The Memory Closet: A Novel (11 page)

I opened the attic door and climbed the steep, narrow steps, idly wondering why the stair treads in attic staircases are never wide enough to fit your whole foot.

At the top of the steps, I pulled the string to turn on the puny little light and looked around. I should have asked Julia for the location of the hole the squirrels used the last time they got in. Must have been on the back wall somewhere; they’d have to leap from the neighbor’s elm tree onto our roof, and the tree was on that side.

I was jumpy, expecting a furry little creature to scurry out of the shadows at any moment and startle me to death. I didn’t like squirrels. They didn’t strike me as the slightest bit cute.

A squirrel is nothing more than a rat with good PR.

There was a ton of junk on the back wall, and the light at that end of the attic didn’t work. Or the bulb was burned out, and how were you supposed to replace it when it was suspended 15 feet in the air? I poked around a little, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I’d let the exterminator figure out where the little buggers were hiding.

Back down in the studio, I stretched the directions for the shelf unit out on the floor. Since Ikea products were sold all over the world, they’d come up with a handy-dandy way to keep from having to translate their assembly instructions into Swahili or Farsi. They didn’t use words. Just pictures.

I was concentrating hard, trying to figure out how to insert Tab A into Slot B given that there was no hole in Slot B, when it suddenly hit me. The thought stole my breath, like I was looking down from a high window. I sat back on my heels and felt goose bumps pop up on my arms.

The attic door didn’t squeak. When I opened it to go up the stairs, it didn’t make a sound.

That more or less solved one mystery and created two others. Obviously, the WD-40 was missing from the garage because somebody had used it on the attic door hinge.

But who?

And why?

I
went downstairs and found Julia at the kitchen table folding a pile of towels. Dried on the line in the backyard, they’d brought the sunshine into the house with them. Bobo was shucking corn.

As in all good detective stories, the usual suspects in the attic door whodunit either lacked motive or opportunity. Bobo claimed not to know what WD-40 was; Julia hadn’t been in the garage where it was stored. Neither cared that the attic door squeaked.

“Well, I guess it’s possible the door just stopped making noise all on its own,” Julia offered. She glanced at Bobo. “A leetle piece was rubbing, sí? An’ when jew shut the door lass time"--
Julia’s Spanish accent blinked on and off like a Joe’s Beer Joint sign, but Bobo never seemed to notice--
“eet stop rubbing.” The pendulous skin on the big woman’s upper arms swayed in rhythm with the sure, practiced movements of her chubby hands. “I bet eet jus’ feex eetself.”

“Humph!”
Bobo plopped a handful of husks and silk into the trash can between her knees. “If that door fixed itself, I’ll eat dirt and call it potato salad.”

I went back upstairs and examined the door, opened and closed it several times. It glided smoothly, no friction anywhere.

I examined the hinges closely. The metal wasn’t greasy, and there was no petroleum smell, but if WD-40 had been applied two or three days ago, there’d be no trace of it now.

Since the only three people who had access to the hinges claimed not to have been a party to their repair, I was left with only one conclusion. Julia was right. The door had been miraculously healed, divine intervention, an act of God.

Halleluiah!

And in the grand scheme of things, the question: “Who?” begged an even greater question: “Who cares?” I couldn’t waste valuable cognitive energy pondering hinges when I needed to bring all my mental faculties to bear on a much more important riddle: what happened to the hole in Slot B?

I worked through supper. Bobo had made stew, which offered a veritable cornucopia of missing-ingredient opportunities. I was too busy to be hungry anyway. I had my game face on. Once I’d located the Slot B aperture—on the opposite end of the piece than the picture showed—I was on a roll.

It was close to midnight before I stood back and surveyed my handiwork. My back and neck ached from bending over for so long, but the prize was worth the punishment. Two bookshelves. One on either side of the mantel where the antique clock with a broken face sat in limp-handed silence.

I’d put the Masonite backing on the first bookshelf wrong—the shiny side was supposed to face inward—but that was the only flaw I could see. Of course, it was certainly possible that as soon as I put books on the shelves, they’d collapse in a heap on the floor. But barring that misadventure, I had done a good job. I was proud of myself, exhausted, but proud.

It was all I could do to slip into a nightgown before I collapsed in the bed and went instantly to sleep.

A tunnel stretches out in front of me, shadowy but not dark. It’s a hallway with a door at the far end. An official door, behind which official people do official things. I start toward it, passing other doors along the way. There are windows in the doors, but the glass is frosted and I can’t see in. And there are lockers on the walls between the doors. This is a school.

I hear the sound of children playing outside, beyond the hallway doors. I’m supposed to be out there playing with them, but I have to go down the hall instead. I pass door after door, but the final door, the official door, remains a constant distance from me, neither closer nor farther away. If I run, the door will recede from me faster. I don’t know how I know that, but I do, so I keep walking. Which is hard. I’m in a terrible hurry. My heart’s pounding; I’m desperate to get to the door.

Then a bell rings and all the doors in the hallway open and children pour out. They are noisy, talking and laughing. But then they see me, and they stop, their eyes wide, staring. The children surround me in a big circle, saying nothing.

I want to tell them I’m in a hurry, I can’t stay here, I have to get to the official door. As soon as I begin to speak, their curiosity turns to horror, and they turn and run away from me, screaming.

Suddenly, I’m in front of the official door. I reach out my hand and open it. There’s a woman behind a counter and when she sees me, she lets out a little peep of a scream and stares at me wide-eyed.

And then the official people are there, but not to listen to me, to stare at me. I have something terribly important to tell them, but when I start to speak, they turn aside in revulsion. Then I see my reflection in the frosted glass window.

I shriek in terror but I make no more sound than I did when I talked to the children or to the official people. The little girl with long blonde braids staring in horror at me from the mirrored surface has no mouth. There is no opening of any kind below her nose. And when she tries to speak, the skin twists and curls and collapses into a wrinkled hole, a cavity of old, gray, withered flesh.

I back up, scream, “Noooo!” But it comes out muffled, like there’s tape over my mouth. “Mooo!” I keep screaming, more terrified with every muffled sound I make. “Mmmooo! Mmmooo!”

“Noo, nooo!” I cried out the word, it came out clear, my mouth was moving. My eyes snapped open. I was looking at my face in a mirror, and it was me, not the little girl in braids. My hair was tangled, bed-head, and I looked terrified. But I had a mouth. I had a mouth!

Panting, disoriented, I grabbed the mantel for support.

The mantel?

I looked around, slowly pivoting 360 degrees. I was in the parlor, staring into the gilded mirror above the fireplace.

As reality flowed over me in a warm flood, my tense muscles relaxed. I took a couple of steps and collapsed into Bobo’s platform rocker. Sleepwalking. I’d been sleepwalking again.

The images of the accompanying nightmare were dissipating rapidly, like smoke from a dying campfire. I grabbed at them but they evaporated. There was a hall, doors, I had to get to the end, tell somebody something. But I had no mouth.

There was no time to ponder the dream and its significance, however, because the images faded and the content quickly melted away. The previous night terror, the one about drowning, was etched indelibly into my mind. But by the time I was lying in my bed again, this one had gone translucent. I could see through it like a jellyfish.

Bobo padded by my door in bare feet, heading to the stairs as I got into bed. She was always up wandering around the house at all hours of the night. I rolled over and closed my eyes, and I could hear her puttering around in the study on the floor below me, the sounds of cabinets opening and closing piped into my room through the heat register.

And an image formed, dim at first, then brighter as the light came up in the room of my memory.

I have the covers pulled up under my chin, my head buried in the pillow, trying not to hear. But it’s impossible to escape the angry voices from downstairs. Mama and Jericho’s room is directly below me, where the study is now. Piped up through the register, their loud voices are so clear, their words so distinct, the two of them might as well be standing at the foot of my bed yelling at each other.

“You think I’m that stupid?” Mama’s voice. It sounds odd, the words are muddy. “You think I don’t know where you’ve been.”

“I told you where I was.” Jericho.

“The Lone Star? You think I believe you were at the Lone Star 'til three in the morning?”

“I don’t care what you believe—I went there straight from work; me and Marty was shootin’ pool.”

“You were with her! That Indian slut. That’s where you always go, a dog licking up its own vomit.” There’s a thump, then a crash as something shatters, like somebody has knocked over a table and lamp.

“Look at you!” Jericho sneers. “You can’t even stand up! Why would I want to stay home with you? Why would any man get near you? Can you even remember the last time you were sober? A month ago? Christmas, maybe?”

“You brought Windy over here this afternoon and left her so you could be alone with Little Dove. You think I’m going to babysit that little Indian rat so you and your mistress can—”

I feel something warm beside me, something small under the covers with me. Windy!

“It’s too dark up there, I’m scared!” Her voice sounds like little bells ringing on a cold morning. Crisp and clear. “I don’t want to be in that big bed all by myself.”

Windy’s room is on the third floor. Mama makes her sleep alone in the huge four-poster bed in the back bedroom. Everyone else is downstairs.

I scoot over to make room and she cuddles close. Her hair smells like cigarette smoke. “You can stay here with me,” I tell her. “In the morning you can—”

“I’m going upstairs right now and get that little rat and take her back home where she belongs!” My mother’s voice, and Windy is instantly tense.

“I don’t want to go home!” she whispers, and the terror in her voice makes me afraid, too, though I don’t know what I’m afraid of. “Not now, not at night. They mostly come at night.”

She tunes up and starts to cry and curls into a ball beside me with her arms hugging her knees. I fold myself around her, spoon fashion, and try to block out the voices.

“You’re not taking Windy anywhere! My daughter’s got just as much right to be in this house as that perfect little princess of yours. You’re not kicking her out in the middle of the night!”

“And who’s going to stop me?”

There’s the sound of scuffling; something else clunks to the floor. Mama suddenly cries out. Did Jericho hurt her?

“You think you can tell me what to do, where I can go, when to come home?” This time, I hear him hit her, hear the
slap! 
She screams and something thumps, a chair falling over, maybe. “You think you own me? Well, let me tell you something, Sweetheart— don’t
nobody 
own me!”

Mama’s crying now, sobbing. “Look what you did. My nose is bleeding! I’ll have you arrested! I’ll … I’ll—”

“Put that down, Susan!” he growls. “I paid $200 for that music box and you’re gonna drop—don’t you dare—!”

Something crashes through a window.

“You don’t scare me!” Mama is totally hysterical—taunting him, raging and crying. “I’ll call the cops, and they’ll haul you off to jail—hitting a woman! I’m not afraid of—”

“Well, you better start getting afraid!”

“Touch me and I’ll claw your eyes out!” Something heavy hits the floor and Mama lets out a yelp of pain. Maybe Jericho knocked her down or maybe she just fell. She shrieks, “Stay away from me or I’ll rip your face—”

“Stop it!” Bobo’s husky voice. “Both of you stop that fighting right this minute, you listening to me? The whole neighborhood can hear you.”

“Nosey busybodies,” Jericho snarls. “It ain’t none of their business what we do in our own house. It ain’t none of your business neither. Get out of here and leave us—”

“They’re gonna call the law, Jericho! They hear screamin’ and breakin’ glass in the middle of the night, what do you expect them to do? They’re going to call the police (pronounced PO-lease). The police come, they’ll arrest you
both." 

There is silence, broken only by the sound of Mama sniffling.

“Aw now, don’t get all upset,” my mother mumbles. “We were just having a little disagree—”

“Don’t step over here!” Bobo warns. “There’s broken glass on the floor, and you ain’t got no shoes on. I’ll get a broom and sweep it up 'fore somebody cuts their foot open. Go on, get out of here, both of you. Go on and let me get this mess cleaned up.”

Windy has stopped shaking, the tension in her shoulders and back begins to ease.

“Will the neighbors really call the police and have my daddy arrested?”

“I don’t know. They might, I guess.”

“I don’t want my daddy to go to jail. If he goes to jail, I can’t come here anymore.” I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Windy is three years younger, but she seems much older in some ways. She always looks further out than I do. I can’t think of any response so I don’t say anything else, just wrap myself close around her and try not to think about Jericho hitting Mama or Windy vanishing out of my life forever.

I feel like crying, but I can’t. It would upset Windy. So I lie in the dark, my throat tight from unshed tears, listening to the fight downstairs wind down, the voices lower. I drift off to sleep with the cigarette-smoke smell of Windy’s hair in my face.

And it was over. Like the end of a movie when the house lights come up and the credits start scrolling on the screen, and it takes a minute for your eyes to adjust to the brightness and your mind to adjust to the sudden shift in realities.

The real world felt thin, like ice.

Well, it had finally happened. The memory closet door had opened more than a crack this time. I’d remembered—not just a glimpse, a little peek. I’d gone back in time to the world inside this house and lived in it for a while—long enough to get a really good look.

Long enough to see the ugliness.

A gale more powerful than the tornado that twisted a bunch of trailer houses into wads of tin howled through my head. Claps of thunder detonated in my ears; blinding lightning flashed behind my eyes. The world was no longer shifting under my feet. It had given way completely and dropped me in a free-fall into nothingness.

Whoa, wait a minute! Why am I so shocked, so surprised? What did I expect to find out when I finally remembered?

Reality check: something happened in my life so terrible my mind erased all trace of it, and everything anywhere near it is a circle of destruction a decade wide. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Boom! Was I really so naïve that I didn’t think I’d ever remember anything bad? It was inevitable: if I dug around in my past long enough, eventually I’d lift up a rock and find maggots.