The Memory Key (15 page)

IT'S NOT THE BURN IN MY LEGS OR THE TIGHTNESS OF MY LUNGS
that hurts most. It's my head. My head is pounding. Maybe triggered by the way I'm running hard; maybe triggered by my fear of getting caught; maybe triggered by exhilaration, I don't know. All I know is I'd better get to the car soon. It's not the timing I'm worried about—I can already see the back bumper of Jon Harmon's station wagon. What I'm worried about is collapsing before I get there.

I should slow down. There's plenty of time, so much time, in fact, I could have used some spare seconds to explain to Raul what I was doing at the emergency exit while the alarm announced my misdeeds.

Instead I ran away.

On the one hand, I feel bad. On the other hand, there's no possibility of feeling bad, not when my mother is waiting for me. I fling open the car door, dive into the backseat, and there she is, turning around to ask me if I'm all right.

“We've really done it now!” Jon cries as he steers us onto
the road, and his excitement must be infectious because my mother laughs and even my headache subsides while I gloat. I stare at her hair, black streaked with white. I stare at her shoulder in her silky peach dress.

Her
hair,
her
shoulder, I can't believe it.

Soon we fall quiet. Even though there is so much to talk about: five years to catch up on, plans to make, questions that require answers. Yet everyone seems to have withdrawn into their own selves. Which is fine—my head hurts. It's probably time to get my key repaired. After all, I don't need memories of her now that I have her, herself, in flesh and blood and breath.

I take the bottle of pain pills out of the front pocket of my bag and attempt to remove a couple pills without making any sound. But there is the inevitable rattle, so my mother catches me slipping the tablets into my mouth. “What's that?” she asks.

I show her the bottle of drugstore medicine. “I have a headache.”

“Oh, Lora, I'm sorry.” She looks regretfully at me, as if it's her fault.

“It's nothing. Just all the excitement.” I put away the pills, and that's when I notice my bag is crammed with books and notebooks. My mother said she had a few things to pack, but I thought she meant clothes, not books.

“What's all this?” I ask my mother.

“What's what?” says Jon.

“What are these books?”

“My work.”

“You brought your work with you to Grand Gardens?” I don't look at her, I look at the books, the notebooks with their wire spiral spines, the hard cardboard covers of the medical technology textbooks.

“Oh, no, this is all from there,” she says. “They have a library, though the collection is sadly limited. But the librarian did order a few special volumes for me.”

“Okay.” I smile, a small smile. So my mother kept up with her work, despite the challenges of her missing memory, despite the sadly limited library collection. It's good she kept up with her work. I should be glad she kept up with her work.

“Now where am I taking you?” asks Jon. “Home?”

“No, I don't think . . . ,” I say. I don't know what to say.

“You're right. That's the first place they'll look for her,” he says.

“Exactly.” I try to sound like that was exactly my reasoning.

“Jeanette, what happened? How'd you end up at Grand Gardens?” he asks.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “I can't remember.”

“Nothing?”

She shakes her head.

Jon clears his throat. “Lora, have you called your dad?”

My mother and I say no at the same time. Then she adds, “Not yet,” and I add, “But I will.” In the rearview mirror, Jon's gaze flicks from her to me, and back again. It's really my mother's expression I want to see, but I can't, not from where I'm sitting.

Jon Harmon takes us home, to his home, where he makes us hot tea and assembles an impressive selection of snacks—cheese and crackers, cookies, and fruit—before going to make some phone calls. He leaves us sitting in his living room, a room full of furniture and photos, toys strayed here and there: a doll sprawled under the coffee table, a Matchbox car parked next to me on the sofa. It is the opposite of my aunt's immaculate apartment. It seems impossible that she and Jon were once married.

I look at my mother, wanting to comment on the incongruity, wanting to ask her about Jon and Austin. But I don't. I feel suddenly overwhelmed by the imbalance between us: how I remember everything, how she remembers nothing.

“Mom, remember how you used to tell me stories about medical technology at bedtime? My favorite was the one about how P. B. Fishman invented the memory key.” I smile at her.

“Yes, it's a good story.” She smiles back at me. But because she doesn't say she remembers, I know she doesn't. Of course she doesn't.

Jon comes back into the room. “I've found a place for you to stay,” he announces and my mother leans forward as if to get up and immediately go, but he waves her back. “We have time. I didn't use my real name at Grand Gardens, so they can't connect us just yet. Have you had a cookie? Try a cookie. Darren made them.”

“Thank you, Jim,” she says.

“Jon,” I whisper to her. “His name is Jon.”

“Jon, I'm sorry. My memory . . .”

“It's all right.” He clunks his tea mug down onto the table. Then he tells my mother what he told me, about how she came to him and said she'd discovered something strange about the new line of memory keys at Keep Corp. He asks if she remembers.

“I'm sorry.” She shakes her head.

“What have you been working on at Grand Gardens? Anything to do with the keys?” he asks.

“No.” She stares down at the bright-striped rug. “The stuff I'm doing now, it isn't at the same level as before. I know that.” She seems so discouraged.

“You didn't have the right resources,” I say.

“I suppose that's true,” she says.

Jon sighs. He sighs and sighs.

“I'm sorry,” my mother says again.

“No, it's not you, it's just that none of this makes sense. The faked accident, putting you in that nursing home. Why did they bother? Keep Corp is unscrupulous. Getting rid of you in a car crash is much more their style,” he says.

My mother is quiet.

Perhaps she is simply tired. Probably we are all simply tired, done in by the day's adventure. We drink our tea. We eat our snacks. I stare at the family portrait hanging above the fireplace: there's Jon, looking exactly as he does now; his partner, Darren, tall and plump as Jon, but with lots of light brown hair; and their two children, a boy and a girl, with cute
freckled faces. They all grin for the camera.

Jon looks at his watch. “Lora, I'll take you home now, all right?”

“Will you come with us? Just for the drive?” I ask my mom.

But Jon answers first. “No,” he says, “it's not safe.”

“Oh. Well. Okay. Can I come over tomorrow?”

My mother glances at Jon. She nods after he nods.

“Lora,” she says. “Will you tell your father I'm here?”

I'm not sure whether her question is inquiry or request. “Yes?”

“All right.” She smiles at me, a little uncertainly, but it's okay—even if she can't remember what to do, I remember. I wrap my arms around her and hold her tight. I am glad she has a safe place to stay, though it feels a little like I'm losing her again.

“I'm so happy you're here,” I whisper.

“Yes, me too.” Her voice is soft, muffled against my hair, but it's still the voice I know by heart, the voice that calls to me from memory and sings to me in dreams. And even though I'm taller now and my ear doesn't quite fit above her collarbone like it used to, it doesn't matter, none of that matters. Not now that we're together again.

Jon Harmon doesn't say much as he drives me home. Though I've known him for only—it's hard to believe—a single day, I already recognize this is out of character. Jon is a talker. But when he parks his car, he seems subdued. “Lora,” he says
gently. “Will you promise me two things?”

“This isn't my house,” I say. “It's a few blocks up from here.”

“Yes, but we shouldn't be seen together, just in case.”

“Right. Of course.”

“Now, Lora, you did an incredible job tracking down your mother. But your involvement ends here. These are bad people, ruthless people who won't let anyone get in their way. You've got your mom back. Let me figure out the rest, okay?”

“What's the other thing?” I ask.

“They won't like it when they find out Jeanette's gone. Promise me you'll be careful—keep an eye out and tell your dad to do the same.”

“I promise I'll be careful.” I hope he doesn't notice I've made only one-half of the requested promises. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yes. I'll be in touch,” he says.

“Thanks.” I open the car door. But then I turn back, because there's something more I need to tell him. “I really appreciate everything you've done for me. For us.”

“You're welcome.” Jon smiles, and for a moment I wonder what it would have been like if he and Aunt Austin had not divorced, if he were my uncle that I'd known my entire life, who fed me cookies and told bad jokes that made me groan till I laughed. For a moment I wish it were so. But the past is irreversible. He has his own family now. And I have mine. Sort of.

I carefully walk the few blocks home, mindful of Jon's warnings, and trying to act normally, but it is so hard to act
normally when I keep expecting someone to leap from the bushes and demand to know what I've done with my mother.

So when a neighbor shouts a friendly hello, I gasp in answer. When a gray cat darts around my feet, I jolt as if electrocuted. When a car drives past me, brakes screeching, I have to cover my mouth to keep from shrieking.

When I make it to our front step, unharmed, I wonder if Jon Harmon was overreacting about the danger. Still I lock the door behind me, turn the deadbolt, and seal it with the chain. Then I notice the house is absolutely dark and quiet, and I undo the chain so my father will be able to come in later. Then I frown.

Why isn't my father home? He should be home. He doesn't teach a late class or hold office hours for his students today; today is neither his grocery-shopping day nor his gym day (gym days are usually disregarded, anyway). There is no note in our usual note-leaving place, no messages on our answering machine, no voice mail in my phone's voice mail. When I call his cell he doesn't answer.

Where is he? When will he come home?

And what will I do when he comes home?

I have to tell him, of course. But . . . I unzip my bag, take the photograph out of the front pocket, and look closely at it, as if it might have changed since the last time I looked. But there he is, unchanged, and there they are, unchanged. My father with the two strangers who probably took my mother to Grand Gardens.

I put away the picture and take out Ms. Pearl's KCO pamphlet. I reread: “We at the KCO are deeply concerned about the increasing power Keep Corp has over our government, and our lives. You should be too. For more information or to find out how you can help, please contact us at . . .”

I pick up the phone and dial.

The line goes to a recording and I leave a message. I pace around the kitchen, waiting for them to call back. I pace around the den. I try sitting on the couch, but I'm too anxious to sit on the couch.

Nerves, I tell myself. But it's not just nerves.

I'm sad.

Though I know I should be celebrating. She's alive! Yet my grief remains. My unhappiness is a bulky coat I no longer need now that winter is over, but I don't know how to take the thing off. The zipper is stuck, teeth clenched in cloth.

I still miss her, I realize. I still miss her like she's still gone.

Standing on my tiptoes, I slide a photo album down from the top shelf in the den. I sit on the floor and open the book. As I look at the pictures, I imagine myself into memory. My music recital. Dad's birthday. A family vacation at the seashore. I close my eyes and open my eyes and close them again, imagining, remembering, imagining, remembering, and I don't stop even when my head starts throbbing, I don't stop until I hear the car outside, tires crackling against concrete as it slows to a stop.

Then I run up to my room. I'm not ready to talk to my
father yet. First I have to think out what to tell him. I think, waiting for the thud of the front door. I wait, but the front door doesn't thud. Eventually I go to the window to see what's taking so long. But our driveway is empty. False alarm.

I am about to turn away when I notice something odd. Not that it is particularly odd for an unfamiliar car to be parked in front of our house. Neither is it particularly odd that there is a person sitting inside the unfamiliar car.

But Jon told me to be careful. He said this would be the first place they'd come to look for her. So I turn off my lamp to better see through the glass. Still, it's too shadowy to distinguish more than a man motionless in the front seat.

I blink. My eyes are momentarily dazzled by the sunshine on the silver sedan. I watch from my window, puzzled to see my mother step out of the car. Puzzled as she waves good-bye to the driver, a man with short, dark hair; he's no one I recognize from this distance.

I blink again. It's night again.

I tell myself just because the car I remember is the same make and model and color as the one currently parked in front of our house, that doesn't mean it's the same car. It could be coincidence. It could be that I'm wrong—what do I know about cars, anyway?

I wish my dad were home.

And as soon as I think that thought, his car appears, like magic, gliding down the street and into the driveway. The shadow in the silver sedan sits still. I hold my breath as Dad
gets out and walks across the lawn. The shadow in the silver sedan sits still. I hold my breath as Dad vanishes from my sight. Then there's the thud of the front door closing. The rattle of the locks locking.