The Memory Thief (26 page)

“This summer you might see a great horned owl,” she said. “Magnificent. Most live their whole lives and don’t see them. This
mountaintop is their hunting ground.”

She spoke of new seasons like there was no doubt I would be there. And though my mind fought her, answered her,
I’ll be long gone, lady
, I couldn’t deny how her words warmed me. Couldn’t deny how sweet it was to have plans made for me. To be expected, to be
wanted
, in the coming months. She promised to teach me how to garden. So that I could earn my keep in the summer, because quilting
was winter work. And in the fall she would teach me how to can and freeze the harvest.

Sometimes she spoke of her childhood up north. Of her grandmother’s bread recipes that Shari now served on the chestnut table.

“Why’d you leave?” I asked. “Didn’t think folks up there ever wanted to come down here.”

“I’m a runaway, too,” she said, and laughed softly. “I passed through these mountains on my way home, and found myself reconsidering
what
home
meant for me, for my family. Is it where your house is built? Or is it where your family is safe?”

“I’ve only been to Tennessee. And then the other Carolina when I was…”

“But look at you now, child,” she interrupted softly. “You’re here now.” I looked up from my stitching. “Come, we should focus
on this new bolt of fabric for the quilt backing,” she said. “I’ll show you how to baste the layers together so they don’t
slip as I quilt them together. If we work with diligence, we can have a good start by lunch.”

It always happened like that. She would speak warmly about future plans for me. About summer work and spring plantings. But
if I hinted of my past, she interrupted me, refocused me on our work together. Sometimes by whispering the carving above my
door.

It’s not that I wanted to tell her my story. The one saved just for you. She was a stranger, and I didn’t want to empty my
pockets for her. But there were other things I found myself wanting to tell. Things that teachers at school knew about me.
Things that the Swarms themselves saw. Sometimes as we sewed and she talked of plans for me, I’d find myself wanting to interrupt
her. Tell her something easy. Like,
I was raised real poor.
Or maybe,
Daddy was a hard man to live with.
I tried it once.

“Sorry,” she said, before hurrying to answer a call she said came from the kitchen. I shrugged my shoulders and sat alone,
making small, straight stitches.

That night, with the help of cheap whiskey, I whispered it in my room. I knew the truth, what her
Sorry
really meant. That she didn’t want to be my sounding board. That she was too busy with the demands of her popular resort.
Her
Sorry
was the same as covering her ears and singing
la la la
to block out unwanted noise.

I drank more whiskey and tried again. That time, I heard what I wanted.
Sorry.
Because maybe the things I’d lived through were more than sad or scary. Maybe they were wrong. Something even a stranger
should want to apologize for. Sure, I was trailer trash. But once, I was a little girl. Your baby born in Carolina and wrapped
in a green blanket.

I fell asleep and dreamed of you.

I was running through the bacca. It was midsummer and the leaves were high and strong. You were chasing me, laughing. I hid
behind tall plants and watched you pass by. Watched you worry over where I was. I didn’t cry out for you, or wave my hands
through the bacca. Life was sweet enough, just knowing that you were looking.

The next morning, I traded Tabby all my breaks for the next two days for one conversation with her mailman. I flagged him
down in the road before he reached the mailbox.

“You deliver to this whole mountain?”

“Where’s Tabby?” he asked.

“She’s sick. I’m lookin’ for the Ray family.”

“But I got Tabby’s things. Who’s gonna pay me?”

“If you help me, there’ll be big money for both of us. More money than you’ll ever earn deliverin’ mail and whiskey.”

“Slow down,” he said. “What’s this all about?”

“I’m lookin’ for my family.”

“And what am I supposed to do about that?”

“My mother’s last name is Ray, and she might be a Holy Roller. She’s got money, and if you find her, you’ll be rewarded. Look,
all you gotta do is keep your eyes open. You walk up to homes all over this mountain. You see names and addresses that nobody
else does.”

“Yeah.” He nodded.

“Find her and we’ll both be rich.”

Four days later he told Tabby he had a lead. A family was looking for a baby they had given up for adoption, eighteen years
ago. He had delivered a package to them from a company called Finding People.

“All he knows so far,” Tabby said, “is that their house is huge. And they got a cross on the door. And they’re lookin’ for
a baby that would be your age. Now the name wasn’t Ray, but what if your mother got married? It just might be your folks,
honey.”

I spent that night laying things from my pockets across my bed. Like a time line. Like a story told in pictures.

“It was a boy,” Tabby told me two days later. “They’re lookin’ for a boy.”

I wrote
Sick
next to my name on the chart in the alley. Went to my room and fell across my bed. Stared at the carving above my door until
I could trace the letters perfectly, my eyes closed.

“Pray,” the old woman had said.

Maybe she was right. Daddy was trouble, so my baby lips prayed over him. Black Snake trailer was trouble, so I prayed as I
burned it down. I was trouble, too. I found my whiskey bottle beneath my mattress. Took a sip though it was only noon, closed
my eyes and tried.
Bless me.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Yeah?”

“Why aren’t you working? You have obligations,” the old woman called.

“I’m sick.”

“Very well. You’ll be needed tomorrow, though. We begin Christmas.”

At first, Christmas at Red Castle didn’t seem like a holiday as much as it was a production. Bedroom Hall was booked solid
by people seeking holiday peace. We cleaned more, carried more trays, and had to help in the kitchen frequently. Families
took short walks through the soft mountain snow and returned to order trays of Christmas cookies and warm cider. And then
one day after supper, the Christmas tree went up.

It was a real tree, cut from the mountain. Nearly twelve feet tall and six feet wide. It stood in the corner of the Great
Room, just before the entrance to the dining hall. There were no lights for it, only handmade ornaments. Many of them quilted
lace, and I recognized the patterns of the old woman’s skilled fingers. Some of them were childlike, initials and dates scribbled
on the back.

Guests were busy hanging the ornaments, while I stood against the wall and watched. The old woman appeared by my side. “I’m
sorry,” I said. “I’ll go clean the sittin’ room now.”

She shook her head and handed me an ornament made from the scraps of fabric we had just worked with. “Hang this.”

I’d never had a Christmas tree. But I knew how beautiful they could be because of Swarm house. The Swarm tree was always covered
in large rainbow lights and tinsel. When I was little, I thought they put it in the front window for people like me who didn’t
have a tree, but needed to see one.

Momma taught me the truth.

“Look at them, showin’ off that tree. Bet they spent a hundred dollars on decorations. Bet that’s a real crystal star on top.
That’s why they put it up front and open them curtains. They want everybody to know just how good they got it.”

The old woman watched me as I found the loop at the top of the ornament and opened it. I saw how the branches were pulled
slightly through the loops of others and did the same to mine. But it was too heavy and the branch too small. It bent forward
and drooped in front of another ornament.

“Oh,” I said, as my face flushed. I started to remove it.

“No, it’s perfect,” the old woman answered.

I hurried to the sitting room, but I worked slowly that night. I forgot to straighten the cushions and didn’t bother to count
the chess pieces. I kept returning to the Great Room entrance, just to look one more time. I held my broom and swept and swept
the one space on the floor that let me see the tree, until curfew was announced. Then I walked to Bedroom Hall, my hand on
my skirt, pressing against the place where my last pocket was. I hurried into my room and pulled out that final memory. My
happy one.

It was a small bar of soap. Broken, but the crumbs were held inside the wrapper. The words
Holiday Inn
stamped across it. It smelled like crushed flowers. But when I held it to my nose I only thought of the good Christmas.

It was during one of the winters that Momma had a secret boyfriend. Whenever Daddy took off for the night, Bobby drove up
in his yellow pickup. Momma would send us outside to stand guard.

“You hear your Daddy’s car comin’ down the road, you run quick and tell me. He’ll kill us all if he finds Bobby here.”

Christmas came and Momma wanted to celebrate for the first time ever. We didn’t have a tree, but she hung a string of lights
off the edge of Black Snake trailer. They blinked on and off through the night. She took us shopping. Bought us each a candy
cane and a little bell necklace to wear around our necks. Gave up her whiskey money to buy Bobby a bottle of cologne.

“He’s takin’ us away,” she whispered, as she hid the cologne beneath our couch. “He’s got money, and he’s gonna take us all
away.”

On Christmas Eve, Daddy was out. Bobby pulled up and we all piled into his yellow pickup.

“Merry Christmas,” he laughed. Momma jumped on his lap and they started kissing and sighing like the big kids that sat at
the back of the bus. He drove us to Gatlinburg.

That year there was a rich girl in my third-grade class. She had written an essay about her trip to Disney. She spoke of spinning
rides and ice cream, castles and princesses. As Bobby drove us into Gatlinburg, I looked at everything around me. My eyes
never missing anything that blinked or shimmered. I wrote my own report and imagined reading it to my class.

My Best Vacation Ever

by Angel

My best vacation ever was to a place called Gatlinburg. It took a long time to get there. At least an hour, but probably more.
I saw a store with a sign that said Feed the Black Bears, two dollars. I saw chairs that hung from a wire and could lift and
carry you up to the mountain top. I saw a place called the Mountain Fudge Factory. The sign said they sold 15 types of fudge.
In the window, a man was making taffy. He pulled on a rope of blue candy as long as my arm. We went to a hotel next. It had
a pool inside. You could swim in the winter or in the rain and never get cold. There was a machine in the hallway too. If
you pressed a button, ice would shoot out. And another machine next to it. It was full of candy. Gatlinburg is the very funnest
town in the whole wide world. When I grow up, I want to live in that hotel.

Bobby booked two rooms. One for him and Momma, one for me and Janie. Then he piled a bunch of quarters on the bed.

“Git your supper from the machine. Just leave us alone.”

The room had two beds in it. We could jump back and forth between
them without ever touching the floor. There was a TV, too. With dozens of channels, all of them clear even though it wasn’t
storming. We watched
Little House on the Prairie
for the first time. Giggled at the way those girls yelled
Ma
and
Pa
, instead of saying
Momma
and
Daddy
. Janie held a sheet around her head.

“How you like my bonnet, Laura?”

We went swimming next. We didn’t own swimsuits, so we jumped in wearing our long sleep T-shirts and panties. Janie was a teenager.
But she splashed in the water same as me, her black bra showing beneath her wet shirt. When we were hungry, we dried off and
returned to our room. Divided the quarters evenly between us.

Janie bought a Mountain Dew, a bag of Fritos, and a Snickers bar. I bought a grape coke, a bag of Cheetos, and M&M’s. And
later that night after swimming again, we split a pack of orange crackers with peanut butter in the middle. It was the best
Christmas dinner ever.

Once we finally turned out the lights and decided to sleep, each of us in our own bed for the first time ever, I saw Christmas
lights flashing outside.

“Merry Christmas, Janie,” I whispered.

She laughed. “Wish every day was.”

In the morning, we woke up to Momma pounding on the door. Janie rolled out of bed and let her in.

“Your daddy’s waitin’ on us outside.”

“Where’s Bobby?”

“Didn’t like him as much as I thought. Now git up, Daddy’s waitin’.”

I saw the way she held her body tight. Like the bones that jutted from her skin hurt her. I saw the swell of her cheek, the
skin stretched and purple beneath her eye.

We climbed into Daddy’s car.

“Janie,” Momma said to Daddy with a roll of her eyes. She told him a story about Janie running off with a boy from the back
of the bus. About chasing Janie and finding her in the hotel with a bad boy.

“He knocked me around a bit. But I knew how to run him off,” she said, pulling the gun out of her bag.

“Next time,” Daddy said, shrugging his shoulders, “just let her go.”

Janie closed her eyes tightly and slid a bar of soap into my hand.

“Smell it,” she whispered. “Smells like Christmas.”

I stood inside my Red Castle room, smelling Janie’s Christmas soap. Someone knocked.

“Yeah?”

“We have work to finish,” the old woman called.

It wasn’t unusual. Lately she often had extra tasks for me once the other workers were in bed. Sometimes I waited long into
the night to sip my whiskey, fearful that she would come for me. If I stayed up late working with her, she gave me extra rest
during the day out of the sight of other workers. She hid me in the library and let me rest on the couch.