The Memory Closet: A Novel (21 page)

“The garage burned all the way down, it’s gone, all gone?”

“Nothing left but ashes. That old wood burned like a match stick.” She sighed. “Honey, open up the door now, and I’ll bring you a cool cloth to put on your forehead, that’ll make you feel—”

“No, Bobo. Quiet. Just silence. Give me that and I’ll be fine.”

“OK. If you say so. I’ll be back 'fore bedtime and see how you’re gettin’ on.”

I said nothing. She shuffled away and apparently forgot about me because she didn’t come back again.

I spent the night in the bathroom with a towel jammed under the door. I dozed a little, sitting in the shower stall. Then I’d jerk awake, my head coming up so violently it almost gave me whiplash, and I’d bat at my clothes, my heart pounding. But there was nothing crawling on me. I was safe there in the bathroom.

I got them. I think I killed them all.

From a great distance I heard something knocking, and I was instantly alert. I had fallen asleep, curled up in a fetal position in the shower. I jumped up and looked all around. Nothing but clean white tile.

Another knock and Bobo’s voice.

I opened the bathroom door.

“ … all right? Please open the door now, you got to open the door, Sugar. It’s been a whole day and I’m worried 'bout you.”

I checked out the bedroom floor carefully and saw nothing, then crossed to the armoire jammed against the door.

“I’m here, Bobo. Please don’t knock so loud.” I no longer had to try to sound sick and tired. That’s how I felt.

“Let me in now, Sugar. You need some breakfast and some—”

“Bobo, I know this is hard for you but you have to stop fussing over me. I had a migraine right after I got here, remember?” She said nothing. “I’ve had migraines all my life.” I stopped. “I guess. Did I have them when I was a little girl?”

“Not that I recollect.”

“Well, I’ve had them as far back as I can remember. Sometimes, they ease off by themselves in a couple of hours. Sometimes, they knock me out for days. The medicine isn’t working this time. All I can do is lie very still and quiet and wait.”

“Don’t you want nothing?”

“Not so loud, Bobo! Please.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I won’t let Julia anywhere near that vacuum cleaner. You just lie still and get better.”

When I stepped back away from the armoire, I got a whiff of my clothing. I reeked of day-old sweat—and gasoline! I undressed quickly and used shampoo to wash my jeans, T-shirt and socks in the sink, wrung them out and hung them on the towel rack to dry.

Then I got into the shower where I had spent the night and turned on the hot shower. As soon as the water hit the top of my head, I jumped back in pain. I reached up and gently felt around. The cut wasn’t hard to find. It was crusted over in dried blood that made my hair stiff. Shallow, but at least two inches long, it stretched the whole length of a huge lump.

Where in the world …?

The old iron rake. It was lying on top of me when I came to. I must have jarred it loose when I fell backward and hit the wall. That’s what knocked me unconscious.

I washed my hair carefully, wincing from the pain of shampoo in the cut. Then I turned my face up into the steaming water and just stood there, letting it wash the filth and some of the tension away.

Cleaning the wound started it bleeding again, and I held a dry washcloth to the cut after I got out of the shower. When I took the towel off the vanity mirror and checked out the injury, it was obvious I needed stitches. But that wasn’t going to happen, so I fished a couple of Band-Aids out of a can in the cabinet and bandaged it as well as I could, rubbing my hair dry on top with a towel so the bandage would stick. Then I lifted my nightgown off the hook on the back of the bathroom door and pulled it carefully over my head.

As soon as I stepped out into the bedroom, I saw it. Out of the corner of my eye. Black, as big as my fist, hiding behind the bedpost on the floor on the far side of the bed. Panic rose like vomit in my throat. I resisted the urge to run back into the bathroom and slam the door. I had to find it and kill it. Or it would hide, come for me when I wasn’t looking, crawl up my leg and …

A shudder of revulsion ran through me so violent it was almost a convulsion. I reached back into the bathroom for the metal trash can and edged around the side of the bed. My heart was pounding and each beat sent shock waves through the lump on my head.

There, beside the baseboard! I lifted the trash can above my head, poised to slam it down like a hammer on the big, black
… sock
. It was just a sock lying on the floor. I was weak with relief. Then I was suddenly just weak period, exhausted beyond thought. The hot shower had drained the tension away, and I was so utterly spent I could barely stand. The bed looked so inviting.

But could I? Did I dare lie down?

Whether I dared or not, I was either going to lie down or fall down. I pulled the quilt bedspread and the sheets off the bed and piled them on top of the dressing table beside the bathroom door. I had to be able to see under the bed. Nothing there. Then I lay down carefully on the bare mattress. And the world went instantly dark.

A knock at the door woke me. I jumped, suddenly hyper alert, looking all around. My eyes darted from one corner of the room to another, searching, checking.

“Anne, it’s me, Dusty. Can I talk to you?”

“Not yet, Dusty. I’m still not well.”

“Anne, you need to open the door now. OK?

This wasn’t Dusty-my-childhood-playmate. This was Dusty-the-sheriff. He was speaking to me like I was a four-year-old. Or a drunk. Or crazy. I knew if I didn’t open the door, this time he’d unlock it himself, and when it wouldn’t open, he’d break it down.

“OK. But you’ll have to give me a minute. I need to put something on.”

I had to move the armoire and the bed and hope Dusty couldn’t hear them scraping across the floor. The bed was much heavier than I remembered, but the claw feet were smooth on the bottom and once I got it moving I managed to scoot it across the hardwood floor back into place. Then I set my shoulder against the armoire and tried to do the same thing. The huge oak wardrobe wouldn’t budge. It was like trying to push an anvil. Where on earth did I get the strength to shove it down the wall? I strained as hard as I could, felt blood pumping thud-thud-thud in the lump on my head. Not so much as an inch. I’d need a forklift to move the thing.

“Anne?”

In desperation, I grabbed the back of the armoire with both hands, set my foot against the door, pulled with my arms and back and pushed with my leg. It gave a little. An inch. Two. Three, four, five. Another mighty tug. Six. And that was it, game over. My strength was gone. But I had a six-inch gap to work with. It would have to do.

I looked around on the floor for the key, found it, inserted it in the lock and turned. Then I opened the door a few inches—as far as it would go—and peeked around it, like I didn’t want Dusty to see me in my nightgown.

He was in his uniform, pressed and creased, with his hat in his hand, stern. He looked very official.

I offered him a weak smile and stern turned instantly to relief.

“Hi, Dusty.” Even my voice was weak. I didn’t have to fake that. I had screamed my throat raw. “I really can’t talk to you right now. I have a migraine and sometimes they last for days.”

My appearance testified as an expert witness on my behalf. A deathly pale, hollow-eyed wreck, I looked like a very sick woman. And I was. Sicker than Dusty ever dreamed. Then he noticed the crosshatched Band-Aid bandage on the top of my head. Maybe he could even see the lump under it.

“What happened to your head?”

I reached up reflexively and touched it, and winced from the pain.

“It told you I had a headache, ”I said, trying to sound whiney. "This is how it started. Right after I got up, I went downstairs and paid Billy for mowing the grass—$20 and that was too much.” The best lie incorporated as much truth as possible. “I was determined to finish putting that Ikea storage unit together.” More truth. “So I”--
here’s where I go off the reservation--
“I went into the studio to get the assembly instructions. I’d left them on top of the bookcase and I reached up and pulled them off. Only I forgot I’d left the hammer on top of them.”

I watched him flinch at the mental image.

“Ouch!” he said.

“Yeah, ouch is right! Almost knocked me unconscious. I sort of staggered in here to the bathroom, tried to bandage it, and the pain just spread. Down into my temples, behind my eyes, the back of my neck. Migraine!”

“Bobo’s very concerned about you.”

I tried to act annoyed and in pain at the same time.

“Why can’t you guys just leave me alone? I have a headache. Why is that such a big deal?”

“Your garage catches on fire and suddenly nobody can find you. And when we do find you, you’re locked in your room and you won’t talk to anybody.”

“I don’t see what one thing has to do with the other.” I leaned my head against the door frame, squinted and wrinkled my brow the way you do when it hurts inside your skull.

“Annie, somebody
set
your garage on fire yesterday morning. Somebody poured gasoline on it and set it on fire.”

“Do you think
I
did it?” I was impressed by how stunned and indignant I managed to look and sound. I put my hand to my forehead and covered one eye, like the pain in it was excruciating. “Why on earth would I set the garage on fire? I have a migraine; I’ve been so weak I couldn’t even strike a match? I went downstairs yesterday to pay Billy, and I’ve been in bed ever since.”

“Bobo said you were downstairs a long time yesterday morning. She didn’t see you, but she knew you came down and ate breakfast because your dirty cereal bowl was in the sink.”

Dusty had been asking questions. Trying to piece together what happened. If he found even one piece that didn’t fit, he’d never stop digging.

I looked directly into Dusty’s light green eyes for just a moment, then cringed at the pain it caused and looked away.

“
Bobo
said she found my cereal bowl? Dusty, this is the woman who wanted to file a missing person’s report on a guy who lost 300 pounds and had 10 feet of loose skin.”

I held onto my eye like it was about to pop out of my head. “I haven’t been out of bed in two days.” I stopped, like I had to gather my strength to keep talking. “Except right now and I can’t stand up much longer.” Another pause, then an intense, plaintive whisper. “Do you really think
I …”
I let it dangle there.

Dusty backed up so fast he almost tripped over himself. “No, of course I don’t think you … Look, I just wanted to talk to you, to make sure you’re OK and to find out if you saw anything, heard anything unusual yesterday morning.”

“Dusty, all I saw were black spots in front of my eyes. All I heard was my heartbeat banging in my temples. When I feel better, we’ll talk. But I really do have to lie down now, or I’m going to pass out. Goodbye.”

I closed the door in his face, then held my breath, waiting to see what he’d do.

“I’ll come by later to see how you’re getting along.”

His boots clunked across the hallway and down the stairs.

The energy drained out of me like air out of a bald tire and I staggered to the bed. I’d had nothing to eat since the foul-tasting cereal yesterday morning and judging from the shadows on the floor, it was afternoon. I looked at my bedside alarm clock. Four-thirty.

What was that? Over there in the corner, beside the nightstand. Something moved. What was it? My heart banged like a kettle drum inside my chest and I started to tremble.

Oh no, please no
…

I had no weapon, nothing to fight with! The trash can was in the bathroom. I edged carefully around the bed, no sudden movements, until I could get a better look at it. Then I’d just have to stomp it. In bare feet. The thought of it squishing—

There it was! It was …
the lamp cord leading to the socket on the wall.
I relaxed backward, gasped in relief, then climbed up into the middle of the bed and looked all around on the floor, like I was sitting on a raft, scanning the water for sharks.

There was another knock on the door. A light tapping. Then I heard Julia’s voice.

“I know you’re too sick to eat, but would you like me to leave a tray outside your door, so if you get to feeling better—?”

“Yes, thank you, Julia. Just leave it there on the floor.”

A few minutes later, I heard Julia set a tray down outside my room.

But there was that little matter of the armoire. I’d been trying to figure out what to do about it, how on earth to move it. What would I do if I couldn’t? Would I have to ask Dusty to climb in the window and—

Climb in the window!

I whirled around, panicked. The window was open, wide open, with the curtains fluttering in the breeze. It had been open all along. What was I thinking! I jumped down off the bed, crossed to the window and slammed it down so hard I was surprised the glass didn’t shatter. Then I stood trembling, looking around, feverishly checking the windowsill, the curtains, the wall and the floor. Nothing. Gradually, my heart stopped pounding and I relaxed. I reached up and pulled the string and let the blinds slide down over the window.

Now about that armoire sitting six inches from the door. I’d regrouped since my last effort, so I grabbed the back of it again and pulled, pushing with my foot on the door. The hulking wardrobe began to scoot slowly into the room. Ten inches, a foot, two feet. Finally, I could open the door wide enough to retrieve the tray. I reached out, dragged the tray into the room and closed the door after it, like Filbert flicking out his tongue and snatching a fly.

There was potato soup, a ham and cheese sandwich, a cup of hot tea and a chocolate chip cookie. Sweet Julia. I placed the tray on my bed and ate my lunch/supper sitting where I could keep a vigilant eye on the whole room. My appetite quickly vanished, but I managed to choke down some soup, half the sandwich and a couple of bites of cookie. I felt stuffed. I replaced the tray outside my door after I flushed what was left of the sandwich, soup and cookie down the toilet. Let Bobo and Julia think I ate it all; it would make them feel better.