turtle chapter to that pain.

  “They’ll either live, or not,” Sam explained. “I like that such a big problem, such a big journey, can boil down to something simple. They’ll survive it. Or not.”

  She let him kiss her finally. Really kiss her, without her pulling away. It scared her, though she wouldn’t show it. Not just the sin of it. But that sin could be pleasure, too. That sweet tremble that filled her body and made her mind flash with thoughts of the Lowtide church. She wanted to raise her hands high and shout out a whole new mystery language of love.

  “Come back tonight,” Sam said to her. “Meet me at the boat, around seven thirty.”

  She ate supper slowly. Knife and fork methodically cutting through cube steak patties and scalloped potatoes. Once, when no one was looking, she held the back of her hand up to her mouth and licked the salt from her earlier swim. For weeks she had done all of the household laundry. Telling Mother that she wanted to help her accomplish the goals for the shelter. When really, she just needed a way to hide the salt and sand that clung to her dirty clothes.

  “Hannah,” Father said. “Have you given any more thought to what you might major in at college?”

  “No. To be honest, I think I should pursue something else.”

  He laid his fork down. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure it’s the best thing for me to have more school. I don’t see the point.”

  “You were so excited. What’s changed?”

  “Let’s not pressure her,” Mother interrupted. “There’s still plenty of time to talk all this out.”

  Father nodded glumly and started talking about bridge work. Mother rose to serve dessert, but she let her eyes hold Hannah’s for a few firm seconds. Good girl, she told her.

  Later, as Hannah helped wash dishes, she asked if she could return to work for a few hours. “I know it’s late. And I probably won’t be home till after dark. But I need to go back, just for a little while.”

  Her mother smiled sweetly as she gently stroked Hannah’s shoulder.

  “Who am I to say no to another woman? Especially a woman that will soon be running her very own household. Be home by bedtime.”

  Hannah had expected to go boating. Perhaps watch the sunset from the deep water. But Sam was in a car with a backpack. In the side pocket, she could see a flashlight sticking out.

  “Hey,” he said, grabbing her hand and kissing her palm. “I’m gonna show you somethin’ amazin’.”

  He offered her a cigarette.

  She shook her head.

  “Never known nobody half as good as you. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t cuss. Don’t wear bikinis. I don’t want kids, but if I ever did, you’d be the kind of girl I’d want to be their momma.”

  Hannah laughed.

  “I ain’t kiddin’. That’s how men get messed up. They marry the prettiest little bikini body they can find. Daddy scooped one up just out of high school, yellow hair like yours. Had me two years later. Then she was gone.”

  “Something happen to her?”

  “She just missed the party is all. Hard to party with a little baby, I reckon.”

  “You’ve never met her?”

  “Can’t know. She could be anybody. Sometimes when I’m out and I see a lady ’bout Daddy’s age with yellow hair I’ll let her get a good look at me. See if I see anything, a sign of some sort stirrin’ in her eyes.”

  “She might come back.”

  “What’d be the point?”

  Hannah noticed they weren’t on Folly Road anymore. Or the James Island Expressway. They were heading through Daniel Island, on an isolated back road, dotted with trailers.

  “Where we headin’? Your house?”

  “Sort of.” He laughed. “You know, you sound different. Keep it up and you’ll never fit back in with the Yanks.” He pressed the gas pedal and the car surged forward. “We need to hurry. I wanna get there ’fore all the light is gone.”

  He turned down a road that wasn’t a road but a path mowed down by tractors. He pulled over near a ditch and parked by a barbwire fence. From the looks of things, they weren’t anywhere. Just a big untended field, with weeds growing up all along the fence rows.

  “Climb under,” he said, motioning toward the fence. He threw the backpack over and slid under the fence. He held the wire up as high as he could for her, but her hair still got tangled in the barbs.

  “You said we were going to your
house, right?”

  He laughed. “You’re scared. Nobody’s here but us and a haint or two. And they’ll be glad we came. They bound to be lonely.”

  “What’s a haint?” Hannah whispered. But Sam was already running through the field, yelling for her to hurry before the sun set. She tried to follow him, but her ankle-length skirt wasn’t made for running. She ran and fell, ran and fell, through a field that was once ripe with cotton. By the time she reached Sam, her palms were stuck with briars, her hair was tangled, and weed fuzz clung to her skirt.

  They stood at the top of the hill and looked down. There it was, on fire with the blaze of a Carolina sunset. A mansion. Spreading tall and wide, with gables jutting out of the roof and columns framing the front. It was rotting, but it hid this well. Gray wood glowed orange with light. And live oak trees, centuries old, writhed all around it.

  “It’s one good thing the Yanks let us keep,” he said. “Burned so many others, don’t know why they left this one.”

  “It’s that old?”

  “Oh yeah. Least a century and a half. Been kept up for years. Was still tended when my granddaddy was a boy. Been abandoned for decades, though.”

  He grabbed her hand, and they ran down the hill until they were just feet from the front porch.

  “What do you think?” he whispered.

  “Beautiful. And wild.” With Spanish moss twisting off the trees and onto the columns and porch frame. Like a first bite, before the earth swallowed the house.

  “It’s ours, Hannah. One day we’ll claim it. Too rotted to even step up on the porch now. But someday, we’ll rebuild it together.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, looking at him instead of the house.

  “See the four chimneys? Imagine a home grand enough to have four fireplaces. Slave quarters been demolished for decades now. And cotton ain’t grown on this land in who knows how long. But this house has got life to it yet. It don’t wanna die, won’t admit it is, even as it rots on the frame. It’s waitin’ on us.”

  “When will we?”

  “When we’re ready.”

  It was a simple answer. One that should have told her Never. Or that should have told her I’m just a seventeen-year-old kid. But somewhere along the way in Carolina, truth went missing. Hannah heard whatever she wanted. She heard in a couple years, or after college, or when your father agrees.

  “Look, look there.” He was pointing to the porch ceiling, whole boards missing and sagging low. “See that chipped paint? That’s a whole lot newer than the rest of this house. Bet that’s from the last owner. Know what it means?”

  She took a step closer and looked. She saw dusty chips in a muted, electric blue.

  “No.”

  “That’s haint blue. Your people call ’em ghosts. Haints won’t cross water. So if they see that blue on your porch, they think of water and won’t go in.”

  “How long will it take? To fix this up?”

  “Years. And not just the house. We’d need to get the fields mowed down. These trees need choppin’ back. Replant the orchard that must have been here at one point. A house like this is somethin’ a man can dream on all his life and never grow tired of.”

  He pulled a rolled blanket from under his backpack and spread it underneath the largest live oak Hannah had ever seen. It wasn’t that it was so tall. Only that it was wide, nearly as wide as the house. With branches scooping and swirling like they were more than just alive. Like they were growing as Hannah watched. They sat on the blanket, ate the sandwiches he brought, and shared a thermos of tea. They were silent, both of them staring at the house until the night was so dark they had to imagine it before them.

  Hannah could never explain why she let him pull her close under that oak tree. Other than that she wanted him to. And that place made it so much easier. They were in a world of their own, one that died over a century before. They were in a room of their own, too, made of growing branches and covered with Spanish moss curtains. It was all lies, but in that place there were no parents to go home to. There was no God to pray to. There was no husband to wait for. There was only history around them. Their love was the last good thing of a once-great plantation. Nothing else was real.

  VI

  Good-bye was too easy for him. Hannah’s parents were starting to pack the few things they’d brought. Mother was starting to wring her hands, thinking of all the Carolina children that she would never help.

  Hannah kept expecting something from Sam. Something as big as the dread she felt when she stared at her suitcase. Something permanent from him, like the gift she’d already given.

  But on her last night there, he smiled. And spoke too happily about football camp starting in two weeks. “Wish you could see me play. You think your parents might come back to visit this winter? Your daddy check on the bridge or somethin’?”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s awright,” he said. “Always next summer.”

  She exhaled slowly. That was all he could give her. Next summer. He whispered softly into her hair. “Gonna miss my pretty Yank.”

  Something thick and hot, like smoke, filled the back of her throat. She choked. He brought her a drink of water and she forced herself to suck in air, her body making little humming noises with every breath.

  “It’s the moss,” he said. “Some people have allergies to it.”

  The moss did have an earthy scent. But until that moment, she never knew it could crawl down her throat and choke her.

  “We won’t see each other for a whole year?” she whispered with the first breath that she could.

  “That’s the rotten luck of kids. But what’s a year anyway? Some day it will take ten years for us to rebuild the plantation.”

  They used Cora’s Sharpie marker to scribble their addresses on the back of each other’s hand. He drew a sloppy heart around his.

  “Get your suitcase packed,” Mother called out when Hannah walked in the door. “We’re leaving six a.m. sharp, with or without all your clothes.”

  She piled it all away. The polyester, the Steampot T-shirt that Cora let her keep, a dried bit of Spanish moss taken from the live oak at the old plantation. She put her suitcase in the trunk and watched as Mother gave her bike to the kids next door.

  Driving home, Father talked about revisiting colleges to help her think things over and about securing her place as valedictorian before graduation. Hannah nodded. But she was thinking about life ten years later. She was thinking about repainting an old plantation house.

  At home, fall had arrived. The air was crisp and clean, such a change from the heavy heat that still clung to the South. Their home seemed bigger, too. With plenty of space for each of them to hide away. Bethie would have her own room again, where she could study sign language in privacy. And Hannah only had to lock her door to find the strength to write her first love letter.

  She began writing about the classes she was taking. About helping Bethie with her homework and leading the four-year-old children’s choir at church. About reading Wuthering Heights for the first time. After two pages of details, she felt brave.

  I’ve been thinking about our plantation, and the way the sun turned the gray wood orange. I’ve been thinking of all that chipped blue paint. And how I’m gonna take that off one day. A home that big should have room for anybody that wants to be there. Besides, read Wuthering Heights. It has such lovely ghosts.

  Remember the live oak? I’ve a piece of it here in my room now. I sleep with it under my pillow. It reminds me of you.

  I miss you. I love you.

  Hannah

  It took him three weeks to write back. Sometimes at night, during the wait, she’d grab the moss under her pillow and squeeze till it started to crumble into little bits of brown dust across her palm. She’d squeeze and squeeze and squeeze, trying to shut the words out of her mind. What if he never…

  Bethie brought his letter. Her eyes focused on her sister. She pulled a pen and notepad from her skirt pocket. It was her b
ackup plan for important conversations, one she’d developed after school started. It didn’t take long for the teachers to call Mother and Father with questions about why Bethie no longer spoke at school. No longer stumbled over the word p-p-p-present, but instead waved her hand wildly to declare her attendance. When she signed her answer in Algebra class, the teacher threatened to suspend her unless she gave a clear answer. So Bethie rose from her seat, walked calmly to the chalkboard, and wrote X=3, Y=2. It took her five seconds to write that answer. And if she had tried to speak it, it might have taken her thirty and probably would have come out incorrect. Hannah had noticed that before. They’d do their homework together, Hannah’s correct answers marked across Bethie’s pages. But if the answer couldn’t be spoken clearly and smoothly, as so often it would not, Bethie would desperately grab for something easier. Three was difficult. So if forced to speak Bethie would have said t-t-t-two.

  Who from? Bethie wrote.

  “Friend from work.”

  Boy?

  “No.”

  Says Sam.

  “Samantha.”

  Hannah hid in the Mission Room to read it.

  Scored a winning touchdown last night. Wish you could’ve seen it. Everybody went crazy over it. Classes aren’t too hard, so that’s good. I’m not into Wuthering Heights so much. I’ve no use for Heathcliff. He’s all temper and no results. And what the heck you talking about taking down the haint blue? That sounds about like a yankee, ha ha. Wish I could see you.

  Love,

  Sam

  She folded the letter up and smelled it. And when she couldn’t smell him, she pressed it to her lips. She pretended to remember his kiss.

  Bethie stood in the doorway. Signed the letter T and pointed to her shirt, smiling. T-shirt secrets. Hannah shook her head. “Not like that.”

  Bethie laughed, and Hannah knew she didn’t believe her.

  “Bethie, why don’t you try it on?”