The Memory Box (16 page)

If she wanted to be like someone, why couldn’t she have chosen
me
instead? I would’ve shown her how to be exactly like me … I would have … Didn’t they want to be like me … either of them?

Whoa. I feel light-headed. I try to gather myself during their silence. I don’t want him to stop the tape. I stare at the floor. She blows her nose. Dr. Sullivan doesn’t say anything to her. He waits. She resumes a moment later.

Elaine:
It doesn’t matter anymore. You’ve got to help her. She’s complicated. You must have sensed that by now? You
have
sensed that by now?

Dr. Sullivan
:
She’s … multilayered.

Elaine:
Yes, multilayered,
yes
, indeed. Excellent.

Dr. Sullivan:
And with each layer that’s uncovered we’re able to understand her more, and, in so doing, help her.

Elaine:
Of course.

She sniffles. There is another period of silence. Then she clears her throat.

Elaine:
When JD was about eight, I believe, she hurt herself on her bike. Actually, she was racing with some friends on the asphalt in the parking area of the middle school, which is across the street from our house. Our neighbors, the Krakows, their son and daughter were there, and Caroline of course, and the lot of them were playing across the street on their bikes. They made some kind of obstacle course or some such nonsense as children do. They needed to ride with speed—that was the point. JD was athletic. Make no mistake about that. She got that from me. I was on the track team—varsity—of course you may have suspected with my long legs.

Dr. Sullivan:
Is that so?

Elaine:
Anyway, JD wasn’t competitive in any way. She liked sports for the sake of sports. Not so much for the competition—to beat someone or to win. I don’t see the sense in that, but that was JD. It was JD’s turn. There was a makeshift ramp they concocted. First she had to build up speed by biking in circles, which I suppose got JD a little dizzy, and when she got to the ramp, she lost her equilibrium. Because she was going fast, she was thrown in the air and came down on her face. JD broke her nose and chipped a tooth.

Caroline was screaming, that I remember distinctly because I could hear her from the kitchen window, clear across the street. I knew something ghastly had happened. There was blood everywhere, and Caroline bounded back to the house, panicked, to get me. She was distraught.

For days after the incident, Caroline was uncharacteristically quiet, pensive. She kept to herself, spent a good deal of time in the basement.

Several days later, I called the girls for dinner. JD was upstairs in her room doing homework. Caroline was in the basement. There was a playroom down there when the girls were little, with their toys and what not. So, I didn’t think anything strange about it. But after I yelled downstairs several times to get her for dinner, and she didn’t respond, I started to get annoyed. Mostly because I needed the girls to eat early. It was mah-jong night at our house. Dinner had to be cleared before I could set up. The ladies were coming at seven. I was already running late. I must have called her three or four times. I sent JD down to get her, and the next thing I knew, JD was screaming, “Caroline’s dead!”

I hurried down the stairs. I thought I could have a heart attack. That’s when it occurred to me–what if I
do
have a heart attack? What’ll happen then? How will I get to the hospital? Would JD know to call an ambulance?

Well, thankfully, I didn’t have a heart attack. Though looking back on it, it’s astonishing I didn’t. I found Caroline in the workroom, passed out on the cement floor in a pool of blood. She’d taken one of Walter’s hammers and struck herself in the teeth. I still can’t believe she could do something like that. But children do the darnedest things, don’t they? She must’ve took more than one whack at her tooth, or else the one whack was mighty hard, because, as she told me later, while her intention was to chip one, she ended up knocking two teeth clear out of her head. We found them in the blood next to her nose. Caroline lost so much blood. She must have passed out from the shock of it all.

I’m not sure how I survived that.

We didn’t have mah-jong that night, of course. I had to clean up the mess in the basement when we came back from the hospital. The blood and the teeth. The E.R. doctor said we should’ve brought the teeth with us. They could have stuck them back in if we were fast enough. But I didn’t bring them. Didn’t even think of it. That night I tossed the teeth in the garbage. Only to find Caroline rummaging through the pail to dig them out the next morning. Strange, don’t you think, that she wanted to keep the teeth?

We had to reschedule mah-jong for the following month. All that good food gone to waste.

I always made a smashing party, you know. It was said that my parties were the best in town. I was known for my deviled eggs. It was my signature dish—though Caroline hated when I made them. She couldn’t stand the smell of hard-boiled eggs. They were like none other because of a certain ingredient … no one’s ever been able to figure it out. But … well, I’ll tell you—if you’d like. Now that I’ve got you curious. Chili paste. The Orientals had it. They had a market a few towns away from us. You could find the oddest things there. Well … I guess the secret’s out now!

She slaps her hands on her lap and chuckles.

Dr. Sullivan:
And Caroline?

Elaine:
Hmm? Oh, Caroline. Well, she’s got two fake teeth in there now. But that didn’t happen for a while. The gums needed to heal first. That next day when she woke up, she sprang out of bed like it was Christmas morning. I was putting laundry away when she ran to the bathroom. She got up close to the mirror and opened her mouth real wide—I don’t know how she could look at herself that way. With her eyes as big as saucers, she thrust her fists in the air like runners do when they cross the finish line. She said, “I did it. Just like JD’s.” She was beaming. Blood on her cheeks and nightgown. The thought of her bloody, toothless mouth still makes me cringe. She walked out of the bathroom saying, “Twins forever.”

Sure enough, she chipped a third tooth. Cheeky, don’t you think?

The school guidance counselor suggested we take her to talk to someone, you know, a psychologist. But we never did.

Wally wouldn’t have it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Wednesday, September 27, 2006, 7:51 p.m.

T
he first thing I do in the car is smack down the sun visor. I slide my finger across my top teeth. They look like the rest of them. It’s impossible to tell if they’re implants. I give them a tug. Solid. I’d remember something like that, wouldn’t I? I shut the visor and my mouth, which has been hanging open for the last thirty minutes. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I start to taste blood in my mouth. I swipe my tongue around my upper teeth. My gums are throbbing. And I taste blood.

The little girl my mom spoke of—I desperately want to protect her. But I can’t. It’s too late. She needed … something. Why couldn’t anyone see that? It didn’t seem like anyone understood her or took the time to try.

This much I know. She’s not little anymore.

My childhood was screwed up. Thinking about my mother’s story makes my chest hurt. Or maybe it’s my heart. It feels bruised. Or hollow. Something. I can’t quite identify it. It wouldn’t really surprise me if someday someone told me a part of my heart was missing. Like if it showed up on an x-ray or a sonogram not fully formed or developed. A heart with holes. Maybe a heart grows only when it feels love. And when pain replaces love, holes replace heart.

How was it not clear to my mother that intervention was imperative? Overriding my father’s denial was a no-brainer. “Cheeky?” That’s
it?

Dr. Sullivan knew better than to ask me anything once the tape stopped. He slotted me into a cancelled appointment on Friday. He said we’d talk about it then. It would give me an opportunity to process. Or not come back.

The truth is I remember some of the things she said. I didn’t walk in remembering them, but as my mother told those stories, snippets of memories emerged. Like mushrooms pushing through wet grass.

The entire way home, I drive in a fog. I don’t even remember what I went there seeking. But it wasn’t this. I never considered that seeing Dr. Sullivan would be a process and I’d be putting myself in the eye of the storm. He said this would happen, but I didn’t believe him. I never considered there’d be session
s
. Plural. How stupid. Moving one step forward and five steps back was not on my radar.

The fog from the car follows me into the house. Lilly and Tessa are already asleep. Andy isn’t home yet. After I pay Mrs. H, I go straight upstairs and rinse the bloody taste out of my mouth, then crawl into bed.

Thursday, September 28, 2006, 7:30 a.m.

I’m grateful Andy
has already left for work and I don’t have to lie about my night. Lying over the phone will be marginally easier. Anyway, it’s only one innocent lie to help me keep my eye on the goal until I get my life back on track. I’m doing this for us.

In the middle of the afternoon, Andy calls and wakes me out of a sleep on the couch. After I dropped the girls at school this morning, I made a concerted effort to stay out of the den and off the computer. I sat on the couch to put my head down for a minute. Now half the day is gone. Andy called to remind me about tonight’s event for the Children’s Hospital. Nothing could’ve been further from my mind. The thought of having to take a shower, dress in nice clothes, and socialize with Sylvie and George is almost revolting. I wish I could muster the energy for a shower. But I can’t, and I don’t care that I can’t. No one will notice anyway—I’ll just pull my hair into a ponytail and sweep my bangs over my forehead.

Thursday, September 28, 2006, 7:05 p.m.

Sylvie walks through
our front door looking fantastic as always. Her husband, George, and Andy are old college friends. They hadn’t seen each other in years, and three years ago Andy saw him at the grocery store. George and Sylvie had coincidentally settled in Farhaven too. That’s when Andy and George rekindled their friendship and have been like two tines on a fork ever since.

“You look great, Sylvie.” It’s true. Her long, prematurely silver-grey hair doesn’t detract from her youthful features—clear eyes, a streamlined nose, Chiclets smile. She doesn’t need a speck of makeup, and only wears a slick of raspberry gloss over her lips.

“I’m sorry I can’t say the same about you. What the hell happened? What’s with the hair? Looks like you’re gonna clean out the garage.” She has a wonderful ability of saying exactly what’s on her mind—almost like a five-year-old. It must be incredibly liberating.

She glides like an eel through the foyer toward the kitchen. “Please get me a drink, that man is a maniac,” she says. “Fifty miles per hour on the side streets! The entire time I’m in that car, I pray a cop will pull us over. Andy’s driving tonight, sorry, or I’m not going. I don’t even care at this point if I miss the fortune-teller—even if she did save Patrice’s life. I told you that story, didn’t I? You know, the premonition about her ex. Remember?”

My face scrunches.

“I’ll just send the Children’s Hospital a check and call it a day. I don’t need to go to this thing that badly,” she says emphatically over her shoulder toward George. George steps inside when Sylvie adds, “And I’ll take a
cab
home. Really, George, take that thing to Germany, will you. I think I’m going to get sick.” She heads to the powder room.

Andy comes from behind me, chuckling, and gives Sylvie a quick kiss on the cheek as she walks by. Then he extends his hand to George. “Haven’t changed a bit, have ya, George? Thank God for that, or I wouldn’t recognize anyone around here.”

Maybe he would recognize someone around here if he could string two straight days together at home in the last month. Andy knows I don’t want to go tonight. I have a terrible headache, and I’m spent. And I didn’t want to leave the girls with a sitter again. We’re all hanging by a very loose thread, and what we need is family time. In a place other than the Emergency Room.

But the wife of one of Andy’s customers is chairing the hospital fundraiser, and he thought “it would not be favorably looked upon” if we miss it.

Sylvie emerges from the bathroom and meets me in the hall. We walk toward the kitchen together. “I’m sorry we’re late, hun, but I had to squeeze in a bikini wax, and my regular girl in New York is on vacation so I went to that place in town. Do yourself a favor, never get a wax in the suburbs—you’ll be walking like a cowboy for a week.” Her eyes lock on mine, as she peers over red framed glasses that she lets slide down her nose, then they sweep up and down. “You gonna change?”

“Who, me? I … was gonna wear this.” I look down to see what I have on.

“Really? It’s … a little …” Sylvie looks as though her nose has come too close to a wedge of Roquefort. “You okay?” she asks as I hand her a glass of wine. Now she’s eyeing the side of my face. She brushes away the hair that’s fallen out of my ponytail with her fingers. “Did someone hit you?” she asks quietly.

“Hit me?
No
.” At first I think she’s crazy. Then I remember the monkey. I forgot all about that thing. It seems like months ago. “Of course no one hit me.” Well, that’s something to be thankful for, I guess. “I just fell.”

“Sheesh, Caroline, you’re a mess,” she says quietly.

“I’m
fine.
How are you doing?”

She pauses for a second and checks out my face, then takes her finger and gently smooths out the makeup around my bruise. “Apart from my crotch, I’m okay,” she says. “I’m just glad to see you guys. I
think.
” Her eyebrows go up. She squeezes my hand and turns the corner into the breakfast nook where the girls are finishing up dinner with Rachel, their babysitter.

“Hiya girls! Oh my
God
, what the hell—
heck
happened to you two? Sheesh, have you all taken up roller derby?”

“Sylvie!” The girls say in unison, running over to smother her with affection.

Tessa’s lip is still swollen. I need to call her doctor about that.

“Are you two all right? Good grief, you all look horrible,” she says, pulling away from a bear hug to take a closer look at them.

“
Sylvie—
the girls look
fine,
” I correct her
.

“Do you want to sign my sling, Sylvie, or you can draw something if you want?”

“Sure, Lilligans, but why don’t you work on that chicken first.”

“You girls go finish your dinner. Sylvie will sign it later, when we get home.”

Tessa looks at me, “Are you going to change, Mommy?”

I wish everyone would stop asking me that. “Go finish dinner, Tessa.”

Sylvie pats Lilly on her bottom and says, “We’ll chat later, okay?” She turns to me. “We should probably go—I’m not missing Madame Troia.” She fingers through her handbag looking for something. She swipes on some lip gloss without a mirror and holds it out to me. “Want some? Might help.”

“All right …”

“I told you that it’s the same psychic that Patrice saw, right?”

I hope Andy doesn’t expect me to be social tonight.

“I
told
you that, right, Caroline?”

“Huh?”

“Are you even listening to me?”

“What? Yes. Of course I’m listening.”

“This is the
one—the
Psychic to the Stars. Patrice met her at a movie premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. All of them were getting read, DeNiro, DiCaprio, all of them. Tad was there, too, with his new girlfriend, LuLu, who j’adore! Thank God he got rid of that frigid Sinclair. Gimme a break with that name.”

What is she talking about? I nod generously. I seldom know who she’s referring to. I’ve never met, nor heard of Patrice, Tad, LuLu, or Sinclair. I used to think I was supposed to know them, like they were people she’d introduced me to, or worse, celebrities that I should know from
People
magazine. But then I got to know Sylvie. These are people in her various circles who I’ve never met and probably never will. But that doesn’t stop her from talking about them, sometimes quite intimately. It seems she rarely brings up the same people twice.

“Listen, Sylvie, I need to tell you something. I know we haven’t seen you guys in a while, but Andy and I have to make tonight a cameo.”

“How come?”

“We had a hellish week. The girls are banged up, and Andy’s just home from London, and he’s been working late …”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Honey, really? If I can’t tell you, no one will. You look like a homeless person. Who just escaped an asylum.”

I look down again to see myself below the chin. I didn’t think I looked that bad. I’d be offended if I had the energy. But, I gotta hand it to her, she’s getting warm with crazy hobo. She continues without waiting for a response, “I’m being nice. Believe me. Listen, I’m just concerned, that’s all. I’ve never seen you so—like this. Your hair, your face, your … this thing you’re wearing. What
is
this thing you’re wearing?”

“Caroline, you girls ready to go?” Andy calls from the living room where the guys are smoking the putrid-smelling Cubans he squirrels away.

“Shit—that means separate cars.” Sylvie looks at me nervously and then chugs the rest of her wine. “I swear he’ll end up killing me some day in that car. If he needed a mid-life crisis, I would’ve preferred a girlfriend.”

“Why don’t I drive us? Let them go together. We have to take two cars anyway,” I suggest.

“Brilliant.” She grabs both of my arms. “You may not be a looker tonight, but you still got it upstairs!”

She’s as cold as tundra now.

I walk over to the table to kiss the girls good-bye.

“Rachel, we’re only going to stay an hour, so we’ll be home before the girls go to bed.

“Okay, Mrs. Thompson. Is it okay for them to watch TV after they finish their homework?”

“Um, sure.”

“TV on a Thursday?!” Lilly pops out of her seat.

“Shush, Lilly,” Tessa grabs her arm and pulls her back down.

“Today’s Thursday?” I say, while I walk out of the kitchen. I grab my handbag from the bench in the front hall. Andy puts his arm around me and whispers in my ear.

“You okay?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Well, you don’t look like yourself.”

“I have a headache. I’m beat, and all I want to do is put my pajamas on and take a bath.”

“In that order?” He squeezes me and says, “Come on, Caroline, we have to go, we’ve been through this.”

“All right then, let’s go. One drink and we’re out of there. Sylvie is coming with me. I’m going to take your car. You guys meet us there.”

“Are you sure you want to drive with Sylvie? I mean, we haven’t been out together in a while.”

“She hates driving in the Porsche. You can catch up with George.”

He kisses me on the cheek.

Sylvie slides onto the leather seat of Andy’s car. “Did you hear what happened to George’s niece Emma? She’s in kindergarten at Lincoln School—oh, wait, don’t Tessa and Lilly go there?”

“Yes …” I say tentatively.

“Oh, then you know about the lockdown. Well, it’s because of Emma, can you believe that? Emma’s the girl they were looking for.”

“What do you mean,
looking for
? The girls didn’t tell me about a lock down. When was
that
?”

“Uh … I think it was Tuesday? I don’t know for sure—maybe George remembers. Ask the girls. They’ll know.

“It started with a fire—
alleged
fire. Let’s just say all the alarms were blaring, but it wasn’t a drill, so they thought it was real.”

That’s the day I volunteered at the library. My stomach muscles tighten. “Oh, yeah,” I offer, “the girls told me about a fire drill. They didn’t mention a lock down.” I coax a tennis ball down my throat.

“By the way, I got this story from George’s sister, Donna, and you know how she is.”

I have no idea how she is.

“You might have to fill in the blanks with someone less sketchy.” Sylvie turns her head to look out the window and points to the restaurant on the corner of Mountain Avenue, “They have great fondue. You should bring Lilly and Tessa, they’d love it …

“Anyway, where was I … oh yeah, so all the kids were gushing out of the building.” Sylvie turns to me and says, “I can’t believe your girls didn’t tell you about this, it was a very big deal according to Donna. All the teachers were freaking, telling the kids it wasn’t a drill, that it was real.
Totally
calm and collected.” At a red light, I look over at Sylvie rolling her eyes. “So, of course, Emma, who, don’t forget, is still traumatized by the fire they had in their house last year, was petrified. Instead of leaving the building with the rest of her class, she hid under a desk in the library. But her teacher didn’t notice she was missing until she got the kids outside and counted them. That’s when Mrs. Asshole Teacher went into panic mode because she couldn’t go back to look for Emma until the firemen got there and searched the building for the fire. She knew her ass was grass. Once they got the thumbs up to return to the building there was a lockdown so the building could be searched for Emma. In the meantime, they alerted the police to search the neighborhood in case she walked off the school grounds, or worse—was taken. Do you love this? That’s when they called Donna.