The Leaving (20 page)

“Of course,” Lucas said.

“You been here before, right?” she said.

“First time,” Lucas said.

“Oh.” She seemed unconvinced.

Scarlett set the clipboard down and nodded solemnly.

“Well, he’ll be happy to see you. Most of his visitors are from the lab.”
She came around from behind the desk. “He’s usually in the courtyard around this time of day. I’ll show you.”

Scarlett followed the nurse down a long hallway—Lucas at her side.

Past a dining room with high ceilings and heavy curtains on huge windows.

Split-pea soup weighted the air.

Then out a set of double glass doors that opened automatically as they approached.

Outside, old people with walkers inched like zombies across the concrete patio.

A few trellises held creeping vines, and some large pots presented tall, leafy plumes.

The nurse headed for a man seated on a bench on the far side of the courtyard and said, “Daniel! You have visitors!”

“You don’t say!” He squinted up at them.

So very old.

The skin on his face like shriveled fruit.

His white hair, lifeless and dry.

His eyes, bright but . . . vacant.

Like a baby’s.

“Friends of your family. I’m sure they’ll reintroduce themselves.” The nurse turned and presented them, and Lucas held out a hand to shake. Daniel shook it back.

“I’ll leave you to it.” The nurse walked away.

“Well, go on,” Daniel said. “Pull over a chair.” He turned to Scarlett. “You, my dear, can sit right next to me.”

Scarlett, realizing something about herself.

She didn’t like old people.

Did anyone?

But—

It was just a book.

He was just an old man.

He couldn’t have been the one to do this.

Lucas pulled a wooden chair, stained a redwood hue, closer and sat in front of Daniel.

“Now I feel like I would’ve remembered a good-looking couple like you. Tell me how I know you?”

“Well, I’m Anne and this is Mark,” she said, being sure to catch Lucas’s eye.

Lucas took the paperback out of his bag and held it out. “We’re fans, you see.”

He presented the book to Daniel, who took it, curiously.

This all felt very wrong—him so interested, them so deceitful—but there wasn’t much to be done about it.

“What’s this?” Daniel asked.

She was shouting into that abyss now.

Hands cupped to her mouth:

“Nooooo
oo
oo
oo
ooooooo
!”

The sound of it echoing back to her.

“It’s a novel,” she said, hearing an edge of annoyance. “You wrote it.”

“I did?” Now he reached into his front shirt pocket for glasses, put them on, and looked at the book with new interest.

“You did.” Hands turned to fists in her lap.

His lips moved as he read the description. “Sounds hinky,” he said. “Is it any good?”

“It is!” Lucas said.

“Did it make me rich?” Daniel smiled.

“I don’t think so.” Lucas laughed and gave her a pleading look.

His condition:

Alzheimer’s.

Of course.

Scarlett softened her voice when she said, “We were hoping you’d be able to tell us about the book. You know, where you got the idea from, that kind of thing.”

Daniel looked out toward the water, like he was trying very hard to spot an answer—a memory—on the horizon.

Then after a long moment, during which Scarlett followed his gaze, maybe hoping she could find it for him—

or at least find a memory of her own—

he turned back to them, reset.

“Well, I like to read. Thanks very much for the recommendation.” He smiled. “Tell me how I know you again? You’re from the lab?”

It was hard to not be disappointed.

^crushed.

“No,” Scarlett said. “What are the folks at the lab like?”

Maybe the lab was where they’d been.

Maybe the lab was a clue.

“Oh, they’re fine. They’re, you know, trying to help me remember.” Daniel looked sad then, like he had actually remembered something. Maybe just how much he’d forgotten.

Then he shrugged and said, “I figure if I forgot stuff it’s because I didn’t need to remember it. That’s what I think. I remember the important stuff.”

“What’s the important stuff ?” Scarlett asked.

“You mean you don’t know?” he asked in a whisper.

/
  /
   /
      /

Scarlett shook her head.

Really wanting to know.

Manatees.

I love you.

Not Lucas to her.

Luke
.

Luke and Scar.

Needing to know.

Like, wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him.

What is the important stuff ?

Daniel said only, “Well, you’re young. But when it happens, you’ll know it.” He turned to her, and the wind puffed his hair up, then let it fall again. “There will be stuff you can’t forget no matter if you tried.”

Still screaming into the abyss:

“Will you read that book?” Lucas asked. “And we’ll come back in a few days to talk about it. Maybe you can write down any thoughts you have about it?”

“You must mean this for the book club.” He went to give it back. “I’m not in the—”

“Please,” Scarlett said. “Read it? For me?”

He thumbed the pages. “I’ll give it a whirl.”

On the way out, she set out to find a restroom, peeking around doorways on a long hall.

A woman in one of the rooms saw her in the doorway and said “Oh, hello! Would you like to see my drawings?”

She wore a red blouse and pearls and ivory slacks and looked like maybe she was a visiting artist who did art therapy with patients.

Behind her hung a painting of a girl in a brown field, crawling up a hill toward an old house and a barn.

The girl’s positioning seemed . . . off.

Had she just been hobbled?

“Dear?” the woman said.

“I’d like to,” Scarlett said. “I just need to run to the restroom.”

There, she threw some water on her face.

Things you can’t forget no matter if you tried
.

Things you can’t forget no matter if you tried
.

Like how you should skip that last step.

And go back to Anchor Beach?

She returned to that doorway.

The woman looked up. “Oh, hello? Would you like to see my drawings?”

Scarlett was about to say “I just was here,” but . . .

. . . no.

Not a visiting artist.

A patient.

Regretting getting involved now, Scarlett felt she had no choice. “I’d love to.”

The drawings were swirls and color-blocks drawn in colored pencil.

They were happy and ordered.

Some like peacock’s feathers.

Others, like maps.

“I like them,” Scarlett said.

“Thanks.” The woman picked up an orange pencil, turned to a work in progress.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go,” Scarlett said. “My friend is waiting.”

“Bye, then!” the woman said brightly.

Scarlett stopped at the nurse’s desk.

She had to know.

“The woman with the artwork in that room there,” she said. “Does she have Alzheimer’s, too?”

“Oh, that’s Goldie.” The nurse was shifting file folders. “Rare case of viral encephalitis. She’s lost the ability to form short-term memories. Or long. That’s why they call her Goldie.”

“Goldie?” Scarlett waited.

The nurse was putting a file into a cabinet, which she slid closed with a
thunk
. Looking up, she said, “Because she has the memory of a goldfish?”

/
            /
    /
  /
      /

“That’s awful,” Scarlett snapped. “They should call her by her
name
.”

Lucas was waiting by the elevator, but there were a few people in wheelchairs waiting, too.

Scarlett headed for the wide stairs to the lobby—

Had to get out

Had to get out now—

That EXIT sign there.

and Lucas followed and then caught up to her. “What’s wrong?” Scarlett pushed—

EMERGENCY DOOR

Too late.

Sirens sounded.

She stepped out into the sun, wanting to run.

Without memory you were a goldfish.

Swimming

i n   c i r c l e s

Without memories you were . . .

           /
      /
/

. . . no one.

.

Lucas

They drove. Mostly quiet.

Just:

“Maybe we should see if Chambers will check out the memory lab? Maybe there’s a connection there?”

And, “You think he’ll remember anything?”

And, “I doubt he’ll even remember he promised to read it.”

And, “You okay?”

And, “Yeah, I think so.”

And, “Goldie.”

And, “I know.”

It hadn’t been a dead end, exactly.

Maybe he’d read the book, maybe he’d give them something.

But it didn’t seem . . . likely.

Something eventually had to look familiar.

Something had to trigger a memory.

Crack this ice.

Had he ever seen that building?

Driven or been driven down this road?

Had he ever been to a bowling alley like that one or a hibachi house like that one?

When the road turned desolate—clear-cut fields and some plagued-looking stretches of woods where emaciated trees leaned on each other for support—Lucas tried to let his mind go blank.

To stop working so hard.

HORSE. HISS. CLICK. SADDLE.
GOLD POLES. COTTON CANDY.

The image still always there, to fill the void.

He closed his eyes.

Pushed it away.

Put this in its place.

KISS. BEACH.

LOVE. PENNY.

If you remember the important things, you should remember . . .

LOVE.

But it didn’t stick.

Images faded too fast.

Floated on the surface for a moment before a pebble rippled them away.

“There it is,” Scarlett said.

His pulse started to tick up when he opened his eyes, saw four smokestacks. The one car on the road in front of them seemed to be going too slow intentionally.

Then a sign for the Manatee Viewing Area appeared and she said, “I feel sick.”

“There,” he said, pointing to the next sign.

She turned into a parking lot and pulled into a spot one down from the only other car there.

Again she got out with the engine still running, left her car door swung open, and seemed to sleepwalk to the gate.

He killed the engine, got out, and closed both doors before joining her. An arch featuring the silhouettes of two manatees marked the entrance. Beyond the gates, steam burst out of four tall chimneys like dragon breath.

Scarlett had been tugging at the chains on the gate—the clanging of wind chimes made of shackles—but now gave up, let the padlock fall mute.

“The manatees only really come in winter,” she said. “I should have thought of that.”

“We would have come anyway.”

“Manatees never forget,” she said.

Lucas turned to her, raised his eyebrows.

“When I was looking this all up last night, I read that about manatees. How their closest relative is the elephant and how they can remember miles and miles of coastlines, places to find warm water. Places like this. Why don’t I remember it?” She sounded like she was about to cry.

“Hey,” he said. “It’s okay.” He stepped toward her, face-to-face, put his hands on her upper arms, a half embrace.

Afraid to give in to this.

Afraid to scare her off.

“We could try to hop the gate,” he said, releasing her and turning back to the park. “See if we can find the penny machine.”

She pointed at a few security cameras up high on posts.

“Could do it anyway.” He shrugged. Just inside the gate, the sign on the gift shop where the penny-stretching machine probably was hung crooked on its mount.

“Not now,” she said. “Come on.”

They walked down a long path and followed a wooden walkway along the water and found themselves on the beach, where three piers stretched out into the water. The pier Scarlett chose to walk was im possibly narrow—so she led—and finally they stood at the end, an onshore wind pressing hard against them, like it wanted them to go back to wherever they came from.

“Do you think you gave me that penny?” she asked. “That we were here together?”

He liked the idea of it, that they were getting closer to answers, and to each other, too. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“It seems important,” she said. “That we remember. Like there might be some clues in that story? In us?”

He nodded, took her hand, and held it up to study it.