Page 8 of Forget Me Not
I hang up, my body on autopilot as I round the cul-de-sac curve. Then I pull into the driveway and kill the engine before catching a glimpse of the live oak in the back. It’s the same one Natalie used to climb down when she snuck out at night, its thick, long branches like twisting tentacles barely visible from behind the roof. There’s a slurry of feelings coursing their way through my veins now, a weightlessness like I’ve been injected with some strange drug. It’s the mental image of my mother, I think: sitting inside and holding her breath, just like me, because guilt and grief have turned us into strangers. The fact that she’s probably spent the last few days preparing for my arrival—hobbling around the house positioning pillows, running a dust rag over all the same spots—while simultaneously wondering when I would back out. If I’m being honest, I almost did. Multiple times. It would have been easy. I could have told her something came up at work, an assignment big enough to keep me in the city; or, better yet, I could have just never responded to her text back. I could have ignored it, the parental equivalent to a drunk text I was suddenly ashamed of in the harsh light of morning. She wouldn’t have pushed it; I know she wouldn’t have. Instead, we both would have let the possibility of seeing each other simply slip away, dissolving completely like a salt tab in water.
Turning into a murky memory that, with time, would leave nothing behind but a bad taste.
I catch a glimpse of movement now, the flutter of a curtain behind one of the windows, and I know she’s there, just on the other side. Watching me idle in front of the house. There’s a pinch of something strange in my chest at the sight, a cousin to the fear I had felt when my father first called. Shame, maybe, remembering as I listened to his final few words. His voice dipped into a whisper like the thing he was about to say next was too sad to admit out loud.
She doesn’t have anyone else.
The truth is, he’s right. My mother doesn’t have anyone else. Her parents died young, a car crash that claimed them long before I was born. She’s a divorced only child with no extended family at all and it feels so juvenile now, sitting here like this. Her only remaining daughter avoiding her like the plague. My mom and I have had our disagreements in the past. We’ve had our spats. With the benefit of hindsight and a fully formed brain, something I certainly didn’t have at eleven, I’ve realized there were things back then she should have done differently. She was the adult, it was her job to keep her kids safe… but at the same time, I know I’m far from blameless.
I did a lot of things I’m not proud of, too.
I exhale, my head starting to swim as I feel the bony fingers of fear crawl their way up my neck. Then I open the door and step outside, fighting the phantom sensation of two cold hands clasped tight around it.
Their gentle caress across exposed skin before closing softly and starting to squeeze.
CHAPTER 5
My mother comes to the door with a bottle of wine in one hand and a full glass in the other, ruby-red liquid threatening to spill over the lip.
“To celebrate your return,” she says by way of a greeting, hoisting it high, though I glance at the bottle, already half gone, and can’t help but wonder how long she’s been drinking. She’s never needed much of a reason before.
“Hi, Mom,” I say, pulling her in for a reluctant hug. There’s a black brace on her leg that makes her body tilt at a harsh angle; another on her wrist that digs into my spine.
“Welcome home, Claire,” she says at last, both of us letting go as soon as we can.
I step back, taking the free seconds to scan her face. I can’t help but register the way fifteen years have changed the lines of it. Everything looks deeper, settled in, soft like the well-worn surface of a leather couch, with permanent wrinkles and a dark stain to herskin. She looks thinner, too, flesh hanging off her bones like a mannequin modeling clothing two sizes too big, but although her hair is longer and streaked with gray, it’s still the same honey blond she passed down to her daughters.
“I couldn’t believe it when I got your text,” she adds.
“I couldn’t believe it when I sent it,” I admit.
She smiles at me, a red tint to her teeth, and I step into the living room, looking around as two large duffels hang heavy at my sides, a single briefcase slung over one shoulder. It feels like stepping through a time warp, the doorway a portal to the world of my past.
“So, your father told you.”
I twist around, eyeing her from across the room.
“You didn’t ask about the braces,” she says, gesturing down to her leg, her wrist. “You didn’t even seem surprised.”
I bite my tongue, realizing my mistake.
“Thinking about coming home for a visit?” she asks, parroting my text with an expression that looks mildly amused. “Since when have you ever done that?”
“He was only trying to help,” I say, turning back around as I clock all the same furniture in all the same places, a sense of surreality descending upon me until my eyes land on a cluster of pictures hanging prominently on the wall. The biggest one square in the center slightly loose like a wobbly tooth.
I take a step closer, all the memories I’ve tried so hard to forget washing over me now with a staggering strength. There are a few pictures of my mom and dad only, sepia-toned snapshots from when they met in the seventies; rosier days before life got so thorny and they eventually drifted apart. Next to those is a shot of us all at the beach, gangly girl legs and a crumbling sandcastle off in the distance. I take in our diapers and pigtails, our missing front teeth. Natalie in kindergarten, third grade, fifth grade. High school. Theslow march of time as her face shifts with age, a baby-faced kid to an awkward adolescent; a teenager with braces to, at last, her senior-year picture.
The last school picture she’d ever take. The oldest age she’d ever be.
“Why do you still have these?” I ask, barely realizing I said it out loud as I zero in on the frame in the middle. A family portrait I remember getting done at the mall. Then I bring my fingers to the glass, remnants of dust brushing off on my skin as I lean in close, eyes resting on the necklace nestled into the dip of my sister’s throat. It’s her birthstone, a peridot, held in place by a dainty gold chain—although I know it’s not a real gem. It’s not real gold, either, because I bought it for her for her sixteenth birthday from one of those vending machine jewelry dispensers. It had cost me a quarter, I was only nine, but she told me she loved it and she wore it everywhere until that last summer, when she finally took it off.
I look away, eyes stinging as I think about the very first time I saw her without it. The moment I realized she had outgrown it in the same way she had outgrown me.
“Why would I not?” my mom asks at last. “It’s our family.”
I turn around, cocking my eyebrow. This is the kind of delusional behavior I’ve come to expect from my mother—blindly displaying the photos of a family that was so violently ripped apart—although I suppose I’m not one to talk. According to Ryan, avoidance is a coping mechanism. I know I must have learned it from somewhere.
“I’ll just put these upstairs,” I say instead, pointing to my bags. She nods, gesturing to the steps like I could have forgotten my way, and I start to ascend, holding my breath as I reach the landing. Then I glance down the hall, toward the two doors situated side by side. Natalie’s room to the left, mine to the right. The small sliver of wall that separates the two. The doors are both shut and I say a smallthank youas I think about how I’ll simply breeze past her bedroom, spend the whole summer ignoring it completely and convincing myself it’s not even there, when Ryan’s words once again enter my mind uninvited. Soft and serene like a whisper in the night.
