Memories in the Drift

by Payne, Melissa

  Before Ruth can answer, a device on the table in front of me lights up. A sticky note on the screen reads Tate gave this to you, it’s like a notebook and a phone. I pick it up, slide open the button, and the screen is filled with a notebook-paper graphic and the date, Saturday, February 2. Writing appears on the screen. Alice is sober. She lives in Whittier and she’s the mom you remember.

  My head shoots up. Tate is typing into a device similar to mine. He smiles into the screen, and more words appear on mine. Your hair smells like apples and your skin is smooth and soft and is that same shade of peach that glows. You are more beautiful now than ever. That’s what Tate thinks.

  My heart rate slows. Tate used to run his hands up and down my arms, leaving a trail of goose bumps across my flesh. He said he loved the feel of my skin. I pick up the device. “What is this?”

  His chest broadens. “I’d like t . . . t-o help you remember, also, if that’s okay, Claire.”

  A coldness pierces my skin, steals the warmth from before, but Tate’s eyes meet mine squarely, and instead of pity I sense respect—admiration, even—in his stare.

  “I do that already.”

  “Yes, and you’re amazing at it, but it seems like you might be missing out . . . sometimes.”

  I cross my arms, made vulnerable by his words. “How?”

  “On experiencing the moment more instead of trying to write it all down.” He holds up his device. “But w . . . w . . . all of us can help.” He types again, and I look at the screen.

  This is a shared document. So I can add to your online notebook, giving you a different perspective from the pieces of your day that include me.

  There is a bubble by the entry with his name. Another bubble pops up.

  I can too. This one has Ruth’s name, and when I look up, I see that she’s left the table and is sitting over by her desk, in front of a desktop, peering down through reading glasses perched at the end of her nose.

  Tate touches my hand. “I can g . . . g-ive access to whoever you trust.” He shrugs, seems to wait for me to speak, but I’m frozen, unsure of how to respond to a gesture at once grand and sweet but also invasive and exposing.

  When I don’t speak, Tate seems to shrink. “I’m s . . . s . . . I apologize. Is it t . . . t-oo much?”

  Maybe it’s the stutter, a reminder of the boy inside the man, or maybe it’s the overload of information that threatens to wash me out or the idea that anyone would go to such lengths for me, but I feel myself shaking my head no, then standing and moving toward him, mouth clamped shut, and tears brimming. When he stands I hug him, and it must surprise him because at first he doesn’t move. Then his arms wrap around me and he holds me tight, and I breathe out and lean into the feeling of him, the heat of his body against mine, muscular and strong, and I relish the sensation that swaddles me.

  I feel normal.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Friday, February 8

  Therapist Kate sips her tea and studies her notes, giving me a chance to read over mine one more time.

  “It’s been hard,” I say. My notes are filled with dark thoughts, and it’s difficult to read through them, to experience the emotion all over again. I blink hard but it doesn’t stop my eyes from burning. It’s been over four months since Dad died, and while I can accept it as part of my reality, the loss is fresh, grief a close friend. I suspect this feeling is not much different for people without brain injuries.

  “What did you bring with you today?” She points to the file sticking out of my bag.

  I have to check my notes. “Oh, um, I’m not really sure. I guess I was going to give beginner guitar lessons. A little girl was interested.” I show her the writing on the flyer. Dont forget! I want to be your guitar student. Maree.

  “Are you planning to start the lessons, then?” I notice a hopeful lift in Kate’s voice, which I ignore.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think you might enjoy doing something different from your normal routine?”

  I give her a look. “I have no idea.”

  Kate seems to regroup. “What do you want, Claire?”

  I glance down at my notebook. There are three indisputable facts that I keep at the top of every page. They are listed in order:

  Dad died of a heart attack on September 21.

  Mom lives in Whittier and she’s different.

  Tate Dunn lives in Whittier and is the new harbormaster. You told him about the baby. You are friends.

  Each one of them is a blow to my body. “I want things to go back to the way they were.”

  “Before your seizure?”

  The unfairness of everything simmers into a boil, heats up my skin. “Before Dad died, before Mom started drinking, before Tate left me. Before, when I had a future.” Kate doesn’t say anything; she’s quiet, letting me process. I doodle in the margins of my notebook. “Do you think this does anything for me?”

  Her eyebrows raise. “Therapy?”

  I nod.

  She sits back, seems to consider. “Honestly? This is as far from therapy as it gets.” She smiles and so do I. “But your father was a persuasive person, and he felt that this was exactly what you needed.” Her face softens. “Vance was a good man and a good friend to my husband when he needed one the most.”

  Kate’s husband served three tours in Iraq and suffers from PTSD that deeply alters the man he was. They lived in Whittier when I was in high school, and Dad reached out, hoping to help the man, whose depression had become a monster he couldn’t control anymore. I always thought Dad was trying to make up for not helping Mom in the way he was always trying to help others.

  “Are things better now for him?” I ask because while I think they are, I also can’t recall.

  Kate’s smile is warm and generous. “Yes, much better. And we both credit Vance for helping him find a way.” Her face turns serious. “As far as therapy for you goes, I think that deep down, Vance hoped that it would eventually lead to you forgiving Alice.”

  I scratch my head and let my eyes slide back to the notebook, but I don’t have to read anything there to know how I feel.

  “I’m afraid to trust her. Old habits are hard to break, and drinking is the oldest of habits for her.” I fiddle with the pen in my hand. “Do you know where she was the night that bear got into our lobby?”

  Kate looks at me, and it’s not hard to guess I’ve already told her this, but I do anyway. “At the bar, so wasted that Dad had to go pick her up later and carry her home. It’s why he was looking out the window in the first place and saw the bear. He was looking for Mom.” I read the fact at the top of the page. Dad is dead. He died of a heart attack on September 21. My heart shrivels. “He protected everyone and now he’s gone, and Mom wants back into my life. Why does she think she deserves that?”

  I can’t summon up enough vitriol to match my words. Instead, I think of the time a harbor seal washed up near one of our fishing coves, injured, hardly breathing. Mom knelt beside the animal, running her fingers gently over its head, murmuring, It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay. I blink back tears, busy myself with the notebook. “My mom is coming over in the mornings to talk and have coffee.” I point to a line, can already taste her baked goods. “This morning she brought doughnuts.”

  Kate’s face brightens. “How did it go?”

  “I don’t know but I don’t feel angry when I think about her. I always remember how angry I’d get whenever I saw her or just thought about her.”

  “It’s good, don’t you think?” Kate says. “Not to feel angry?”

  When I don’t answer, she continues, “You know, there was a patient many years ago with anterograde amnesia like yours. She could never remember her doctor and would greet him every time she saw him as though it were for the first time.”

  I wince, thinking how close to reality this must be for me, not liking to picture myself in that way.

  “Until this one day, her doctor hid a stickpin in his fingers, and when he shook her hand t
o say hello, it pricked her skin and caused her brief pain. Afterward, the woman refused to shake his hand.”

  I straighten in my chair, interested. “She remembered?”

  Kate shakes her head. “She couldn’t remember it happening, but when they asked her why she refused, she asked if perhaps he held a pin in his hand.” She leans forward, her elbows on her knees. “I think that’s similar to how you’re feeling about your mom, but in reverse.”

  I take the pen cap on and off, unable to see her connection and frustrated by her comparison. “I don’t understand.”

  Kate’s voice softens. “What I mean is that your mom has been sober for nearly ten years now, lives in Whittier, and has taken an active role in your life. I think that on some level, like the stickpin, you’ve registered this change.”

  My chest tightens and I can’t respond or do more than sit here trying to process.

  She picks up a device from the table beside her. “May I?” It’s similar to the one in my lap. The one with the sticky note that says it’s from Tate and that I brought along with my paper notebook but haven’t used. Now it lights up and writing appears on the notebook graphic next to a bubble that says “Therapist Kate.”

  You had positive thoughts about Alice today. You don’t feel angry with her, you know that she’s sober. You’re still working on trusting her but you’ve come a long way, Claire. And you mentioned having coffee and doughnuts with her this morning. Next time, please bring one of her doughnuts to me. ☺

  I am warmed by her note. It feels inclusive, like we’re part of the same team. Like I’m not alone. “Thank you,” I say.

  She looks up from the device, tilts her head. “When we started therapy after your seizure, you would say the same thing to me at every visit, and you say it even today.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That you want to be normal again.”

  I nod, swallow hard, because I do want that.

  “You’ve worked so hard to remember like a normal person, to appear normal to even your close friends and family.” She pauses, inhales. “Maybe being normal isn’t the point.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She leans forward and clasps her hands. “Maybe you’re meant to be extraordinary. And if that’s the case, then you’re already there.”

  I open and then close my mouth, my mind a blank. What can I say to that? So I write it down because of all the things I record, this seems like the most important to remember.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I’ve returned home from seeing Kate, and instead of pushing fourteen on the elevator, I push twelve. I know he’s gone. I’ve written it on a note card I carry with me, plus it’s a line of text that I made as the background on my screen. But I’m standing in front of Dad’s door anyway, hoping for what? That it was all a nightmare?

  The door is open a crack, and inside it’s dark, and cool air slips through the opening, touches the tip of my nose. I push against the door and freeze. A woman stands by Dad’s small dining table, one hand stretching out like she means to stop me from entering, a cardboard box lying open on the floor at her feet.

  “Mom?” I can’t breathe.

  I cross my arms against the heavy beating of my heart. She looks the same and also different. Worn, older, but clear-eyed, not the same woman who left when I was thirteen, nothing like the drunken woman who tackled me at my graduation when I was twenty-five. Images and thoughts tangle into ideas that make no sense except that I don’t feel heated pricks across my scalp, just a deep sadness, like I’ve lost something. I touch my pocket.

  “You live here now?”

  She nods and I stand there, not surprised but unable to find context. Boxes are strewn about Dad’s floor, but Dad died, so—my mouth goes dry. “Are you packing up his things?”

  “I’ve tried.” Her arm gestures to the mostly empty boxes. “I just can’t seem to do it.” She wipes her eyes. “Would you like to help?”

  I step inside, a heaviness pulling at my legs. “Sure.”

  She hands me a box and directs me to his bookshelf. I notice that other things dot the apartment, feminine touches that don’t belong to my father. The dots connect easily. “Are you living here?”

  “I was, we were—” She wets her lips. “He always believed in me, Claire; told me he’d wait his entire life for me if that’s what it took for me to get sober.”

  “It did,” I say, but I wince at the harshness in those two little words.

  She takes a step back, like I’ve punched her.

  My hands tremble from a mixture of emotions. “Do you know how hard it was for him after you left?”

  “Claire,” she says and the voice is hers, but it’s smoother than I remember, unhindered by the slur of alcohol. “I know, honey.”

  I think my face is wet, but I wipe it with the back of my sleeve and pretend it’s not. “He never cried; he tried to pretend that he was fine for me, but at night he would sit in his chair and stare at his hands. I used to watch him. He’d do that for hours.” I straighten to my full height, which towers over her, but she doesn’t cower or look away; instead, she keeps her eyes glued to mine. It softens me and I have to look away. “Why are you back?” I am thirteen, watching her pack a suitcase and walk out the door.

  “For you.” When her eyes meet mine, they are unwavering, steellike. My heart thumps painfully at the sudden glimpse of her as the mom I remember. The one who sat with Ruth after her husband left, the one who comforted a dying seal, the one who made sure Tate had clothes to wear and a good haircut. The one who loved me.

  “And for Vance. But it was just too damn late.” Her face crumples and she grabs for the back of the closest chair, falls into it as though the strength has drained from her legs.

  A current of pain runs through me at her grief.

  “But it’s not too late for you, Claire, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste this precious second chance.” She sits up straight. “Do you remember my nightmares?”

  I give a tight nod. They were always worse when Dad was on the road. I’d climb into bed with her and stroke her hair, try to comfort her. She would never wake up, but eventually she’d stop whimpering.

  “I’d wake up to your skinny little arms around my neck, your chubby face pressed into mine.” She’s smiling, even if her eyes glisten. “You were always there for me, sweetheart, and I was too weak to be your mother. It’s the greatest regret of my life.” She stands, breathes in. “But I don’t live in the past anymore. I live for this moment, right now.” She approaches me, takes my hands in her own, and standing in front of her, I feel big and clumsy—a child. “I’m not going anywhere, Claire. And I don’t need for you to be normal or perfect, because I love you exactly as you are right now in this minute, and I’ll keep telling you that until my last breath.”

  My emotions are rocks that collect in a pile on the ground at my feet, and I don’t know what to do with them. My mother is not the woman I remember most vividly; this remorseful, sober, loving woman is the one whose ghost used to haunt my dreams with memories of songs and kisses and nightly tuck-ins. It’s an overwhelming blend that pelts me with the rocks, starts my thoughts spinning a vortex around me until I am left confused and standing in a cold apartment, with the snow tapping against the window like something wants to get in, and staring at a woman who looks like my mother.

  I rub my head, pull at the ends of my hair. The last time I saw her, she was stumbling toward me at graduation. But now we’re in Dad’s apartment; I know for sure because of the lingering smell of burned toast in the air and his favorite chair under the window. “Mom? What are you doing here?”

  She squeezes my hand before pulling something from my pocket. A note card with three facts printed across the front:

  Dad died of a heart attack on September 21.

  Mom lives in Whittier and she’s different.

  Tate Dunn lives in Whittier and is the new harbormaster. You told him about the baby. You are friends.

/>   I press a hand to my chest, but this information is not new. I can feel it, even it if fills me with a noxious blend of grief and hope. There are boxes scattered in the apartment. “Are you packing up his things?”

  She holds out her hand. “I thought you’d like to help me.”

  Despite an aching in my chest, I nod, and together we kneel in front of his bookshelves and start there.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Monday, February 11

  The lobby is louder than normal with kids hanging out after school, sitting in twos and threes, talking, doing homework together. It brings a smile to my face.

  Just as I turn toward the market, I glimpse a small form in the corner, away from the kids who laugh easily together. She’s got her knees drawn up and a booklet tucked on her thighs, eyes focused on whatever she’s writing or drawing. She can’t be more than ten, but she’s dressed in black pants and a black sweatshirt, and her dark hair is pulled into a high ponytail that curls around her head on one side. Maybe it’s the picture of her alone against the backdrop of comfortable banter and easy friendships, but something draws me toward the girl.

  My phone vibrates with instructions. Market, Gardens. A twist in my belly reminds me to do what I have planned because going off schedule is murky territory where I easily lose focus.

  I take a deep breath, slide my phone into my pocket, and head in her direction. The kids’ chatter fades as I approach, and I feel their eyes glom on to me. In some ways, I can imagine how I might appear to others. I’m different, a freak to some. I don’t blame teens—or adults, for that matter—for not knowing how to interact with me. It must be difficult, I’m sure.

  A few giggles come my way, but I lift my head and keep my teacher smile in place. I don’t know the faces that observe me, can feel the tiny bites of panic that come with being in a roomful of strangers.