The Memory Box (24 page)

I knew it wouldn’t take me long to get what I needed. By the time Timothy was sitting at his desk taking the first sip of his morning coffee his fate would be sealed. The water he drank in the car that morning would change his life forever. I love moments like that, life-changing ones.

I waited until he was through the revolving doors, in the building, out of sight. I was hoping there’d be a few double-parked cars, dispensing blowhards of their own, to block Timothy’s car. This would give me a little more time. But there were none. I didn’t panic because I knew that it would take the driver time to get back to the wheel. As soon as I saw the driver walk around the back of the car, I slid into the back seat. Right where Timothy sat a moment before. The seat was still warm, and the air smelled like him, masculine. Pine and leather. It felt good sitting there. I felt good. Like an executive. Important. I felt like a somebody. Having a hired driver who opens the door for you and says, “Have a good day, miss” could really get to your head.

I had a tissue ready in my hand to grab the bottle of Poland Spring. But it made the grip too slippery, and the bottle spit out of my hand, landing on the floor of the car. The driver sat heavily into his seat, making the car rock. He shifted into drive and pulled into the moving traffic heading north on Park Avenue when I saw the shock in his eyes. His bushy eyebrows popped up in his rearview mirror. “Eighty-second and Madison,” I said without looking at him. From the seat next to me, I pulled Timothy’s newspaper onto my lap and lowered my head into it. The driver quickly veered toward the curb.

He looked at me in the rearview mirror and said, “Miss, I don’t take hailers. You gotta call if you want a car.”

I ducked to the floor to grab the neck of the water bottle through the tissue.

He shifted into park at the curb and turned around. “Sorry, miss. Gotta let you out. I got somebody waiting.” He thrust his arm over the top of the front seat, revealing a thick gold chain around his wrist. “Here’s a card with the number. Call ahead.”

With the bottle safely in my bag and the newspaper folded and tucked under my left arm, I said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I needed to call. I’m from out of town.” I grabbed the door handle, my hand still lined in tissue. I strode over the puddle and turned back to the car to take in the moment, but it had already pulled back into traffic heading north.

Dr. Sullivan:
So you took Timothy’s water bottle and newspaper with you.

Caroline:
It wasn’t very hard. Once I got home, I wasted no time. I helped myself to Mrs. Withers’ garden shed. That shed was like a time capsule. Iron garden tools from the fifties, a push mower from the sixties, galvanized pails, fertilizers and weed killers that could grow you a thick blanket of chest hair or cause you to go bald, and an old box of rat poisoning—the old kind—with arsenic. As kids, JD and I made up scary stories about the things that were in that shed and what would happen if one of us got trapped in there. Mr. Withers told us about the rat poisoning. He saw us look in the window of the shed sometimes, and he put the fear of God in us over that stuff. One day he told us if we so much as looked at it, we would die. I was scared to death of that box. Mr. Withers used silver duct tape to wrap the box from top to bottom and up and around again and again until the entire thing was sealed. When he needed to use it, he slit through the tape at the top with a pocketknife and then taped it up all over again when he was finished. He even showed us a dead rat once. We never went anywhere near that shed again. I thought there’d be a good chance that box was still in the shed. I wasn’t disappointed.

I knew JD would never be suspicious of a water bottle in her car. She always had one in the car. I replaced the bottle she had in her cup holder with Timothy’s after filling it with a mixture of water and rat poison. I knew she’d drink it at some point that day, possibly even the entire bottle by the time she got to the restaurant. She must’ve had at least some of it on her way to meet Timothy, based on what the hostess said about how JD behaved.

The rest of the story you can probably figure out on your own. The letter from Timothy was in JD’s purse, and so was the cell phone I used to call Timothy’s office. It didn’t take them long to find the money in her freezer.

Dr. Sullivan:
So Timothy didn’t kill JD.

Caroline:
Well, no, but to his credit, I couldn’t have done it without him. The bribe, the note, the public argument, the water bottle—he was practically an accomplice! Hayes & Hayes could never save his sorry ass. Even his own secretary testified against him.

I’ll never forget the look on Mr. Hayes’s face the day they announced the verdict. It was priceless. Whenever I need a pick-me-up, I think about it. Of course, that was the end of Hayes & Hayes. Can’t get many new clients when you send your own son to jail.

Dr. Sullivan
:
How could you be sure you’d end up with Lilly?

Caroline:
JD appointed me as Lilly’s custodian when she was born, in the event she’d ever need one. It was documented in her will. All legal-shmegal. I agreed to be the custodian long before I knew who Lilly’s father was. Before I knew Lilly was really
mine
.

So maybe some things do happen for a reason!

I would have died for JD. Instead she died for me. That’s what twins are for.

Silence fills the room. The voices on the tape have stopped, but the message clings to the air like carbon monoxide. The mechanical whirring abruptly ends when the tape runs out with a snap. The small gray box speaks no more.

There’s nothing more to hear.

I let go of the wooden arms and put my hands up over my mouth. I try to stop anything more from coming out. But it’s too late. I feel disconnected from my body. Like I’m floating outside it, observing myself. I shut my eyes so tight that the flesh on my lids pleat. I suck my lips in to seal my mouth closed and hold my breath. The world seems to fall away.

My first thought is,
How could she do it?
As if she’s someone else, not me. Because she feels like someone I don’t know, someone I’ve never met. But the problem is, I’m her.

Did Sullivan think I’d give myself in? Knowing this?

I’ll do myself in before I give myself in.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006, 3:13 p.m.

It’s been six
days since I’ve been out of my house.

The despair has settled in my heart like wet cement. Dr. Sullivan still calls. Waiting. For what, I don’t know.

Andy comes home tonight from Frankfurt, and I’m prepared to tell him everything. I mean show him. Among other things, I’m a coward, too. I can’t sit in front of this decent, loving man, look him in the face, and tell him who I really am. I’ll leave it for him to read in black and white. I’ve printed everything I could from the Google searches; I’ve culled sins from my memory box; and anything I learned from the tapes at Sullivan’s, I’ve documented. It’s all there, every sordid detail of my inconceivable past, for Andy to read and decide for himself what to do. It’s time I tell him who I really am—though I dread it more than death, thank God it’s finally here.

PART II

Saturday, April 21, 2007, 9:03 a.m.

S
ecrets are likes knives. Aren’t they? While some are dull, others can do quite a bit of damage.

An innocent secret is not really meant to be kept quiet. It’s shared around the dinner table like a butter knife. Passed from sister to brother, shoulder to shoulder, mother to father. Spreading the truth, thick or thin.

Then there’s a different sort. The dark kind. Like cleavers, they aren’t passed to anyone. They’re buried deep—silenced—but forever deadly.

My secret was buried for years. In the bowels of a brain and a box. And now, a book.

Yes, it’s finally finished!

I had never planned to write the events of my life into a book. But then I got to thinking about terrorists. I used to think how strange it was that after executing horrific acts of carnage and destruction, they would want to claim responsibility for their actions. It finally occurred to me they wanted credit, of course. They’d pulled off the unimaginable, and they wanted their pride and cunning to be known. They weren’t ashamed. Or repentant.

I don’t condone the work of terrorists. They kill people they’ve never met—killing for the sake of killing. While I’m a softie for retaliation and revenge, the work of terrorists is quite cowardly, and random—who are they targeting? A bunch of people on a street corner? That’s psycho. I must admit, however, the amount of effort it takes to terrorize does not get lost on me. The planning, the sacrifice. That, I appreciate. But more to the point, I don’t care much for the word “kill,” with its negative implications. The word even sounds violent, whereas sometimes it’s not violent in the least. In fact, it’s often a quiet solution to a problem. Like if a gardener of heirloom roses discovered one summer that aphids were growing under her prize-winning variety, causing the plant to become diseased and die prematurely, she’d spray the leaves with a pesticide to kill the aphids, thereby saving the rose bush. She would not be vilified by townspeople or implicated by police. She was simply problem solving.

One of the challenges with secrets is that they sometimes need disguises, which manifest as lies. Tinkering with the truth is clearly an art form and, when done masterfully, can paint exquisite stories. A few well-designed fibs can render the most beautiful portrait of the ugliest subject. Critics see lying as a character flaw. And the repeated liar as pathological. Nothing could be further from the truth. The practiced fabricator is cunning, crafty, and clever. The three C’s must be inextricably woven into her skill set. Even if she wears the guise of an absentminded, murky mommy who’d even lose the kitchen phone if it wasn’t connected to the wall!

Seriously though, for me, relocating to Farhaven and becoming an insta-Mommy of two and blending in with these people couldn’t have been easier. I mean the hardest thing about it was learning to over exercise, eat fewer trans fats, drink too much, and be late for school pickups. I already had the “being fake” thing down cold. Learning to be late was a bit vexing—but really, how hard was it to be like these women?

Becoming a masterful liar, like anything, necessitates practice, of course. I started at a young age, and if I may boast, I was quite good early on. It still amazes me that no one discovered I was the one who sent those awful letters to Suzie the sporty girl who nearly stole JD from me in first grade, accusing her of being a boy. I signed JD’s name to the letters, and she and my parents were called in to meet with the principal, along with Suzie’s parents. I never meant to get JD in trouble. Obviously, I didn’t think it out very well; I was seven. That’s what I mean about practice. Nevertheless, the results were stellar. Those two avoided each other like Baldwin and Basinger from then on.

All this is by way of explaining the reason I wrote
The Memory Box
. Unless I was found out for the events of my past, which I never intended to happen, how would anyone ever know how clever I was? Does that make me a narcissist? If so, blame my mother for that. Elaine could have taught a Harvard PhD program on narcissism. Apart from my heretofore success, writing the book was one of my greatest accomplishments. Believe me, it wasn’t effortless. Even if I was acutely aware of the plot points.

Let me be
clear—
the world will never know
The Memory Box
is based on a true story. I mean, except for the “memory loss” (
please,
how on earth could someone forget she can mix the perfect arsenic cocktail), every word of it is true. The irony of moving to Farhaven and becoming a super-mommy was that while it saved me—by hiding me in the cellulite of the suburbs—it nearly killed me. Stripping every ounce of my true self was excruciating. Would no one ever know how creative and resourceful I could be?
The Memory Box
was the only solution. I wrote the book so I could live somewhere. On those pages. God, it felt amazing.

Unless Dr. Sullivan ever reads it, no one will know that’s me. He’s the only one who knows the truth. You can imagine how thrilling it was to be able to tell
someone
. Especially someone who was compelled to keep it a secret. Do I feel sorry for that man? Having to carry this around? No. Because he knows it was the right thing to do. He knows Lilly was always meant to be mine. I wasn’t going to live a life of self-pity. No one rewards a sap. I always ask my girls, “Do you want to be pitied or envied?” In Dr. Sullivan’s heart of hearts, he knows he’d be out of business if everyone were as motivated as me. Losers keep his practice alive.

I promised Andrew all along that he’d be the first to read it. I knew I’d need to change our names before I gave it to anyone else, but I couldn’t resist giving him a copy with all our names intact. There it was on the kitchen table, looked-over and placed face down—no longer tidy with its corners lined up. It had been read. I imagined Andrew pulling an all-nighter just to finish it. He’d done it before with other books. This time, the book was mine.

As I stood in the kitchen, staring at the manuscript I’d left on the table, the oddest sensation seized me that morning. At first it was subtle, nearly imperceptible, like the onset of a rolling fog. It crept over me with quiet, unsettling determination. I tried to shake it. But the feeling only grew stronger. It permeated my joyful veneer until it snuffed the thrill from my core. I’d never felt anything like it.

Things weren’t going as planned. I didn’t expect to feel doubt the day I handed him my manuscript. I anticipated pride and celebration. It was a triumph, for God’s sake.

No. On second thought, it wasn’t doubt that wormed its way into my giddy fever. It was something else entirely.

As a warm breeze leaked through the screened window over the sink, I shivered. And grappled with this feeling. It was foreign.

It was fear.

Fear.
My
God
, it had gripped me and shoved its ugly face in mine. Why had it taken me until that moment to recognize how insane this was? Only someone not in full control of her faculties would hand over the details of her not-so-Hallmark life story to her husband. The very secrets that had been hidden from him, and from everyone, for years. Now they were in black and white. Was it naiveté or ignorance? Or
audacity?
It was reckless, for sure. I was overconfident. Not in me, in Andrew. I was certain he was too boneheaded to figure it out. I don’t mean that in a disparaging way; it’s one of the reasons I married him. I used all our names in this version of
The Memory Box
as a test. A game I thought would be fun. Yes, it was a dangerous game—but that was the thrill. He’d never connect the dots. I told him I made it up, that I drew on our real life in some parts, but that’s what a writer does. It wasn’t like Andrew to be suspicious. He wasn’t even typically curious. Not in a million years would he deduce that he was “Andy.” I know—pathetic. I used to laugh my ass off about how trusting and gullible he is. But then it just became sad. And a joke you can’t share with anyone is only so funny.

But what if the game backfired? The longer I stood by myself in the kitchen, the more paranoid I got. Could
The Memory Box
have instigated the tiniest fissure in his skull? Okay, it would need to be a sinkhole, but all the same. At that very moment, he could’ve been at the computer, looking stuff up.

He must have just left the kitchen, because the scent of his shaving cream lingered in the air. There was no other evidence he’d been in the kitchen, nothing in the sink or on the countertops. No sounds of him in the house. The only thing breaking the quiet came through the open window. Birdsong and the girls’ laughter floating from the garage.

The cherry tree outside the kitchen window had already shot out some new growth, and the branches, not yet with leaves, scraped the window, making a sound that gave me chicken skin. I filled the teakettle with fresh water and clicked on the front burner. Smarty Pants came trotting into the kitchen and nuzzled my leg as I opened a cabinet door. I picked him up and kissed his head while staring into the cabinet, wondering what I wanted from it. I lifted one of Smarty’s ears and whispered, “Who’s my best friend?” He confirmed what I already knew.

I took a step closer to the table with Smarty in my arms, and keeping some distance from the stack of pages, I checked to see if Andrew had written anything, but he hadn’t. Metal-winged butterflies flickered in my stomach. I glanced out the window again; the lawn mower and weed whacker rested up against the grill. I strained my neck over the sink. Andrew was nowhere in sight.

The kettle started to whistle, and I let Smarty tumble to the floor as I turned back to the stove. Andrew was standing there. For how long? He was leaning on the kitchen table, with both hands flanking the manuscript. Staring at me, waiting for me to notice him. Smarty sat on his bottom and looked at Andrew. He waited for him to say something. So did I. We stood in silence for what seemed like an eternity.

“Caroline,” he said without any noticeable expression whatsoever, breathing in deeply through his nose.

My heart did a triple-axel.

“Yes.” I blinked back tears I was surprised were gathering.

“It’s great.”

“Great?”

“Okay, crazy. Crazy great. I couldn’t put it down.”

“Really?”

“Really, I mean it. How would I be able to read it so fast? It was unputdownable.” He threw his hands in the air.

“Unputdownable?”

“I don’t know how you came up with it—the idea, I mean,” Andrew said, shaking his head. “You know, in the end, it was just—so—so—whacked. Very sad.”

“I know, wasn’t it sad? Do you really think so, sad?
Whacked
?”

“Jeez, that was one sick chick.” He picked up the manuscript and tamped the pages gently against the table to align them into a neat pile. “I mean, she killed her own
sister
 … after being obsessed with her for all those years.”

“Obsessed?” I shook my head. “No, she wasn’t obsessed. That’s not right, Andrew. ” My hands and arms couldn’t make up their mind; they moved from my hips to crossed at my chest and back again.

“Okay. You’re the writer,
but
 …” He put his hands up to surrender. “Anyone who could smack her teeth out with a hammer in an attempt to chip a tooth to match her sister’s is my definition of obsessed. And demented.”

“
Demented?!”
That nearly choked the breath right out of me.
And
it hurt. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all.

He looked at me with sparkling eyes and laughed, “She killed her sister, for Christ’s sake!”

“Her sister betrayed her!”

Andrew laughed even harder, “I know you’re supposed to love your characters, but really, you’re scaring me a little, Caroline.” He walked to a cabinet and pulled out a bowl and added, “Oh wait,
then
she frames her ex-boyfriend …”

“
Fiancé—
”

“Fiancé, whatever. Let’s agree she was mental.”

Mental?

“Andrew, may I remind you that she persevered and triumphed—in the face of adversity!”

“Triumphed? What chapter was that? She ended up having a breakdown. How did she triumph? She went cuckoo! This is not a feel-good story about human achievement. Unless I missed something.”

He walked back to fix his breakfast. I had to check my tone; this was getting too personal. I needed to keep some distance. He was right, after all: the triumphant Caroline stood before him in the kitchen. I didn’t write about that part. That’s in the forever-unwritten sequel.

“But you liked it?”

He grabbed a box of Shredded Wheat and poured some. “Oh yeah, I really got sucked in. It definitely made me uncomfortable. A lot.”

“Really?”

“Jeez, a lot of times. But that’s what you wanted, obviously, right? Like when she started choking, or thought she was choking and then fell on top of her daughter and broke her collar bone …” He stuck his head in the fridge looking for the milk.

“Oh, I made that up!”

With the refrigerator door between us, Andrew popped his head over to look at me, “Uh
yeah
, you made it
all
up, right?” He winked at me and shook his head, then took out the milk and orange juice and placed them on the counter. “You made up the part about how ‘Caroline’ went looking for a husband, right? ’Cause that one hit close to home. I mean, I guess the way we met is unorthodox, but the obituary search really freaked me out.” He shook his head slowly. “You got a crazy imagination, Caroline.”

He put his spoon in the bowl and raised his hand, as if he’d just remembered something. Between chews he said, “
But—
before you start sending it anywhere, we need to discuss something.”

“Yeah?” I picked up Smarty and stroked his ears. I needed something to do with my hands—and my nerves. Smarty Pants would absorb my anxiety.

“Now Caroline, don’t take this the wrong way, okay? Don’t bum out on me. I’m super proud of you, writing this book—I know how hard it was for you, how long it took. It’s great. I’ve already told you that. I mean, I could never come up with something like that in a million years.”