Memories in the Drift: A Novel

by Melissa Payne

  I follow, wiping at my face, and shake my head. From the looks of it, it’s a flyer. One I must have made, but the knowledge of why or when is barren land inside my head.

  INTERESTED IN BEGINNER GUITAR LESSONS?

  CONTACT CLAIRE HINES, APARTMENT 1407

  My mother is nodding, her eyes shining. “Oh, Claire. This is a wonderful idea! Do you remember how we learned together?”

  Of course I do, but it’s tainted by my confusion and a flaring anger that this woman standing inside my apartment, who looks and sounds like my mother, is not the woman I know. My hands clench and I shift my weight, suddenly uncomfortable. “Leave, please.”

  Disappointment flickers in her eyes, but then she nods and hurries to the door, touching my arm when she passes. In the hallway she hesitates, gives me a long look. “I’m different, I promise. And I’m not leaving you ever again.”

  When the door clicks behind her, I fall into my desk chair, hands open on my lap. The smell from the plate keeps me focused. I lift an edge of the foil. Bear claws. They are Dad’s favorite; mine too. Warmth spreads through me at the sentiment and the gift. It’s something she was known for before her life imploded, even for a little bit while the seams were coming apart: reaching out to others with her homemade treats, visiting and listening when people needed it. She’d often bring me along on those trips, and I’d sit and listen to the adults talk while she’d scratch my back or run her hand through my hair. I remember one particular winter when much of the town had come down with the flu. It had hit nearly every family, and most of the building was on a self-imposed quarantine. Ruth’s husband had just left her. Gone through the tunnel with a woman from the second floor and never came back. The whole town knew about it. They’d lived in Whittier for only a couple of years, coming, like my own father had, to work in the fishing industry but staying for the impossibly low cost of living.

  I remember the day so clearly because it was the first time that Tate had spoken to me without stuttering. It wasn’t anything special; he’d just leaned over during school and whispered, Can you pass me the purple crayon? To me it was magical and made me feel important to him. I’d run home after school to tell Mom and found her in the kitchen, flour dusting her cheeks.

  What are you doing? I’d asked.

  She’d turned and knelt down, and her breath smelled of yeast and cinnamon, not harshened by the sting of alcohol and mint. Poor Ruth has the flu, and on top of that, she’s alone and her heart hurts because it’s been broken in two. She needs a friend. Would you like to come along and help me cheer her up?

  I’d nodded and Mom had touched the dimple on my chin with the pad of her finger, smiled, and handed me a tray of cinnamon-and-raisin scones. You have the kindest heart, Claire bear.

  My phone buzzes and I shake my head to clear it, record as much as I can about her stopping by with the bear claws before biting into one. It’s an explosion of buttery cinnamon goodness, finished perfectly with a strong cup of coffee. I eat the pastry in a few bites, smile.

  It was nice of her to bake these for me.

  I hurry outside, walking through the dirt parking lot and to the back of BTI, where the school sits. Behind the building, water rushes through worn mountain rock and into the river below. My phone buzzes with a reminder to head to Kiko’s classroom, and I get there just as the third and fourth graders are choosing their quiet activity centers. There are only about sixty kids in the entire school, so the grades are often blended, depending on what works best for the students. It’s a close-knit school, and the kids know each other and their teachers well.

  Kiko smiles when I enter; her eyes nearly disappear into her cheeks when she does, and it is comforting and familiar, reminding me of what it felt like to be her student. She was one of the reasons I wanted to be a teacher here.

  “Good morning, Ms. Claire,” she says.

  The kids repeat, “Good morning, Ms. Claire!” in voices that are high and sweet, with one or two that sound bored and sleepy. I smile and wave and settle into a giant orange beanbag chair. There’s a sign taped to the bookshelf above the chair that reads MS. CLAIRE’S READING CORNER, which makes it a snap to guess that this is the area where I belong.

  “Now, who would like to work with Ms. Claire today?”

  Half the class raises their hands, one girl in particular trying to raise hers so high I think her arm might come out of its socket. She wears cat-eye glasses that are too big for her face, and her brown hair is tied into a ponytail so high it seems to sprout from the top of her head. Bobby pins poke out from where she’s tried to pin down the ends of her ponytail in an effort to create what I can only assume is a bun. I cough to cover a laugh.

  “Oooohhh, Ms. Kiko, please!” the girl says. “I wrote a story, and I want to read it to her. Ooooh, ooooh, please pick me, please!”

  Anticipation bubbles up. This is what I loved about teaching: kids and their exuberance for even the smallest things, like reading to a memory-addled ex-teacher.

  Kiko raises her eyebrows, purses her lips, and waits. The girl lowers her hand and hangs her head between her shoulders. “Oh, yeah, sorry. I’m not supposed to yell out like that. I forgot and stuff, so—oops, sorry, Ms. Kiko.”

  “Thank you, Maree. And yes, you may read to Ms. Claire today. I know how hard you worked on your story yesterday. After you, Izzie and then Leonora. Okay, class, you have fifteen minutes at your first station.”

  The girl, Maree, hops to her feet and skips over, a small paper book held together by pink and green staples clasped in her hand. She throws herself into a smaller beanbag chair by my side, sliding her glasses up as she makes a big show of settling herself into the bag until her legs stick out in front of her. She points to her ankles. “Look! I have yellow socks on ’cause it’s Tuesday!”

  I can only assume that I have told her about my sock system, so I smile and nod, pull up my pant leg to show her my own yellow socks. “That’s right!”

  “Yeah, I decided to do that, too, ’cause I think it’s so smart, and now I always know what day it is unless I forget what the color means, which happens kinda a lot, so I wrote it down in a little notebook. I’m just like you now!”

  “That’s so great, um . . .” Her name doesn’t come to mind, so I say, “Kiddo!”

  She frowns when she tilts her head. “My name is Maree, like Mary with a y but with two e’s ’cause I love Anne of Green Gables, and she spells her name with an e. I’m writing a book, and it’s all about the adventures of my mom, and that’s also the title, see?” She holds out the cover, which reads the advntrs of Uki, my mom who is rely brav.

  I lean forward, hands clasped in my lap. “I’m excited to hear all about your mom.”

  She gives me a look over her glasses, which have fallen to the tip of her nose. “This is just one story. I have loads more. Do you want to hear all of them?”

  “I’d love that, but let’s start with this one today, okay?” The girl is cute and precocious, and I wonder how many times we’ve worked together, because she seems very comfortable with me.

  She spreads her book out on her thighs, and I can see that she has colored illustrations in crayon on the page opposite her text. Her glasses fall off her face, and she sighs dramatically and sets them on her lap. “Once upon a time, there was a really brave girl named Uki, and she was an epic hunter who could feed her entire village.” She holds up her book and shows me a drawing in brown crayon of a girl—I know because of the triangle skirt she wears on her mostly stick-figure body—holding a pink bow, an arrow cocked and ready. Behind the figure are tall mountains drawn in upside-down v’s and colored green. The girl turns the page. “One day, Uki found a boy who was locked in a cave with no food and no water. He was so hungry, and it made her so mad that she screamed into the mountains and brought down an avalanche, and then she made a fire and melted the snow into water. Then she ran out into the forest and brought home some vegetables and hamburger meat and Pop-Tarts and probably some candy and gave them all to
the boy, who was never, ever hungry again.” She shows me the picture on this page; this one has a drawing of a cow—I’m guessing from the udders, which are drawn with meticulous care—and a box of what I think might be Pop-Tarts, surrounded by multicolored lollipops. She turns the page, and this drawing is simple. A big red heart, colored pink on the inside. “And the boy loved her from that day on.” She closes the book, puts her glasses back on, and smiles up at me. “Do you like it?”

  I nod, amused by her imagination. “I do, very much. You’re a good writer, and your mom sounds like a very brave woman.” I hesitate, wondering if I’ve met her mother before, and decide to ask, “Do I know her?”

  She puts one hand on her hip and gives me a look. Annoyance? Pity? It’s hard to tell behind her cat-eye glasses, which cover half her face.

  Kiko claps her hands. “Okay, kids, time to move to your next station.”

  The girl puts her small hand on my shoulder and pats me. “I’m sorry about all of your lost memories and stuff. I think that really sucks. My name is Maree, like Mary with a y but with two e’s instead ’cause of Anne of Green Gables. Maybe you’ll remember me next time.”

  The girl skips away, leaving me staring after her, wordless. I’m suddenly overheated and scratching the skin of my arms, hating this moment when the curtain is lifted enough for me to see that I’m nowhere near normal. So I write and write and write as much as I can to try and remember our interaction until another girl settles herself on the beanbag chair beside me.

  When the bell rings for the end of school, I make sure my notes are complete, then stand and stretch—the beanbag is not the most comfortable chair for someone my height. I check my phone for my next steps before collecting my things. I give Kiko a wave. “See you later.”

  She smiles and says in a voice laden with something I don’t understand, “See you tonight, Claire.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Back inside the lobby of BTI, I am met with the murmurs and excited voices from the schoolkids who hang out there after school. The sounds relax me. Kids have that effect on me, despite the fact that they are unpredictable and changing. They quiet as soon as they see me, and I try to suppress a grin. There’s a long-standing difference of opinion about allowing the kids to hang out in the lobby. I’ve always been of the opinion that if they behave respectfully, let them. It’s bright and busy with people coming in and out—probably the most action these kids see in our town, especially during the winter months. “Carry on,” I say. “It doesn’t bother me that you’re here. Just pick up any trash before you leave.”

  I’ve just turned to walk toward the elevator when a sign on the community board in the lobby stops me. A REMINDER! FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, PLEASE USE THE TUNNEL TO GET TO SCHOOL. Huh. We had a sign like this for a brief period when I was a kid, but that was right after the bear broke into BTI.

  “It’s because of some bear that’s hanging around.” A boy’s voice. I turn to see him staring at me from under his brimmed winter hat.

  “I don’t get why someone doesn’t just shoot him.” A teenage girl, her blonde hair shaved into a long Mohawk on top. “That’s what my dad says, anyway.”

  The boy gives her a look. “’Cause he hasn’t hurt anybody, Tasha. He’s just hanging around looking for food.”

  I nod. “We had a bear like that when I was a student here. He went away eventually, and nobody ever got hurt.” I tap the sign. “But it’s good to use the school tunnel while he’s around; best not to give the bears any ideas before they hibernate.”

  The girl giggles behind her hand, and the boy nods. I stand there, suddenly unsure of where to turn.

  The boy pipes up. “On your way to the market, Ms. H.?”

  “Yes, that’s right, I am,” I answer, and work my jaw, trying to place his face. His eyes are a soft brown, kind, the tips of his fingers stained with color, and a camo backpack is splayed open at his feet, where I spy a folder labeled Algebra in black Sharpie. Something I can work with. “Have you mastered linear equations yet?”

  Giggles from the girl again.

  “Shut up, Tasha,” he hisses, then turns back to me. “Nah, Ms. H., we’ve moved on to quadratic equations.”

  “Ms. H.,” says the girl, Tasha, “you said the exact same thing yesterday and the day before that—”

  “Shut up, Tasha,” says the boy. “She’s new here; sorry, Ms. H.”

  I can see that the boy is trying to help me, but with his giggling sidekick, the effect is that of a spotlight. The idea that I do something over and over and that these kids have watched me makes my skin crawl and reminds me that everything I do to live a normal life is an absolute farce. I scratch at the back of my neck, completely lost in the useless matter inside my brain, but I try to ignore the girl, focus on the black staining the tips of the boy’s fingers, the side of his hand. An artist. I take another leap. “How’s the art coming?”

  His eyebrows arch up with his wide smile, and he leans over and pulls a black notebook from behind the Algebra folder. Holding the notebook open in front of him, he steps toward me. One page is covered in tiny geometric shapes in varying shades of pencil gray that combine to form a larger pattern. “Kinda like M. C. Escher,” I say, trying to let my eyes cross in case the kid has created a picture within a picture.

  “Huh?” he says.

  On the opposite page is another pencil drawing of a dragon, but even in gray shades it’s a beautifully detailed picture, with dark eyes that stare at me from above a long scaled snout. “You’re really good.”

  “Thanks, Ms. H.!” He closes the notebook and slides it into his backpack.

  Another flyer tacked to the board grabs my attention, and when I see it, my back muscles stiffen.

  INTERESTED IN BEGINNER GUITAR LESSONS?

  CONTACT CLAIRE HINES, APARTMENT 1407

  I’m squinting, reading it over and over. It’s my name and apartment number, but I couldn’t have put this here. Could I? I open my notebook, flipping through the pages, finding nothing. My face hardens with the idea that what I can’t remember is separated by such a thin veneer. “Who put this here?”

  I don’t realize I’ve spoken out loud until a boy beside me says, “The woman who bakes all the time.”

  Standing beside him is a girl whose mouth hangs open. She closes it enough to say, “Yeah, isn’t that your mom?”

  My feet root to the floor. My mother? I want to flip through my notebook, figure out why there is a flyer for guitar lessons with me, why this girl is talking about my mother, but I am numbed by too much information to do anything more than stand in place.

  “I think it’d be cool to take guitar lessons,” says the girl with the blonde Mohawk. She reaches up and tears off a small sliver of paper that has my name and number on it, then looks at me, eyes narrowed. “But you can’t remember Anthony, and he talks to you every day.” Her head moves to indicate the boy beside her. “Can you actually teach guitar?”

  I’m speechless, face hot with embarrassment, confusion, and a strong desire to leave. I tear the flyer from the board, crumple it up, and throw it into the trash can by the front door. “No, I can’t teach ever again.” A buzz from my phone.

  “On your way to the market, Ms. H.?” The boy shoves his hands deep into his pockets, gives me a small smile that I think looks sheepish, maybe embarrassed. For me? I wonder, but not for long, because he’s right. My phone buzzes. Market: tomato soup, canned peas, pasta, and spaghetti sauce.

  “Bye, kids.”

  “Um, Ms. H.?” The boy shifts his weight, looks unsure of himself.

  “Yes?”

  “My mom and I will be there tonight.”

  With a town as small and contained as Whittier, we have quite a few community events, everything from movie to craft to trivia nights. So despite the fact that I have no idea what he’s talking about, I nod and smile because chances are it’s an event I usually attend. “Great. See you then.” I turn from the kids, grateful to let the interaction melt away.

&nb
sp; A bell chimes when I enter the tiny minimarket, which is hardly bigger than my kitchen and living room. Hank sits on a stool behind the counter, reading a National Enquirer. He worked for the oil industry for years before retiring to Whittier to live out the rest of his days fishing whenever he—and I quote—“goddamn wanted to.” He bought the market when I was in high school because he said he needed a distraction during the long winters here, when fishing was at a minimum.

  “Bigfoot again?” I say, putting a can of tomato soup in a small shopping bag.

  He folds the paper down, looks at me over the tops of his reading glasses. “Apparently he showed up at a baby shower in Juno.”

  I shake my head. “Big guy must have run out of diapers.”

  Hank barks a laugh. “Good to see you, Claire.”

  “You, too, Hank. How’s business?”

  “Oh, it’s all right.” He chews the inside of his cheek. “What’re you needing today?”

  “Just the usual.” I grab pasta and a jar of spaghetti sauce, and when I put the items on the counter, I spy a 3 Musketeers bar under the counter. It’s in my hands and on top of the pasta before I can tell myself no. I might be the only human in Alaska and the lower forty-eight who appreciates the nougat-only candy bar, so when Hank brings them back from Anchorage, I can’t refuse. “And one of these.”

  Hank smiles, and when he does, it gives him a twinkle in his blue eyes. With his white hair and a bushy beard that brushes the top of his chest, Hank could be Santa. The little kids in town have always thought so. He counts out my change, drops the coins into my open hand, and his big palm lingers. I can feel the heat of his skin. “Listen, Claire. You’ve overcome so much already, but I think you’re capable of whatever you set your mind to.” His gaze doesn’t break from mine.

  “Well, thank you, Hank; that’s really nice of you to say.”

  “Are you doing okay?” He raises his eyebrows. “With everything? Are you remembering?” He shifts his weight and the movement makes him look uncomfortable, which is far from the man I know, who once stood shoulder to shoulder with my dad, sheltering Tate against his own father.