The Memory Box (3 page)

“What took you so long?” asks Lilly. I let it slide because she has her sneakers on, although not laced—just slid into with the back squashed down, but at least this will make for a quick exit. Their overnight bags are at the door.

When the girls look at me, I sweep my hair in front of my face and head toward the door. Over my shoulder, I thank Meg and promise to have them for dinner real soon. It sounds canned and glib.

“Did you call the doctor?” Meg asks again from her front door.

“Yes,” I lie. “Thanks for having the girls!” I yell back to her without turning around, just a hand in the air. I’m the first in the car.

Lilly opens the back door and throws her bag in, then slides across the seat.

“Mom, what happened to you?” She grabs the front seat and pokes her head over. Tessa slinks into the car and melts into her seat; her eyes drop to the floor.

Tessa covers her ears, “La, la, la …”

Lilly smacks her on the arm. “Quiet, Tessa. What are you doing that for?”

“Tessa, Lilly …” I turn around to look at them. Lilly’s face is only inches from mine since she’s still leaning on the front seat. Her honey-colored freckles form constellations across her cheeks. Once she gets a good look at my bruise, her nose crinkles, causing the Big Dipper’s handle to bludgeon Sagittarius.

“Listen, I’m okay. Don’t worry. It’s just a little bruise. It’ll be gone by the time Daddy gets home. I did one of my klutz moves and slipped on a piece of broccoli in the kitchen and collided with the stools.” I’m talking with my hands. I never do that. One hand forms a stop sign, the other does this little-itty-bitty thing, then both of them crisscross, and with fingers splayed, they create big, flashy fireworks. “And you know the monkeys? Look—one of them is bruised into my cheek. See it?” I point at it. “Is that hysterical, or what? A bruise in the shape of a monkey?” Lilly keeps following my hands like she’s hypnotized. Tessa hasn’t looked my way the entire time. “Who would believe something so ridiculous?” Tessa’s eyelashes pop up finally for a quick look. Both of their mouths drop open, and this is one of those rare moments when neither of them has anything to say. For ten seconds.

“Cute monkey!” Lilly nods like an old man. “Good story.” And pats me gently on the head.

“That’s not funny, Lilly.” Tessa hits Lilly in the arm, then looks out the window.

“Tess, it’s okay, I’m fine—don’t worry about me.” I reach out to rest my hand on her knee and give it a little squeeze. I wish she would look at me, but she’s staring out the window. The silhouette of her eyelashes in profile contrast against the bright light. “I’m a little worried about the stool—ha!” I fake chuckle. It sounds ridiculous. “By the way, let’s not tell Daddy if he calls tonight, okay? He’ll just worry, and he doesn’t need any stress right now, especially when he’s so far from home. He worries about us too much. Anyway, I’m sure it’ll look better tomorrow.”

I turn on the radio, and the car ride becomes normal. They launch into their chicken chatter, and I begin to chill out. This is good. I need the girls around me. I’ll be okay.

A couple of times, I slide into preoccupations about JD but yank myself back in the moment. “How was Delia’s?” I ask. They launch into a rapidly paced, immensely detailed rendition of their last eighteen hours—simultaneously, strangely unaware of their verbal collision: a story about a sports bra, someone having a crush on the boy from Germany, and something about blue tie-dyed soccer socks. They don’t know it, but their innocent ramblings are creating a bubble-wrap afghan, unwittingly comforting and protecting me.

“Oh, Mom, guess what happened to Hannah? Mrs. Henry had to call her mom at two in the …”

“One in the morning.”

“No, it was two in the morning …”

“No, it wasn’t. It was one in the morning.
I know
.”

“How do you know, you weren’t even awake?”

“
I heard Mrs. Henry tell someone on the phone.”

“Well,
whatever …
it doesn’t matter anyway. Mom, Hannah’s mother picked her up in the middle of the night! Can you believe that? She was crying and walking around the house—she was sleepwalking, actually, like a zombie, and Mrs. Henry found her in the kitchen by the stove. She almost caught on fire!”

“
She did not!
Mom, Lilly’s making that up!”

“No. No, I’m not … that’s what Mrs. Henry was afraid she was going to do. Really.”

“Are you smoking me?” I’m half listening.

“
What?”

“What did you say, Mom?”

“I said, ‘Are you smoking me?’ You know, like ‘Are you kidding?’”

“Mom!” Tessa gasps as if I just took my shirt off at the gas station.

“Mom! Are you serious?! Where did you get that from?” Lilly follows.

“From you girls. I heard you say it to somebody.”

“It’s not ‘
Are you smoking me
,’ it’s ‘Are you
joking
me.’”

“Really, Mom, what
is
that?”

“Yeah, where did you get that from? You can’t say that. Come on, it’s embarrassing.”

“Fine. I’m sorry I’m so offensive.” Why is it kids are completely tuned in when you say something embarrassing but can’t hear perfectly normal things like “Please put your dirty clothes in the hamper, not on the floor next to the hamper”?

They both break into ripples of laughter until they practically can’t breathe. Tessa holds her stomach and falls to the side, where her head lands on Lilly’s lap.

We’re almost home, and I can’t wait for this day to be over. The time on the dashboard says 10:57.

It’s gonna be a long day.

I turn onto Brightwood Road and notice something I hadn’t seen before. Beyond our front yard, tucked into the elbow of the road, the very first autumn leaf appears on Mr. Snedgar’s oak tree; it’s a blazing reddish-orange. The tree’s widespread branches, like a hundred gnarled fingers, point in my direction. It’s always this tree that portends the approaching fall. Though this time, it’s far too early.

To say that
I’m a little distracted once we arrive back home is the understatement of the century. The girls go upstairs to unpack their overnight bags and straighten their rooms while I retreat to the laundry room to deal with the mounds of clothes. I sit on the tile floor and sort the whites from darks while I try to sort my twisted emotions. I want to feel better. Erase what’s happened. Steal yesterday back. I want that typical Andy’s-coming-home feeling.

The only way to move forward is to find JD.

Or find out about her.

I need a reliable source. That’s not as easy as it sounds. First of all, my parents aren’t alive—they died before Andy and I were married. In fact, Andy and the girls are all the family I have. But even if the pool of relatives were more plentiful, it’s not as if I could call any of them and ask if JD died. How exactly would I phrase that? I’m afraid to ask anyone. Inasmuch as I’d stake my life on JD being alive, what if she isn’t?

My mother would’ve been the perfect person to talk to. I could always get information from her without revealing my lack of it. Which was particularly handy when I was a teenager and wanted her opinion as to whether my father might ground me for one thing or another. Often you got a
lot more
from her than you were seeking. Some people like that trait in others—takes the pressure off of them to talk. That might explain why most of her friends were the quiet type. Including my dad. He seldom spoke. Perhaps he felt he didn’t have ample opportunity, but I think he was relieved not to express himself. He definitely indulged my mother—not with fancy jewelry or a big house; those were beyond his reach. Instead, he was tolerant of her quirky ways. A perfect example of this was when my mother made a decidedly sudden and permanent change in the way she spoke, and my father never so much as flinched.

It happened when my sister and I were about six. My parents took a trip to London as a second honeymoon. It was their first trip abroad. While there, my mother “became” British. She fell in love with “those charming, classy Brits.” She was so transformed by the sound of their accent that she began speaking with one herself and never reverted back. Even in her final days.

She completely crossed over to the other side of the pond—linguistically, that is. The funny thing is that she never showed a bit of self-consciousness at the sheer craziness of it at all. I don’t believe she ever thought,
How does a thirty-one-year-old woman, who’s lived in the States all her American life, instantly become British after a seven-day “holiday” to London?
Believe me, everyone else did. Sometimes, now that time has distanced me from it, I think,
Bravo to her
. She didn’t want to slip invisibly into a group of suburban housewives like a queen of diamonds into a stacked deck. It was harder for me to understand that back then, when my schoolmates (and their mothers) would impersonate her. Behind my back and to my face. JD and I were desperate for our mother to stop. But she didn’t. She grabbed onto that accent like it saved her soul, and she wasn’t letting go.

It was my father’s reaction that had us dumbfounded. He never once gave Mom a hard time. He didn’t seem at all embarrassed. He accepted it like it was her destiny. I think he was glad she was so happy. She’d finally found her voice (in a manner of speaking).

JD and I were mortified for a long time. We realized pretty fast that we should make friends with any new kids who moved into town. Those families just thought Mom was British. I remember that in first grade, I had a classmate named Cindy Bone. She was vicious—for a seven-year-old—and she had an equally vicious mother. One day, soon after my parents returned from England, I came home from school and was standing on my front porch when Mrs. Bone walked past our house with the evil Cindy. I don’t think she saw me standing there, but she stopped in front of Mrs. Withers, our neighbor, who was weeding the flower bed in her front yard. With a mocking hand held up to the side of her mouth to feign discretion, she called out, “Has Elaine Spencer lost her mind, or has she landed a part in
My Fair Lady
?” That sent Mrs. Bone into an interminable horror-movie cackle that ended up in a half wheeze/half gag until she quickly stuck a newly lit cigarette between her shriveled lips. Thank goodness Mrs. Withers had the decency to turn away silently, start up her lawn mower, and drown out the rest of Mrs. Bone’s insults, while dispensing grass clippings onto her perfectly white seersucker trousers.

By the time I left for college, I was used to it. I don’t think very much about it anymore. But when I do, it reminds me to be aware of my own behavior—the emotional scars of children can take a lifetime to heal. If they do at all.

The laundry is separated, pockets checked for tissues and change, stains pretreated, and the washer filled with the first load. Once I close the lid, I head back downstairs to make lunch. The girls walk Smarty while I prepare three hummus and cucumber sandwiches.

Lilly and Tessa argue between bites about which craft project they’ll do, and I’m relieved not to be needed for this conversation. They always want to do the same thing, though they never agree on what that is. The battle seems to be as important as the task. JD and I always wanted to do the same things when we were young. The difference was we never argued.

Together we clear away the table. My printout of today’s schedule is on the counter next to the blender, reminding me to do laundry, change bed linens, go to drycleaner, Clorox the shower drains, and return beach chairs to the crawl space. All that was supposed to happen before noon.

The girls decide on pom-pom puppets and start their project on the kitchen table. I go upstairs to finish the laundry and change the bed linens. At the top of the stairs I sigh deeply, trudge toward the laundry room, and lose momentum. Perhaps I never had it. I wander in and out of rooms; Smarty’s my shadow. It’s impossible for me to drum up enthusiasm for anything. I begin a task that should take five minutes, and fifteen minutes later I have to remind myself what it is I was there for in the first place.

Finally, Lilly and Tessa’s sheets are changed and the laundry is half folded. I get to my room, and instead of stripping the bed I plop down in the middle of it. I cross-stitch my legs and coax positive energy to flow freely to my brain. Maybe something will kaleidoscope into clarity. I need time to think. I rack my brain—who would know about JD? If she were really
gone,
who would know?

Her college
.

They’d want to know. They’d put it in the alumni magazine or directory or whatever that thing is that reports marriages and births and deaths.

I race down the stairs to find the main number for Barton College in my Rolodex. I know it’s weird that I still have a Rolodex. I’ll be one of those old ladies who holds onto ancient rusty hedge sheers when nifty, super-fast, super-sharp electric ones are available. And I’ll never give up my corded phone—which hangs in the kitchen next to the fridge.

In the den, I unlock the bottom drawer of the credenza and pull out my Rolodex and place it on top. Right next to my
desk calendar!
I pick up my desk calendar and squeeze it tight. Someone must have moved it. And closed it. I open it to the proper week and put it back on the desk next to the mouse pad. “Don’t you move again!” I jab my finger at it. A rush of hope waves over me. It’s a sign. I know it. Everything’s going to be okay.

I love my Rolodex—plucking at the soft indentation in the center of each card created by years of use where my finger pulled back on each one. The smell of the paper. I spin the Rolodex wheel and stop on J—where, over the years, I’ve kept all of JD’s important information. There are several Barton phone numbers: her old dorm room numbers, the infirmary, and the Campus Center Information Desk, where she had a job junior year. I jot that one down.

I pass through the kitchen, waving and yelling, “Hi, girls!” Back upstairs, I use the phone on my nightstand. Smarty yelps and runs alongside me. It’s amazing to feel cheerful and optimistic. Even when things are grim, when I have a plan I can tackle anything. Of course, things have never been this grim, so that theory will be tested. But being pragmatic, for me, is empowering. This is where I’m most comfortable. It also gives me a glimmer of hope. I could be on the brink of discovering this whole thing is some crazy mix-up, that
of course
my sister is alive. And very much living in Pennsylvania.