The Memento (40 page)

Art had aluminum pie plates set out on the long table and he poured the concrete in and we made designs. He had some patterns and Jenny used those, and I just made mine up like I did with embroidery scenes, using the bits of broken china. Art’s therapeutic session seemed to be working. We went fast, so the concrete wouldn’t set on us. Jenny got tired out of nowhere, as she had been prone to. She lost interest. I took her into the house but she refused any help going up all those stairs.

Back out in the Water House, Art was cleaning up. I didn’t see the point in mincing words.

“Is it true what she says, about her health, about her mother and Dr. Baker?”

Art said it was true that she gave up getting treatments. She didn’t think she’d get better. She still took pain pills but he didn’t know how often. She was secretive about that. And yes, her mother and Dr. Baker was phoning. And it didn’t matter if all three of us told Estelle what we saw all them years ago, Estelle would never believe it. She would say that Jenny was mentally ill, that she had brain damage from when she was born, that Jenny just wanted to be in control. They had come out a few times for what they called
family visits
, he said. Art was at Petal’s End when they had the big fight in early June. He didn’t want to tell me earlier, for I was just settling in. Estelle had come out by herself that day and she and Jenny were in the music room. Art ran from the kitchen when he heard screaming from the hall. Estelle even broke a glass lamp. She was irrational, and kept cutting Jenny off, saying she was delusional. Dr. Baker came out with Estelle the next week and he said Jenny was having a psychotic break, with slanderous fantasies.

Art said Jenny seemed afraid of them at that point, of what they might do. It was then she’d retained Raymond Delquist. I pushed, asking him why Jenny was frightened.

Art went about tidying up from our stepping stone project, taking his time before he answered. “You don’t need to be worrying about any of this, Fancy,” he said.

But I was piecing it together that Jenny had brought me here because she
did
want me worrying about it, that we was all a part of this somehow. Art didn’t say nothing when I suggested that. Then he come over and kissed me on both eyes. “Don’t you worry, Fancy Mosher.” He went back to his cleaning up and I left him there, feeling his lips on my skin all the way back to the kitchen. I brought my stepping stone with me and set it on the grass by the kitchen door to dry.

The next day Jenny wanted a picnic by the lily pond. As usual, she insisted she was fine walking, and as usual, it took us forever
just to get there. When we arrived she had to sit down right away on the bench, wheezing away, clutching her stomach. She took to coughing, and I gave her some water from the picnic basket. The swans were floating at the far end by the dilapidated Atelier. She called to them and they gurgled back at her in this low, disturbing way. I had a blanket and put it on the ground where we ate our cucumber sandwiches. She had hardly any appetite, and then she stretched out in the shade, but not before telling me to get her a pink water lily from the pond. Jenny was never too tired to give orders.

That was the last thing I wanted to do, and I told her the lilies was far out in the water and she didn’t like picked flowers anyhow. She ignored me and had Art fetch the boat tied down by the Atelier. He had done repairs and painted it—it was the newest-looking thing around. The swan house on the small island in the middle of the lily pond was looking awful rickety too, like a rundown doghouse for a big attack beast. I dawdled at the edge of the bank, adjusted my dress. I didn’t want them to know I was afraid so I climbed in. Art paddled us about. He called to Jenny that we were looking for the perfect one. I didn’t glance at the water, and I knew Art noticed.

“We don’t have all day, Fancy,” Jenny said. “I’ll need a nap soon. Just pick one. You grew up doing this. Why are you acting all bizarre?”

Nerves came over me again when I leaned out of the boat and grabbed one of them pink floating flowers. The weeping willows hung over us, and it seemed to me every time I got my fingers close to a lily, something underwater pulled it away from my fingertips. A whisper of wind rippled over the surface and the glass bells in the willows tinkled. I thought about when I first got here, the face I thought I saw. The light dappled down through the thin branches and distorted my reflection on the water. My throat was tight and I didn’t answer when Art asked if I was okay. I was determined to
get Jenny a goddamn lily and I reached one more time for a big fragrant one right by the side of the boat. But as I touched it I saw eyes below the surface of the water, and lips moving as if they was singing. I swear that’s what it looked like. I screamed and pulled back with the lily still in my fingers but it wouldn’t give. I tugged hard, the boat rocked and over I went. Art almost fell out but he steadied himself as I flailed my way through the water to the island and leaned on the swan house.

“What happened?” Jenny was sitting up on the marble bench now, leaning forward, her hands folded.

“Nothing.”

Art was looking at me strangely, and I knew then I would have to tell him sooner or later about the unnatural things happening, how my thinking was all confused. One minute things seemed normal, and then the next it was all wrong, and then back again. They’d think I was crazy. I couldn’t stand the idea of Art believing my mind was frail like my mother’s and Jenny’s. Or him having to report me to the social worker. I remember realizing maybe he could help me make sense of all the confusion with his psychology. I was either going crazy or it was the memento in me, and both were horrible scenarios to consider. But I couldn’t trust either Jenny or Art. It was too risky. I had to act like everything was regular and right as robins in the rain.

Art rowed over to the island just as them stupid swans started making low fizzling hisses and picked up lightning speed at the other end of the pond, coming for us. Jenny squawked at them and they stopped dead in the water, turned right around and went back where they came from. That in itself was disturbing. They got right out of the water on the far end of the pond and sat there on the bank.

“They are well-mannered and do as I say. So you two follow their example. Now, since you couldn’t get me a water lily, get me the box in the swan house,” Jenny said.

As usual, we had no idea what she was on about. She repeated her instruction. Art and I exchanged a glance.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“Yes, of course,” she said.

Art hopped off the boat and onto the island. It was easiest to humour Jenny. That said, there wasn’t no way I was reaching inside that swan house. The big white birds was hissing from the far bank. Any second they could come slapping those hard bony-ridged wings at our heads. Art didn’t let on the swans were worrying him and he went right over to the small building. He crawled in and come out with a box wrapped up in plastic.

“What’s in that?” I yelled over to Jenny.

“Don’t drop it in the water,” she said.

We got back in the boat and Art gave a couple quick strokes until we reached the edge of the pond. Art tied the boat to a small tree and he carried the box over to her. It wasn’t heavy, not for him. He set it down beside her. She tapped it.

“I put it there a long time ago, when I was stronger,” Jenny said. She was completely fatigued now.

Art walked down to the Atelier, where he had left a wobbly wheelbarrow, and Jenny didn’t put up no fight when Art scooped her up, along with the box, and put them in it. He pushed her through Evermore, her head bobbing, some scary-looking baby out for a walk. Jenny clutched the parcel in her arms. She was singing but I couldn’t make out the words.

Jenny didn’t offer anything about the wooden box at supper. It took some prying. I asked her what she had stashed away in the swan house. She looked at the candles and at the china in the cabinets around the walls, deep in thought. I can see her in my mind, the soft light making her seem healthier than she was.

“Family photos and papers. And my sister’s journal,” she said. “I haven’t read it yet. I took it before they closed the house up.

It’s got a lock on it. I’d have to break it. You know how she liked her secrets. There are other items I’ve got hidden away. I’ve already looked at them. Now I know why my mother wanted the Annex torn down. But we don’t need to talk about that. You should go see your mother. Ronald called again. He accused me of not giving you his messages. I told him that was most certainly not the case but he kept interrupting me. She’s very sick, he said, and keeps asking for you. Your mother won’t have much longer. That doesn’t seem to bother you. I feel that way about my mother but your mother is a better person, even if you find that hard to believe.”

“She’s just making it up about being sick. It’s always the same with her. Whenever Ma does something nice it’s because she wants something. I know what she’ll go on about. You saw well enough what she’s like.”

Jenny took a big sip of wine and wiped her mouth on a napkin. She asked Art if he had any other activities planned. How she had enjoyed the stepping stones, she said.

“Oh yes,” Art said, “I have a garden meditation in mind.” He seemed happy to change the subject.

It was a distracted conversation, all of us thinking of not just Ma ranting by the tombstone but of what Pomeline might have written in that journal. It was no surprise Jenny had held off reading it. She was as patient as an ancient tortoise, biding her time. Art pressed on about the garden meditation.

Jenny clapped her hands. “I love your activities, Art. It’s like day camp. Of course I was never allowed to go to day camp.”

“Agatha, you would have loved the hospital I was in. We did all kinds of them therapeutic activities,” I told her.

“I spent plenty of time in hospitals when I was a child, time you could not imagine, Fancy.”

“Grampie used to say we was all born to die, just some of us earlier than others.” It struck me how mean that was to say. What my intention was, I didn’t know.

Jenny wasn’t fazed. “Your Grampie was a wise man, Fancy. You should think more about what he taught you.” She put her glass down, stood up and off she went with her cane, saying good night as she went out the door.

Art and I cleared off the table and did the dishes. He couldn’t help himself looking at me and it bothered him. He blushed, and I pretended I didn’t notice. My dress fell off my shoulder while I washed the plates. He watched me as he took them off the drying rack and wiped. I let him have a look. It made my heart pound without fear, a welcome change.

I asked Art if Jenny was unbalanced, hiding the journal in the swan house and dragging us out there pretending she wanted flowers. This was getting a bit strange, even for her. Art said he’d talk to her tomorrow. Maybe it would help give Jenny closure, he pondered. That’s why people liked reading the diaries of the dead, so they could shut a door. “Not talking about tragic things doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. We all need closure, Fancy.”

Closure. A word I had only ever heard used for roads and bridges.

It was fitting.

T
HERE WAS
one thing about Jenny that never changed and that was how she was full of surprises. In all my life I never knew anyone else like her. That summer when we was all cloistered up at Petal’s End she had me believing she needed a caregiver but it hardly seemed that way, seeing as she wouldn’t let me do a damn thing for her.

“Fancy,” Jenny said, “you are just like Loretta. The house is running smoothly. And you’ve been so thoughtful to help with the cooking.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re happy, Agatha. That’s what I’m here for, ain’t it, not a vacation?” I chuckled a bit because it was funny and all, her thanking me for working for her, which was what her grandmother would have done.

She was staring at me intently then, the dusky evening light bouncing off her glasses. Jenny had not made mention of the journal since the day we brought it back. But she was watching me all
the time. If there was the slightest movement in the trees or a creak of the floor she’d turn her head quick and see if I reacted. I would look up from the stove and her eyes would be on me. Then she’d leave the room. Twice I was lost in a book on the verandah and raised my head to see her standing there, like she was waiting. But what Jenny was waiting for I had no idea. Several times she said my name as though she had caught me about to start something, but when I’d ask her what she wanted she would tell me to never mind, the entire while studying me. When I mentioned her behaviour to Art he said we both knew what Jenny was like and to pay no attention to her.

It was mid August when she let out why she had brought me back to Petal’s End. We was in the garden after supper, watching her swans cruise over the surface of the lily pond before they retired for the night. I recall how Art stood up and walked down to the edge of the water. His hands were in his pockets, his silver hair looking plum in the sunset light.

“It’s lovely having you assist in the house, with the laundry and the cleaning, and of course the cooking. As you know, I’m not well, and I am not going to get better,” she continued. “I am mortally ill.”

“Yes, I see.”

“There have been noises in the house at night. I’m sure you’ve heard them.”

“Is it the hobgobblies?” I said, winking at her, but she didn’t react.

She sipped her wine and licked her lips. “Yes, I suppose it is. You know I keep the windows closed, like my grandmother, so they can’t get in.”

“I have noticed that, Agatha.”

“Well, it isn’t keeping her out. I can hear her at night, on the staircase. I can hear her going down the stairs and the music room door opening and I can hear her sit at the piano. I can hear the lid opening. She’s preparing. She’s come back to get us. Given what
you have gone through, and of course your family experience, we need you to help us.”

“Agatha, this really isn’t a good idea. I don’t think it’s time yet.” Art watched the swans shake and twist their long necks, grunting and whistling as they paddled to the island. He didn’t turn around. He couldn’t look me in the eye, for he had betrayed me.