Memories in the Drift: A Novel

by Melissa Payne

  I can’t s . . . s-tay here, Claire.

  I’d sat up so fast my vision blackened. What?

  His eyes stayed on the sky. My dad will never leave, you know that, r . . . r-ight?

  So? I’d said and drawn my knees up, wrapped my arms around my shins, suddenly cold, shivering. I’d had it all planned out. We’d go to college; I already knew I wanted to be a teacher by then, and Tate, well, Tate could do whatever he wanted. Grow pot and sell it for all I cared, as long as we were together. This is our home. My voice had pitched higher, and the last word came out as a whisper.

  He had an arm across his forehead, and it shaded his eyes so when he turned his head to look up at me, I couldn’t see what he was thinking. I’m n . . . n-ot strong like you, Claire.

  I’d almost laughed. You broke your dad’s nose last week, remember? He’d grown taller than his father. He didn’t even punch you back. I bet it’s because he’s scared of you now. I bet he knows you’re stronger than him. My mind scrambled for other examples. And that tourist? Remember the one who grabbed my ass two summers ago? He was like an adult, right? And you pushed him so hard he fell into that pile of reindeer poop. Now I was laughing.

  But Tate hadn’t raised his arm from his eyes, didn’t laugh with me. That’s not what I’m t . . . t-alking about.

  My voice had been small, nearly absorbed by the train going by. Then what are you talking about?

  The train passed and the silence that followed was too loud.

  When he finally spoke, his words were what I wanted to hear. F . . . f-orget I said anything, okay?

  And I did because I knew that Tate would never leave me. Ever. Until he did.

  “I saved the note he left me,” I say to Kate. He had left it taped to my apartment door. I’m sorry. I love you.

  “Why is that?” she says.

  “To remind me that I was better off.” His leaving felt like an earthquake, left the ground shaking under my feet, and at first I wasn’t sure if I could keep from falling. But I did and somehow I was stronger, more motivated than ever. I quit smoking, stopped acting like a spoiled kid, and decided I could have any future I wanted because I was the one in control of it. My hands trace a circle in my notebook, and I look up, my mind holding on to the image of Tate, unsure of how or why it’s there. “Um, oh, sorry . . .” I busy myself with my notes, desperately searching for a conversation thread that I can make sense of.

  Kate clears her throat. “Last time, you brought up the fight you had with your dad when you were pregnant. Did you want to talk about that today?”

  My hands go limp in my lap. “Oh, well, okay.” I bite my lip, can see the sad squint of my father’s eyes when he looked at me, the grip of his hands around my journal. “He shouldn’t have read it,” I say. “But I know why he did.”

  “And why was that?”

  “He was worried about me.” I look down. “I’d been having dreams about becoming just like her.”

  “Like your mother?”

  I shoot her a look. “Of course. But I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted to be a mother until I saw those two pink lines. I was scared because nothing about it was ideal. No father to help, about to start my first job out of college. Of course I was having nightmares, you know?”

  She nods. “But your dad was worried?”

  I fiddle with the pages of my notebook because I don’t need my notes for this moment. It’s branded in my head. And surely I’ve spoken of this with Kate. Probably a dozen times.

  She seems to anticipate my question. “This is something you are still working through, Claire. But, if it helps, each time you seem to gain perspective.”

  I nod and write that bit down because it does help to hear that, even if I’m not sure how it affects me when I can’t remember it, but knowing that in this moment, it feels good to talk about it, nice to have someone listen even if it doesn’t change the past.

  “Why did he read your journal?”

  I sigh. “I’d told him the baby’s dad was this egocentric grad student who didn’t want to tie his boat to a girl from Whittier.”

  “But he was worried,” Kate says.

  “Yes, very. I can’t blame him. I was twenty-six and about to have a baby on my own. It was scary.” The pain from that night is vivid and bright. I’d woken up with a headache, and it didn’t matter anymore what he’d read in my journal because the pain was so bad I couldn’t see. I’d fumbled for the phone. He was there in minutes. “He picked me up and carried me to his car.” I look at her with my hands spread out on either side of me. “Can you even picture that? I’m six foot and I was nearly nine months pregnant. It would have been like picking up a small truck.” I remember lying across the back seat, the tunnel lights flying by, and thinking Dad was driving too fast and it was too late to be in the tunnel and—“Nothing.”

  Kate leans forward. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t remember what happened after that, except what everyone has told me. But I do remember one thought.”

  Kate nods and I deflate because she’s heard this, of course, probably more times than she can count.

  I carry on regardless. “That I was going to lose the baby.” I remember cradling my stomach and the fear that crawled over my skin, the tears spreading down my cheeks.

  Kate nods again, prodding me to continue. It’s annoying, like having my hand held by a teacher. I don’t remember being an overly emotional person from before, but now my skin spreads thin, my emotions delicate butterflies that easily whip themselves into a frenzy.

  “Dad was right to be scared for me.” I shake my notebook in the air. “But it’s all for the best anyway. What kind of a mother would I have made like this?” Tears sting my eyes, curl my hands into fists that I pound on my thighs. I remember with painful clarity the itchy stretch of skin, taut over my rounded belly. The fullness of my breasts, the rib kicks that woke me every morning. Even now, there is a hollowness inside me that grows when my hand involuntarily moves to touch my stomach, flat and deflated. I inhale, exhale, and read from my notebook to remind myself that ten years ago, I had a seizure when I was pregnant that left me with anterograde amnesia and took my baby girl.

  Tears run down my face, the pain I feel as real, as present as if it had just happened. Kate hands me a tissue and waits until my face is dry. “You had eclampsia, Claire. There was nothing you could have done, and you’re lucky to be alive.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes. And for the record, I think you would have been a wonderful mother, even like this.”

  I meet her gaze, strong and unwavering, and I can see that she means what she says. I give her a small smile, grateful for the sentiment. “Not very professional of you, though. Seems like you’ve gone off script, Kate.”

  Kate laughs, leans back in her chair. “I’m always off script when it comes to you.”

  Before the moment disappears into the muck inside my head, I record the last few minutes, even my tears. Then I pick up the file folder labeled THERAPIST SESSION CURRENT, and air rushes from my lungs in a relieved whoosh at the organized thoughts and talking points I’ve assembled in the file. There’s a line from my notebook that I’d copied into the file: I wish I could teach again. It’s the reason I think I feel sad. A piece of paper drops from the file, and when I see it, my lips flatten. It’s a flyer with a sticky note on top. Give guitar lessons?? I look at the flyer.

  INTERESTED IN BEGINNER GUITAR LESSONS?

  CONTACT CLAIRE HINES, APARTMENT 1407

  “What’s that?”

  I hold it out to Kate. “Apparently I want to give guitar lessons.” I drop my eyes to my notebook, embarrassed by the idea. What in the world put that into my head? How can I teach when I can’t recall what I had for breakfast? I run the tip of my pen over a line, keep tracing it until the line is thick and black and imprinted onto the page below it.

  “Does that upset you?” When I look up I find her looking at the angry line in my notebook, eyebrows raised. “This is a n
ew idea.” There’s excitement in her voice.

  I put a hand to my chest and say jokingly, “My God, Kate, have we actually reached new territory?”

  She laughs. “Always the funny one, but yes, you haven’t tried something like this before, and I think it would be fun for you.” Her forehead wrinkles. “When did you learn?”

  “My mom taught me when I was a little girl. Well, she was teaching herself and wanted me to learn, so . . .” I blow air into my cheeks, try to hold on to an attitude of I’m too old to be hurt by memories of my mother but find it difficult when this particular memory is spiced with warmth and sweetened by chocolate. We’ll learn together, Claire bear. I was six, in the years when she read me a story every night, snuggled beside me on my small bed, my head resting in the crook of her arm. The years when her laugh was clear and free and I was enough to keep her nightmares at bay.

  I start to tear at the page. “It was stupid of me to think this was possible. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  Mom’s voice fills my head: It says here to start with these eight chords. She’d read from a booklet she’d found at a used bookstore in Anchorage, the one that said BEGINNER GUITAR in white block letters across the front. I sat beside her on the couch, our legs touching, my feet swinging above the floor, and she looked at me with a smile that touched the blue green of her eyes.

  I close the notebook. “Not possible.”

  Kate tilts her head. “You’re allowed to have dreams, Claire,” she says softly, and points to my notebook. “Look at what you’ve done already with your notes and calendars. It’s remarkable and truly impressive how you’ve taught yourself to remember in this way. But maybe this would give you something more.”

  I stiffen. “More than what?”

  “More than just trying to remember,” she says softly. “An experience that you would enjoy.”

  “An experience?” I say, rolling my shoulders, suddenly annoyed. “Only if I can keep my notes organized enough so I can read about it later.” I shake my head. How could I do something like this without messing up? Without exposing the real me? I feel the blood pulsing under my skin. “Yeah, that seems like a pretty stupid idea.”

  There’s a long silence, and then Kate shifts in her seat, closes her file folder, and crosses her legs at the ankles. “But how will you know if you don’t try it?”

  I give her a look. “I can’t remember a damn thing, Kate. How will I know either way?” My words come out biting, rude, and I suck in my bottom lip, ashamed. Kate’s only trying to help.

  She shrugs, seems unfazed. “True, true. But still.”

  I read once more—I wish I could teach again—and straighten up in my chair. A tingling sensation fingers into the muscles of my back. Maybe she has a point. I pull a black felt-tip pen from my bag, underline the sentence, flip forward, and jot it under today’s date. Then I pull out my folder labeled “THERAPIST SESSION CURRENT,” record I wish I could teach again, followed by, teach guitar? But when I read it over, my pen freezes above the page and I have to fight the urge to rip the paper out. What makes me think I could ever do something like this? It’s an impossible dream. I cross it out once, then twice more. I’m not the kind of person who can dream.

  My phone dings and I glance at the screen. Session is over. Drive home to Whittier. Text Ruth that you’re leaving and will make 1:30 tunnel. “Time’s up,” I say. I open my text messages and send a quick message to Ruth before sliding my notebook and file folder into my bag. The one-lane tunnel switches directions every fifteen minutes, which isn’t too bad unless a train comes through, and that will have me waiting longer than normal. When I stand I sling the strap over my head, letting it rest across my shoulder. “Thanks, Kate. I think this was a good session today.”

  She smiles, stands. “I agree.”

  My car idles at the signal outside the tunnel. A vehicle is allowed in every fifteen seconds, so I watch as the taillights of the sedan ahead of me glow red in the dark tunnel, wait for the signal to turn green. My voice floats from the car speakers, giving me a repeating loop of instructions: You are driving home to Whittier from Anchorage after seeing Therapist Kate. You are driving home to Whittier from Anchorage after seeing Therapist Kate.

  It might seem impossible that someone like me could ever drive again. I know Ruth thought it was. Something I don’t have to remember because I simply know her well enough to guess the worried slant of her eyes, the thin line of her lips. I’m sure my driving worries her, but for me it’s the most normal thing I do. To keep from getting lost or confused, I stick to dependable routes, like the one from Whittier to Anchorage and back again, which I had traveled often before. But just in case, I play the audio file for each trip so that I don’t forget and accidentally end up in Seward.

  The signal turns green, and I accelerate into the tunnel, letting the rocky mouth swallow me whole. Overhead lights blink past in a familiar rhythm. The walls are rough with blasted rock hewn into a narrow but tall interior. I was a teenager when the tunnel opened up to cars. Before then the only way we could get into or out of Whittier was by train, plane, or boat. Dad always said the tunnel came too late for Mom. But I know that nothing would have made her stay.

  My hands grip the wheel until the flesh over my knuckles whitens. I don’t remember much after my headache overwhelmed me, but I can recall Dad’s truck sailing through this narrow tube, the red swaths of light that painted the walls and his face, worry lines deeply embedded into his forehead. It’s okay, you’re going to be okay, Claire bear, it’s all going to be okay.

  Ahead is a small semicircle of light that brightens and grows with each rotation of my tires. And just like that, the tunnel spits me out and I emerge on the other side of the mountain. Muddled light sifts through bottom-heavy clouds, clinging to the tops of mountains and brushing over gray water. I don’t look in the rearview mirror at the yawning black hole behind me, don’t want to think any more about the tunnel that stole my memory and squirreled it away into its dark, damp, and unreachable recesses.

  When the road opens into Whittier, a heaviness lifts from my chest and my breathing flows unhindered. The entire town encompasses something like twelve square miles. A small U-shaped plot of land bounded on one side by the deep waters of the Passage Canal. Begich Towers sits toward the backside of town, a blocky, yellow monolith that is at odds with the wild Alaskan landscape surrounding it.

  I breathe out a smile. I don’t care what it looks like. It’s my home.

  But as I turn down Glacier Avenue, my voice still looping from the speakers, perhaps unnecessarily by now—you are driving home to Whittier from Anchorage after seeing Therapist Kate—a big black body, its thick fur glistening wet, lopes across the road in front of me. Heart pounding, I slam on the brakes; Ruth’s ancient Jeep is no match for a bear. Instead of running off, the bear stops and turns its huge round head toward me. It’s a big bear, easily the biggest one I’ve ever seen here, but when he looks my way, I don’t feel scared. Instead, I’m back in the lobby of BTI, seven years old and standing behind a man who can take on a bear, probably a wolf if he had to—anything to protect me. The bear turns and runs down the road, his rounded backside quickly retreating, then disappearing into the park.

  A smile stretches the corners of my mouth, and when I park the Jeep at BTI, I write down about the bear I saw and how it reminded me of Dad.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When I get back—from my visit with Therapist Kate, my notes remind me—I sit down at my desk to review what we talked about. I see the flyer I made about guitar lessons and the jagged lines that cross the idea out in my notes, along with a note that says, Impossible. I nod, agreeing with myself, yet I hesitate when I start to throw the flyer into the recycling bin, feel a pang at the thought of letting this idea slip away. Instead, I toss it into the wire basket on my desk, but when I do I notice a newspaper clipping crumpled underneath.

  I lay it flat on the table, turn on my desk lamp to see it better because the rain
clouds have gathered in a thick gray mass outside my window. It’s dated February of last year with a short article highlighted in yellow.

  The body of William Dunn, 60, of Whittier, Alaska, was discovered by a local couple snowshoeing Shotgun Cove Road. Authorities believe that he lost his way home early Tuesday morning and fell into a snowbank. Foul play is not suspected.

  In shock, I let the article fall back to the desk. Tate’s father is dead. A flicker of sadness passes through me at the idea of anyone dying, but when it comes to Bill Dunn, my heart is hardened winter earth, and the news of his death a blunt spade.

  The very first time I saw Bill was outside BTI. He was standing beside a dented and rusted pickup truck, setting a case of beer into the waiting arms of seven-year-old Tate. There were few kids in our town, so I’d tried to make friends with the new boy, but he hardly looked up from his shoes, leaving school as soon as it was over, sometimes not even showing up for days. I was curious about the boy who still hadn’t spoken to me since moving to Whittier a few months before, and I’d followed him outside, hoping he’d want to make a snow fort with me.

  His father’s voice shot across the parking lot, and I’d hesitated by the door, unsure. Bill Dunn was not a tall man like my own dad, but he was an angry one, and I remember how it shot off him like porcupine quills, sharp and needlelike and mostly directed at his small, stuttering dark-haired son. Tate wore a T-shirt, and his skinny arms had trembled with the weight and the cold, tightening around the case of beer that was slipping from his grip. When his father set a pair of work boots on top, the box fell from his arms, and Tate cried out. It thumped to the ground, breaking a bottle, which stained the snow at his feet a dark brown.

  Goddamn you, Tate!

  Tate’s whole body shook with the effort to respond. S . . . s . . . s . . . s—

  It was all he could get out, and I remember how my eyes burned from his struggle. Then his father did something that made my seven-year-old self so angry I pounded my small fists into the metal stair railing. My hands hurt for days afterward.