How We Remember Read online

  He shows me some papers my mother kept in her bedside drawer; to-do lists, nursing-related things from before she retired, postcards, some old photos from her visits to London to see me. With the exception of the will he hands the stash over, then remembers another item he’s put aside. ‘And I found this under some of her old magazines in there. It’s a diary. Yeah, she kept a diary,’ he laughs, avoiding my eye. ‘I don’t want to know what she said about me. You take it.’

  This takes me by surprise. She wasn’t exactly the kind of person who would set time aside for written reflection. Back in London when I was packing for this trip I found some letters my mother wrote to me years ago after I left the States. Most of them started with an apology for not writing back to me more often.

  Later, she made her emails short and to the point; two- or three-line messages with photographs attached, requests for setting up times for phone calls or Skype chats. Her subtle energies, the anxieties that found their way into her pre-internet letters written in Catholic-school disciplined penmanship, all but disappeared.

  I linger a bit over the paperback diary’s cover. A simple print of a colour-pencil illustration of daffodils, framed with delicate green leaves on a burgundy background. At the top and printed in hand-drawn calligraphy is the word Mother. My mother would have liked this sort of thing. She always sent me those bland Hallmark cards with cheesy passages and poems printed inside. She’d never add anything else except, ‘Love Ma and Dad.’ I open the first page and see there’s a handwritten note from my younger self, and I begin to laugh and well up as I read it.

  Ma, You have been so good to me, I would never be able to make up for your consideration, kindness and love! There is more than one kind of word for you. I see myself as the luckiest girl in the world to have a mother like you. You’re terrific! I hope this day is as special for you as it is for me. Thank You for being you. Happy Mother’s Day, I Love You Always, Jo

  There’s a heavy sadness first, in knowing that I have no real memory of giving her this gift. The memory space around purchasing this thing, writing the note with all its hyperbolic sentiment, giving it to her, is empty. I can imagine this is the kind of gift I would have given to my mother back in 1983 Mother’s Day. But could I have been serious about being ‘the luckiest girl in the world’? Or was I just a lot more naive then?

  I flip through the diary and see she filled about half the pages, but my father stops me before I can settle into it.

  ‘OK, so there’s something else that came up from the lawyer,’ he says, and pauses. His tone has a nervous tick to it. ‘OK, I haven’t told your brother yet ‘cause I know what he’s like and when he hears it he ain’t going to be happy. So your mother, you know what she was like with money. Yeah, well apparently when Ma got the news about the cancer being terminal she went to the lawyer a few days later and told him she wanted to add something to the will, but didn’t want me or anybody else to know. She thought that would just make things easier. So, here’s the thing. She sold some shares, some she bought years ago. She invested in some drug company or something like that years ago when she started working at the hospital, and she ended up closing the deal with around $300,000.’

  By this point he’s building his voice to almost a shouting level, while he stares at the ceiling. ‘And she told the lawyer she sold them because she didn’t want us left with shares having to make decisions about whether to keep them or not or lose money, so to make things easier she wants the three of us to split it. The problem is your brother. Because she was always sick with worry over him and his money problems she wrote it that he’d get his batch in instalments over the next five years, and that’s the thing he ain’t going to like. But, Jo,’ he says, sitting down, now looking straight at me for at least five seconds, unflinching. ‘This is the thing, Jo. David, he can’t do a damn thing about it.’

  I join him at the table, palms spread. I think my mouth is still open. ‘I can believe it and not believe it. I mean…I mean, shit, Dad, I know she was a saver and all that, but how the hell did she pull it off? The stock market’s something else, and she never showed any interest in stocks, of all things. How could you not know anything about it?’

  ‘Look, it don’t matter what it is, what it was. And she always did her own thing with her money, you know that. Fact is she left you and your brother a shitload and you should be, and me too, we should all be grateful. But I know your brother. He’s going to throw a fit. We got to see the lawyer, get everything figured out. Got to fix a time to see this guy.’ Dad breaks into a quick coughing fit, recovers and says, ‘Right now I need a drink.’

  He sets out his usual Budweiser before him and partners it with a shot of Jim Beam.

  While Dad eases his worries with his usual panacea, his news begins to sink in. Split three ways. That’s about £70,000 each, give or take. It’s not enough to buy a place in London but it’s still a lot of money. Before this point in the day, the tiredness, the jetlag was hitting me. If I had the inviting prospect of a nice bed and a comfy pillow I’d be out cold in five minutes. But suddenly the talk of so much cash falling into my lap, money I haven’t worked for, money I certainly didn’t expect to inherit, is giving me palpitations. I’m trying my best to hold back a bizarre urge to laugh.

  ‘She always had her own separate accounts. That’s how we did things,’ says Dad. ‘And on her days off, what was she doing, huh? Working at the hospital with those doctors, the managers, they all know what to do with money, maybe they helped her, found her a good stockbroker, who knows?’

  I picture my mother making careful notes on a yearly basis about how much profit her investment is making, and working herself into a muddle about what to do with it. Best to leave it for now, she would have told herself. Tuck it away for a rainy day.

  Dad pulls the toothpick from his mouth, swigs the shot with his head thrown back and eyes closed. He releases a hissing sound through a small gap between his lips and slides in the toothpick. ‘While you’re here I might as well show you where I’m hiding something else. Yeah, I got my own secrets,’ he says. ‘I know this ain’t the kind of thing you like. I know you won’t like it, but you should know about it,’ he pauses, ‘just in case something happens to me.’

  He carries a chair from the kitchen and positions it near their bedroom closet. He slides opens the closet doors, climbs up, takes out a shoe box from the top shelf and pulls out a hand gun. While I’m certainly not expecting this, I guess I’m not too surprised. The glass cabinet of rifles he’s had in their bedroom for the last forty years or so still gleams from the other side of the room, in spite of needing a good cleaning.

  ‘This I have because I want to be ready for anyone who comes in and tries to rob me. The neighbourhood ain’t like it used to be. Sorry, but I gotta protect myself. So there it is. You won’t need it, but if anything happens to me, there it is. Oh, the other thing is this.’ He pulls out an envelope from the box. ‘I keep this here too with around a thousand bucks in it. That’s my spending money. You know, play money, should I ever need it.’

  The first time I saw my father with a gun other than one he used for hunting trips was sometime during the 1970s. Maybe I’m nine or ten. I am watching television. My older brother isn’t in the room watching with me, he always seems to be somewhere else. Dad is somewhere else in the house too, maybe in the basement. My mother sits in the kitchen. There aren’t too many options, being such a small house. The living room has only enough room to fit a small couch, a reclining chair, television and two side tables. My brother and I share the one bedroom upstairs. My parents have the little bedroom off the kitchen. A box room next to it holds a chair and small desk where a telephone sits with a notepad and pen, waiting for important messages. Filling the walls of the box room are fluorescent graphic posters of Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Their glow-in-the-dark yellows, lime greens, pinks and purples are printed with a soft, velvety-black background, which I love to caress with my fingertips. I catch my dad lying on his
back on the floor in the dark sometimes listening to Hendrix, gazing at the posters, while he blows perfect smoke-rings. Your dad looks so cool, all my friends say, with his long hair and moustache. That leather jacket. Your parents are so young. My friends’ parents are much older than mine. This is something I don’t like.

  The doorbell rings and my mother says, ‘Who’s that?’ as she walks through the living room to open the front door. I have a quick look up and see two policemen.

  ‘We’re looking for Jimmy,’ one says, in a way that sounds like he knows my father. It’s not a big showdown. It’s all quiet. Maybe they’re being careful not to frighten the innocent-looking little girl who’s watching TV. After a minute, with the police waiting outside, my mother finds him. As he moves toward the door Dad mumbles something incoherent under his breath. He’s talking to them for a long time outside now in lower, nervous tones that I struggle to hear. He steps back in quickly and passes me, in a huff about something, swearing in loud whispers, fucking this, fucking that. Cocksuckers. He rushes to their bedroom, returns with something in his hand. He’s trying to keep it wrapped in a black cloth but I catch a glimpse. A hand gun, suitably named because of the way it fits so easily into your palm. Small and powerful, hits with a punch, smashes with a good kick. He’s outside with them again. Hands it over. More nervous chit-chat, murmuring, some raised voices that settle down. Is he off the hook?

  He closes the front door, flashes past me, this time not holding back the loud swearing. My mother stays quiet in the kitchen, waiting, then takes her chance, keeping her voice low.

  ‘But how’d that happen? Who is this guy, Jimmy? Who is he?’

  I hear him slam their bedroom door. Long silence. Is she in there with him? Opens it again, hurries past me. Out the front door he escapes into the darkness. This happens frequently. Where does he go?

  ‘Ma,’ I shout from the living room. ‘What were those cops doing here? What did they want?’

  She ignores me.

  ‘Ma… Ma?’ I persist, standing tall now, moving into her view at the doorway. I want to be seen, to be heard. She casts me a quick glance from the kitchen table where she’s sitting with nothing but a pack of cigarettes and an ashtray in front of her.

  ‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Just asking Dad about something, someone he knows.’

  ‘It looked like he gave the cop a gun. Did he give him a gun?’

  She says nothing.

  ‘Ma?’

  ‘Nothing. It don’t concern you.’

  Three

  I arrive at Beth’s, about forty minutes north of Boston. It’s a neat, three-bedroom ranch-style house with a double garage that could easily house a young family. At the back is a lush, evergreen tree-lined garden. The expansive decking area and lawn allows you to imagine endless possibilities of domestic pleasure; hours of play with children and dog, volleyball and badminton competitions, family reunion egg and sack races, birthday parties, anniversaries, high school and college graduations. Barbecues galore. Still, since Beth and Paul divorced, it feels pretty big for two people.

  I let myself in with the key that Beth left inside one of her primrose flower pots. It’s a spacious but cosy place with a modern, open-plan kitchen diner and living-room area. The mantelpiece is covered with pictures of Beth’s daughter, Danielle, at various ages, her niece and nephew, her parents. There are some other shots of her old black and white collie dog, Bailey, in his younger days, one with him sitting in front of his fifth birthday cake wearing a red bow on top of his head. Her sweet boy Bailey died about six months ago and she’s not over this tragedy yet. Cancer, again, was the killer. Even dogs can’t escape it. At least they don’t have to suffer like people. Say your goodbyes and put them out of their misery. A quick injection and off to a nice long sleep. Lucky them.

  Beth is a clean and neat freak, in a way that is far more fastidious than Jon’s tidy habits. Not a thing is out of place and soon after her cleaners have been, she’s getting out the broom and duster. Her interior design choices and tastes are quite different from mine, which is pretty much anything goes. Beth favours traditional furniture accented with things like Tiffany lamps, and she collects Waterford crystal from her trips to Ireland to see family. Her smaller items, like the reproduction Fabergé eggs, are displayed carefully in a glass cabinet bought for the purpose. The combination of everything generates a slight feeling of suffocation, a sense of being spun too rapidly inside a tight web of perfect suburban domesticity. But there’s something irresistible about the fresh lemon smell of that furniture polish, Bailey’s dog smile.

  Beth’s parents were the kind who put money away for college. The Connellys had a nice big house too. The first time I had dinner there I sat next to Beth at the dining-room table and stroked the beautiful surface of the wood.

  ‘This looks nice,’ I whispered to Beth, but her mother heard me.

  ‘That’s solid American maple,’ she said. ‘We bought it to celebrate our anniversary last year.’

  And I remember looking around the large space and thinking, Wow, imagine that. And they have a whole separate room just for eating. They were the kind of family who went away every winter on skiing vacations and every summer rented a big house right on the beach in Cape Cod for a month. Their mother didn’t have to work and prepared home-cooked meals most evenings. Over their kitchen sink she placed a decorative wooden placard marked with the inscription, God bless this house.

  The Connellys welcomed me like I was one of them and I loved them for this. At the same time I couldn’t stop myself from questioning the nature of their kindness. Did they take pity on my sorrowful state? What did they say about me when I wasn’t there? What did they really think of me and my family? What did they want in return for all the meals they provided, for all those times I joined them for summer vacation ? Over time I would learn that folk like the Connellys expected nothing. How is it that some people are capable of this when others are not?

  While I waited at Heathrow for my delayed flight to Boston, I thought about the Connelly family and their successes. That led to mulling about my own hard-earned accomplishments and in a moment of boredom I made the mistake of Google-searching myself. Aside from spotting a few academic citations of my work, my browsing led to my recently updated faculty webpage, the one with the uninspiring photo, that head and shoulders shot revealing my weight gain over the years. For many of us in middle-age we find our bodies have transformed in surprising ways. Men turn doughy, women grow more facial hair as their waistlines expand – before you know it, men, women, it’s hard to tell the difference between us. I used to offer the line that at least my extra facial flesh was a healthy-looking alternative to the sunken-in faces of other women who decided in their fifties to take up marathon running as a hobby or drink their own urine in their quest to live forever. But you can only fool yourself for so long.

  Beth and Danielle won’t be home for hours. Beth has one of those unpredictable, high-stress schedules in IT sales that would finish me. Danielle is sixteen and has some cheerleading competition practice after school. She never gives her mother a hard time. During one of our chats on my last visit I asked her what she might want to study after leaving school.

  ‘I think law school’s a good idea. Lawyers make amazing money and I’m going to need a profession like that to pay off the student loans I’m going to have. I don’t want to end up like my friend’s sister, Joy. You remember Joy, right, Mom? Becky’s older sister?’

  ‘Oh, that one,’ Beth said, squinting from across the room where she sat with her TV guide. ‘I sure do remember her. She was kind of a wild one.’

  ‘Yeah, well, she’s still working as a waitress a year and a half after graduating from Boston University with liberal arts or whatever she got there.’

  ‘Waitress, huh? I guess that doesn’t surprise me. She was always a bit mixed up, wasn’t she? Nice enough kid,’ Beth said with a bit of a laugh, shaking her head, looking my way, then glanced down again at her magazine.<
br />
  ‘Anyway, I get top grades at school and I know I’ll get good grades at college, so it kind of seems like the best thing to do. I know I can get my head down.’

  Beth looked up and said with a smile, ‘That’s my girl, Danielle. Stay focused.’

  I know I can get my head down. Just what those yearning parental ears want to hear. I don’t want to end up like her. Danielle is the type of all-American girl who sets up ideal expectations. Girls like Danielle make it impossible for all the other lesser, imperfect souls, who may not have had her advantages, and are, of course, in great danger of being despised.

  There’s no kettle in sight to make tea, and I remember Beth puts her cup in the microwave to boil the water. I think about what Jon would say. You’re joking. She microwaves her tea? I make a weak tea and wander into Danielle’s room where Beth has insisted I stay. It’s a well-organised space, overall; cheerleading trophies proudly displayed with fairy lights running along the walls and around the bed’s headboard. A good-size desk in the corner is covered with tidy stacks of school books and papers. Two overhead shelves are filled with a mish-mash of items including paperback copies of The Scarlet Letter and To Kill a Mockingbird, alongside a carefully arranged collage of images. Danielle features in many wearing her cheerleading outfit, surrounded by other cheerleaders and boys in football gear. Some are selfies she’s taken at pop concerts. But it’s a new pic that catches my attention – an innocent-faced, quiff-haired, acoustic-guitar-holding character called Shawn Mendes. His eyes seem to follow me around the room. I unpack a few things, go for the diary and get cosy in bed.

  Many of the first pages are short, with entries for different dates appearing as though they were written together when she was catching up. I picture my mother, she would have been around forty-one years old then, sitting in bed, blue ballpoint pen in hand, a cigarette from the nearby glass ashtray burning soft waves of smoke around her.