What You Remember I Did (8 page)

Maybe she could speak to her mother over dinner. It had been difficult to talk to her about personal things since the advent of Matt Mullen. Either he was there, or she was getting ready to go out. The good part was that Catherine had been chirpy of late, almost her old self. Even her appetite had returned, so that by the time Nan got home she was generally more than ready for dinner.

"We'll eat shortly," Nan said, after greeting her mother. She dropped the food on the table and went into her room where she logged onto the email program that let her pick up messages from her work account. Amid several from students with questions about lessons and assignments and match schedules, and several from the department chair about new college petty cash policies and a get together at the campus pub tomorrow night that Nan would be sure to miss, there was one from Eliot Mullen.

"My father sodomized me and performed various other sexual acts on me from just after my mother died when I was eight months old until I was about six. He denies it, of course. It has taken me a long time and a great deal of psychological work with a gifted therapist to recover and honor my memories. I didn't want to believe it. I'm sure you won't want to, either. But it's true."

"Nan! Come and eat!"

Stomach churning, Nan closed the email window and hurried out of the room, stopping in the bathroom on the way to wash and re-wash her hands. She sat down at the table and dished herself up some chicken, but barely touched it.

"You going to eat that?" Catherine pointed at the chicken on Nan's plate.

"Not hungry. Go ahead. You eat it."

Her mother stripped a wing bone clean, daintily but efficiently. "Your poet coming over?"

Nan shook her head. "Not tonight."

"You didn't fight with him, did you?" Nan was silent. "Nan? This is your mother talking."

"I'm not sure if I'll be seeing him again, Mom."

Catherine sighed dramatically. "What is the matter with you, Nan?"

"With me? Nothing. The question is, what's the matter with Matt?"

Catherine struck a pose. "To be or not to be, that is the question." And that, apparently, was to be the end of her relative lucidity for the evening, for she was off on a rapid-fire series of movie scene re-enactments that required no real acknowledgment from anyone else. Which left Nan free to brood about how she was going to decide what to do.

The following morning, having apparently mulled things over, Catherine took hold of her shoulders. Shaking her a little, she instructed, "Don't judge him too hastily."

"Have to go, Mom." Nan kissed the top of her mother's head. "I might be home a little late today."

"Oh?" Catherine's face brightened and took on a coy expression.

"Don't get your hopes up. It's not Matt. One of my best students has made it to the semi-finals of the regional singles competition and I need to be there."

"Oh, Nan, why? I get lonely when you're not here."

"I'll be home for dinner, don't worry. How would it look if I didn't attend an at-home match? And I like Ida. I promised to go out for coffee afterward with her and the boyfriend she talks about all the time."

"Ah." Catherine sighed. "Love."

Nan groaned. "Love is not all it's cracked up to be."

"Yes, it is!" Catherine called after her, and Nan found she was smiling despite herself. Being her mother's caregiver was by no means easy, but she couldn't–didn't want to–imagine life without her.

She glided through the school day feeling more relaxed than she had in a week. The cliché was right, she thought. Fighting the devil you know is a lot easier than fighting a phantom. After finishing her daily paperwork, she headed for the tournament courts with something resembling a pleasant sense of anticipation.

Four rows of bleachers had been set up around the court. Nan seated herself in the space reserved for her. She moved one of the two hand-written "Taken" signs lying on the bench to her right closer to where she was sitting, designating both spaces, and went to speak to Ida and wish her luck before the warm-up. They hugged. "He's up there. Next to you," Ida whispered in her ear.

"Who?"

"My boyfriend."

Nan turned. "You have good taste," she said, looking at Peter Sanchez, resplendent in a white
Aran
-style cable knit sweater. Next to him sat Matt Mullen. The young man waved and poked Matt in the ribs. The poet waved feebly. "What's Dr. Mullen doing here?" Nan could feel her temper rising, much of it at her own stupidity in thinking Peter had found her attractive or, heaven forefend, had been in Matt's office for business other than poetry.

"Peter's in his class. I am, too. I thought it might be nice if he came out with us afterwards, so I asked Peter to ask him–" Ida's voice trailed off. "Did I do something bad?"

Nan reorganized her facial expression. The last thing Ida needed was an extra reason to feel nervous. "Of course not." She forced herself to smile. "Now go out there and show them who you are."

When she returned to her seat Matt greeted her warmly and she gave a civil response. Moving to a different spot would have made an unnecessary fuss and felt like some sort of concession.

Ida played brilliantly. Nan applauded after each good shot, every strong serve, but, though she was proud of her, she could not focus on the match. Every so often, a student stopped to greet her or Matt. Struck by his personal response to them and by their obvious affection and respect for him, she couldn't help thinking that a man like him could not possibly have done what he was accused of doing, then reminded herself that child molesters could and usually did look and act like everybody else.

In a break between sets Peter went off to get refreshments for the three of them, and suddenly things were very awkward indeed. Matt tried a couple of innocuous conversational gambits–Ida's skill on the court, about which they'd already said everything there was to say; how his end-of-semester responsibilities as visiting Prof compared and contrasted with hers as tenured faculty. She responded politely. Finally he turned to face her squarely. "Are we going to resolve this, Nan?"

"I don't know. I don't know if it can be resolved."

"But there's something happening between us. Something special. You feel it, too. I know you do."

She yearned to take him in her arms. Instead, she kept as far away from him as possible as the bleachers filled up again with the end of the break. She had time to say, "Yes, I do, I feel it, too. But that's not enough." Then Peter was back, carrying bottled water and orange wedges. With only a slight look of acknowledgment he took the space between them.

Playing with confidence, Ida took the last set 6-3. She grinned as she accepted her trophy, blew a kiss to Peter, and headed for the locker-room. The three of them took their time leaving the courts and strolling to their cars, knowing that she would take a quick shower before joining them.

When she did, there was a round of hugs followed by the decision to go to the Peppermill for coffee. They took a booth in the bar-coffee shop where Nan, Matt, and Peter vied playfully for the honor of buying the tennis champ a latté. Giddy with accomplishment, she kept hugging everyone.

Nan watched the two men, noting Peter's familiarity with the young, lithe body in his arms, and Matt's kindness toward the two young people. She saw not a hint of lechery in his enthusiastic embraces, only affection. Kindness.

Was it conceivable that such a gentle man had sexually molested his infant son?

Matt kept trying to catch her gaze, and every once in a while, when she didn't force herself to look away quickly enough, they smiled into each other's eyes. Peter and Ida were dancing among the tables to the strains of "Lara's Song," the love theme from
Dr.
Zhivago
. They were singing, obviously to each other. Nan wanted nothing more than to stay in the happy group.

Except, perhaps, to get away. To extract herself from this confusing and tempting and dangerous relationship right now, before it got worse. To go home, where all she had to think about was her demented mother.

"I have to go," she announced, knowing how abrupt it sounded.

"Oh, why? We thought we could all eat and go to a movie or something." Peering over Peter's shoulder, Ida seemed genuinely disappointed.

"My mother's home alone. I can't leave her for very long."

"I'll go with you." It was less an offer than a declaration of intent by Matt.

Her vulnerability turned into anger. "No, you won't!" She strode out.

"Memory isn't always what it's cracked up to be, you know," Catherine remarked at dinner. She wasn't sure why she'd said that, but she liked how it sounded. Was it true? What did it mean? She didn't know and didn't much care.

The other person at the table, a lovely woman whom she didn't know, looked at her and smiled.

That was nice. Encouraged, she patted her neck, attacking the wrinkles with fervor. "Rooster neck," she said. "Never wanted that."

"Which of those was a random comment, Mom?"

Mom. So this must be her child. Her daughter. Ah, yes, her daughter Nan.

Someone had asked her something, but she didn't remember what. If it were important, they'd ask again. She looked at herself in the back of a silver spoon, didn't like what she saw, and asked brightly, "So, what will you do?" Suddenly she knew exactly what she was asking of her daughter Nan.

"About?"

"About your poet, of course."

Nan gave one of her favorite answers. "The only thing I
can
do. Build a bridge and get over it."

Catherine morphed into the tragic leading lady and spoke in a throaty drawl. "Build a bridge to where exactly, my dear? And get over what? What is it your poet has done to distress you so deeply?"

Nan told her. Catherine listened as attentively as she could, pleased that her daughter was talking to her about something personal and important. She had the feeling that it was precisely because she sometimes forgot things that Nan was willing to talk to her about something personal and important.
Whatever frosts your cookie, sweetheart.

When Nan had finished a brief account of Eliot's shattering email message (what in the world was "email" anyway?) and Matt's unsatisfactory explanation, she was in tears. Catherine posed in front of the bay window, hands clasped at her bosom. "You must never allow that terrible creature in this house again." She meant it. The character she was playing meant it. She was not quite sure who the "terrible creature" was or what he or she had done, but the passion strengthened her.

"Maybe not."

"Such filth! Such degradation!" She remembered now:
Sodomized
. Not a word any lady would ever allow into her thoughts.

"If it's true."

Without missing a beat, Catherine declaimed with just as much fervor, "A man wrongly accused! We must stand by him! We must trust in what we know him to be!" She meant it. The character she was playing meant it. She could not quite remember who had been wrongly accused of what, but the passion enlivened her.

"Maybe." Nan was crying in earnest now.

Catherine went to her and stroked her hair, soothing her like that Mrs. March, mother of four daughters in
Little Women
. Nan leaned her head against her mother's bosom. Catherine wept.

Then she helped with preparations for a long visit from Jordan. Jordan was her–my goodness!–great-granddaughter. They readied the guest room and hung Princess Bride towels in the guest bathroom.

Then this nice woman helped her get ready for bed, brushing her hair so many long, firm strokes that Catherine was half-asleep and crooning before she was even tucked into bed.

Having made sure her mother was in bed and well on her way toward sleep, Nan checked her email. There was no message from Eliot. Should she let it go, chalk it up to meanness or mental illness or a disgusting prank?

Even if she should, she couldn't. She typed in his name and wrote, "Please, Eliot, tell me more. It's not fair to drop this bombshell without giving me specifics so I can figure out what I'm dealing with. May I talk to your therapist? Are you still seeing the same one?"

She hesitated, then just signed off. It took her a long time to fall asleep.

When she got home from work the next day and opened the front door, she heard a man's voice in her living room. Matt Mullen, reading poetry. Fleetingly, she was pleased to recognize T.S. Eliot. The rhythm was impeccable. That was something she had always loved about Gary: his way of absorbing the music and the beat of things and conveying them to her.

Macavity's
a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw–/For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law./He's the bafflement/ of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's/ despair:/For when they reach the scene of crime–
Macavity's
not there!

Nan felt herself flush with an uncomfortable mixture of resentment because she had not invited Matt to her home, and anticipation because she'd been missing him. It wasn't until she stood in the open doorway that she realized his voice was coming from a video. Catherine sat on the sofa, entranced.