What I Remember Most

by Cathy Lamb

  “Foster care? At six?” Dale leaned back in his chair.

  “Yes.”

  There was a surprised silence in that room. I would have thought they’d known.

  “What happened to your parents?” the human calculator asked.

  “I . . .” I stumbled again. “I don’t know. I remember them. I remember camping. I remember roasting marshmallows. I remember finding the Big Dipper and Little Dipper with them, and how my dad taught me how to make a rocket. I remember fishing in rivers, going to festivals. We used to paint and draw and do crafts, all the time. I remember being on my father’s shoulders. I remember dancing by lakes. Then, nothing.”

  “Nothing?” This was from the man from the postal inspector’s office.

  “No. They were there, then gone. I was picked up on the side of the road by a trucker, my head bleeding. I had a concussion. He didn’t know where I came from. Apparently I was running down a road near a forest, screaming. He called the police. No one knew who I was. I remember waking up in the hospital, screaming for my parents, but I couldn’t remember what happened. I knew my name.”

  “Your birth name of Grenadine Scotch Wild,” Dale said.

  “Yes. I could write my name, although I flipped a few letters, so they didn’t get it at first.”

  “And they couldn’t trace your parents?”

  “No. I remembered that people called my mother Freedom and my father Bear, but I called them Mommy and Daddy, and of course those nicknames, with the last name of Wild, weren’t their real names, so they couldn’t be traced. I was, officially, an abandoned child.”

  “But your grandparents, your parents’ siblings . . .”

  “No other family member came for me. No one asked for me.” That still hurt. Still. I did not know where I came from. I didn’t know anything about my family.

  Dead, dead silence.

  Millie patted me. “You’re breaking my damn heart.”

  I put my shoulders back. I didn’t want to look pathetic or like I was using my past as an excuse. “One of the families I lived with for five years, they were wonderful to me, they still are, but to put it kindly, they weren’t . . . academically inclined. Neither one of them read well, either.” But they loved me, I wanted to say. They taught me how to hunt, how to shoot, how to fish. They taught me how to love and how to be in a family again, which was far more important than reading

  “I did try to read, and even with the dyslexia, that probably boosted me up enough so teachers didn’t feel the need to act on it or analyze it. In the summer before my junior year, after my new foster parents got me straightened out, because I had been making some poor choices with my life, they realized I had dyslexia and I had a tutor for two years. She taught me all sorts of strategies and techniques to read and write and caught me up academically.

  “I can read now, to myself, not out loud, if I read slowly, and if I’m not pressured or nervous, and I can write.” I blinked rapidly. “So, when Covey came in and was in a rush . . .”

  “Didn’t he know you had dyslexia?” The postal inspector man again.

  “Yes, he did. He took advantage of that, too, took advantage of my being embarrassed about it, took advantage of my trusting him.”

  “What about at work? How do you function?” the human calculator asked.

  “I’m in sales now. A lot of my work is talking to people over the phone, talking to people about the orders we’ve received, meeting people, drawing and sketching out plans. I spell-check all my e-mails and I read and reread them. I remember what I was taught by my tutor, and try to relax. I didn’t need to know how to write and read to become an artist.”

  I actually saw Dale nod. He stopped mid-nod, as if he hadn’t meant to give that away.

  I could hardly meet their eyes. I wanted to hunch my shoulders, disappear, but the tone in the room had changed. It wasn’t so . . . bloodthirsty anymore.

  I didn’t know if they believed me or not.

  The woman from the FBI put one of the legal papers in front of me that I’d signed. “Read this.”

  Millie objected. “What? Is that necessary?”

  I felt like I’d been slapped back into grade school. They were all staring. Waiting to pounce. I wanted to slink into my seat, but over Millie’s protestations I read it as best I could. I became more and more nervous, more agitated. I felt my eyes tearing up. I felt myself get hot. I read slowly to keep myself calm. I know I pronounced many of the words correctly, but not all. I must have skipped some and flipped letters in others, because I couldn’t understand the unfamiliar words altogether. I stumbled. I said words out loud that didn’t make sense next to each other. The words moved. I felt dizzy.

  Two minutes later, when I burst into tears like a damn fool, my attorney stood up and yelled, something about boxing the crap out of Dale, and Dale yelled back and I said, “I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”

  I kept reading, or trying to read, stuttering through the document, while other Scary People jumped into the fray. One said that was enough, I shouldn’t have to read more, and another said shut up. The FBI man said she could be faking it, the FBI woman said she’s not faking it, she sounds exactly like my son and he has dyslexia, too. My attorney kept yelling, and I kept reading.

  I stopped when Dale the owl leaned across the table and said, “Ms. Wild, let’s take a break.”

  I walked out.

  Squished. So low.

  I was Nothing. White trash. Trailer trash. Foster kid. Dirty Grenadine. Stupido Grenado.

  Again.

  The meeting went on until eight that night. They asked many questions about Covey, his friends and associates, where he traveled, who visited the house, how many times he’d been to Vegas, our parties, what people from which foreign countries had been in our home, where he stashed cash, did we have a safe and where was it, and on and on. I knew the answers to some questions but not too many. By the end of it, I was looking out the window and wondering if I should jump.

  “How much money did you take with you when you left Covey?” Dale asked.

  “I had $520.46.”

  Dale raised his eyebrows. He seemed surprised. “$520.46? That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, Dina,” Millie said, “they’re asking about how much money you took with you that the court allowed you to take from yours and Covey’s joint household account for living and legal expenses.”

  “I didn’t take anything. I didn’t know I could. My own personal and business accounts were frozen. I had $500 in my jewelry box, twenty dollars in my wallet, and I found change in my car under the seat.”

  “What?” Mille was absolutely baffled. “What are you talking about?”

  “Where did you live in Pineridge when you first moved there?” Dale asked. “A hotel? An apartment? With a friend?”

  I did not want to say I had lived in my car. It was hard enough to admit as a teenager. As an adult, it’s a whole new level of degradation. “I had two jobs.”

  “When did you get those jobs?”

  “Fairly soon after I arrived in Pineridge.”

  “When?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “It matters because something is not making sense here. You’re being evasive. You’re hiding something. Please answer the question.”

  “I lived with myself.”

  “One more time.” Dale didn’t hide his impatience. “Where did you live?”

  “I live in an apartment above a barn.”

  He leaned forward, arms crossed. “Where did you live initially, Ms. Wild, when you arrived in Pineridge, with who, and how did you afford it?”

  Homeless. She’s homeless. No family. I heard those lonely words ping-ponging in my head. Poor-o Grenado. White trash foster kid.

  I could stare down again, avoid their eyes. They knew I’d been in foster care. They knew I had dyslexia. They knew I was married to a criminal and believed me to be one, too. But suddenly I was tired of bending my head. I put my chin up. �
�I lived in my car.”

  “Your car?”

  “Yes. An Acura MDX. I had it before I married Covey.”

  Millie groaned and slapped the table. “Homeless. Damn it. Why didn’t you tell me? How did we miss this step? You had legal access to your joint account—”

  “For how long?” Dale asked.

  “Weeks. Many weeks.” Miserable weeks, but I did it.

  “You lived in your car,” FBI lady said, appalled.

  I nodded.

  Postal service man shook his head. “Cold out.”

  The human calculator said, “That’s rough.”

  Millie sighed and patted my arm. “You’re my worst client, but you’re the toughest.”

  Dale leaned back and steepled his hands.

  Millie hugged me when we left and said I had “kicked some attorney ass.”

  I didn’t believe that at all. I didn’t think they believed me.

  I had messages on my phone from Kade asking a couple of questions about a client. It was nothing important, though, and I knew he was calling to see how I was. He even said, “Grenady, I want you to know that you can always talk to me. You’ve seemed worried lately.” I had asked him for a day off through e-mail, and he’d said, “Sure, but remember to come back.”

  Rozlyn’s message said that she and Eudora had talked and the spying night on Leonard was on.

  Cleo’s message said she thinks it would be better if humans had glue on their hands so they could climb up buildings and trees. She said that Liddy missed me.

  Rozlyn’s “damned insurance” had denied the experimental procedure for her tumor. I was so upset I had to pull over. Cold, gut-wrenching fear and grief for Rozlyn followed me all through the night as I drove back home.

  Covey called from another mysterious number, trying to avoid the recording device he believed was on his phone. I was a bitch and a traitor, but he still loved me and we could make this work, come by the house after the meeting. He didn’t want to do what he’d been doing to me, but he could fix it, fix us.

  The Santiam pass was frozen, snow fell, my car slipped several times, twice into the other lane. I did not go over the edge. It took more than four and a half white-knuckled hours to get home.

  I thought about my last stint in jail. The light green paint on the walls, the fingerprinting and photos, the humiliation of the strip search and the get-naked-and-spread-your-butt-cheeks part.

  I thought about the cells, the slits of windows, the slabs we slept on with the thin mattresses, the silver toilets attached to the silver sinks, being locked in, locked out, stuck. I thought about isolation. I thought about Cleo.

  It was a long drive.

  I arrived at one in the morning. I checked on Liddy, she neighed at me, I neighed at her, I gave her apple slices, then I headed upstairs to bed.

  I lay awake all night, Alice, My Anxiety, running around unleashed, screeching, and watched the sun come up.

  I prepared my mind for the tight walls of jail hell.

  I was standing on a stepladder in the employees’ lounge at seven o’clock on a Monday night with a paintbrush in my hand and one in my mouth when Kade walked in.

  A bunch of the guys had helped me paint the employees’ lounge a light yellow on Saturday. It hadn’t taken long. Kade paid them extra, and I brought in pizza. There was a wall full of windows, so the room was now bright and cheerful.

  I had taken photos of all the employees and framed them with rough wood frames, in keeping with the woods we used. Rozlyn and Eudora helped me, and we hung them together on the wall. Around all the frames, I painted another huge, rustic-looking frame with room, top and bottom and to the sides, for new employees. I liked the photos. They weren’t formal. Some of the guys angled their faces close to the teeth of a huge saw, or sharp tool, as a joke. A few pulled on cowboy hats. One put on a bow tie.

  Rozlyn wore a pink, feathered boa and Eudora wore a wide-rimmed, black hat, pulled partially down to hide half her face, those gorgeous cheekbones an elegant slash. Kade was Kade . . . sexy, smiling.

  I bought a huge light, built from a wagon wheel, and hired Ernie to hang it from the ceiling. He muttered Shakespearean quotes as he worked.

  I bought yellow and white picnic tablecloths and put them over each table, and I stuck daisies into vases I bought for a dollar apiece at Goodwill and placed them in the center.

  On Sunday, and today, in between sales calls and e-mails, I painted Mt. Laurel, Brothers, and Ragged Top Mountain on the wall opposite the windows.

  Kade was at a meeting out of town all day, but I knew he would be in tomorrow. I was, once again, nervous about what he would think of my work. Everyone seemed to like it, and I hoped he would, too.

  When Kade walked in I about swallowed my paintbrush.

  “Good job, Artist Lady.”

  I said, “You like it?” around my paintbrush.

  He shook his head, admiringly. “Transformed again. From boring to perfect.” He looked up at the employee wall and laughed. “Gotta love Martin’s flamingo hat and Cory’s T-shirt that says, ‘I’m single.’ ”

  “Hoping for a wife.”

  “And Petey’s tuxedo jacket? That’s hilarious. And Angelo holding up two wooden spoons.”

  “I didn’t know he liked to cook.”

  “He’s good at it, too.”

  He turned and stared at the mountain mural. I was painting a sunrise behind the peaks.

  “Damn, Grenady. That’s . . . that’s . . . I don’t even know what to say. I’ve never seen a painting of mountains that looked so . . . real. It’s exactly what I stare out at every day.”

  “Now when you’re eating in here, you can still stare at ’em.” I grinned at him. He was pleased, so I was pleased. I climbed off the ladder. I knew I had blue and purple paint on my face, but I hadn’t expected him back.

  “I should make furniture that you can paint on,” he said.

  I laughed. But painting furniture had appeal. I loved the idea.

  “I don’t mean it as a joke, I’m serious. We could have a whole other line. The guys can build it, I’ll carve it to your design, and you paint it.”

  Not from a jail cell, I couldn’t. “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes. We could. We should.” He put his hands on his hips, smiling. “Want to?”

  Yes. But it wasn’t going to work. I would soon be locked up like a rat. “You’re serious?”

  “Absolutely. We’ll draw up a contract, split profits . . .”

  “I’ll think about it.” I was touched. Fighting back emotion.

  “And thanks for asking, Kade.”

  “I think you should think yes. Quit The Spirited Owl and let’s do it. Your oversized rocking chairs are selling faster than we can make them.”

  For a moment, I let myself dream. “If I did paint furniture, I think we should use bright colors. Fun designs. Whimsy, magical, even.”

  We both became more excited about the project as we talked.

  “I’m ordering Chinese food,” he said after a half hour.

  I was starving. “I could use a fortune cookie.”

  “I could use a dozen. And shrimp, noodles, chicken . . .” He wandered off. Never get between a man and his food.

  Maybe Kade and I would share one of those fortune cookies. We could chomp on the same one together until our lips touched and I leaped across the table like a horny banshee and tackled the poor man to the floor.

  I was prejail horny. That’s what it was. I went back to work. I had fifteen more minutes on the mural and it was done.

  I was done, too.

  “You’ve never talked about your family, Grenady. When I ask you, you sidestep, you dodge. Want to talk about them?”

  I don’t know why I opened up in Kade’s office that night over white boxes of Chinese food and fortune cookies. Maybe it was because I felt old with worry. Worried about Rozlyn and Cleo, worried about jail. Maybe it was because I liked him so well. Maybe it was because I needed to talk to someone who cared.
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  I kept it brief, as brief as I could, but I told him. Gave him the bare outline. Lost parents, probably dead. Foster care. The abuse with the Berlinskys, which I skimmed over, but he still became upset. Lots of foster homes. Living in cars. Running away. Homeless. Hospital trips. Scary and sad group homes. Dabbling in drugs, alcohol, and sex as a lost, lonely teenager. I told him about the love of the Hutchinsons and the Lees, my last foster care parents.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” I said. “What are you working on?”

  “No. Please. Go on.” He was shaken, I could tell.

  I stumbled, I mumbled. He prodded and held my hand. He wiped his eyes again.

  “I remember happy times with my parents. I had a memory of flying a red kite with my dad and mom, someone else was there, too, I can’t remember who, then I woke up in a hospital. My screaming woke me up.” I told him about the trucker, the police, the deep cut on my hairline that was bleeding profusely when I was found, my concussion, the search for my parents. “I don’t know where I’m from, Kade. I don’t know who I am, I don’t know my parents’ real names or if they had families. I don’t know what happened. I think they were probably killed. I felt their love, so I think it’s highly improbable that they abandoned me.”

  By the end he was holding his head in his hands. I tried to comfort the tough guy with the soft heart.

  It didn’t do much good, so I cried, too. I don’t like seeing people cry. “I’m sorry, Kade. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Grenady.” He stood up, walked around the table, pulled me up, and hugged me. I sank right into him, my scarred hands around his back, my scarred forehead against his shoulder. It was as if I’d hugged him a thousand times, as if we fit, as if we had our hugs down pat.

  That night I was too preoccupied with sweet Kade and his tears to sleep.

  He was upset about my childhood, and I had only told him about a tenth of it.