Memories in the Drift: A Novel

by Melissa Payne

  I’m speechless, trying and failing to put it all together. But from what she’s telling me, I gather that I decided to teach beginner guitar lessons, then maybe decided against it, but this girl fished the flyer out of the trash and is now standing in my apartment because she wants to learn how to play. It all feels very sudden but I remind myself that this feeling is peculiar to me alone. “Hold on a sec,” I say and head to my desk, frantic to find a folder labeled “Guitar Lessons,” because that would be something I would do, but, no, I find nothing. I bite my nail, trying to come up with a plan.

  “Ms. Claire?” the girl says.

  When I look up, I frown. “Yes?” Something about this girl is familiar, I think, at the same time that I don’t recognize her face.

  “You don’t have to teach me guitar right now. You were gonna put my hair up in a beehive ’cause that’s how Audrey Hepburn wore her hair, and I want to look just like her.”

  Hair. Now that’s something I can do. I swivel my chair around until we’re face-to-face. My mother was a hairdresser. She’d cut hair in the middle of our living room, and I would sit cross-legged on a kitchen chair, chin in my hands, watching. When I was older, I remember helping her with teenage girls’ hair for a school dance. We did buns and braids and swirly updos, and I was her hands because her own shook too much by then.

  She follows me to the small bathroom, the one that still has the military-issued cotton candy pink–tiled walls. I bring a kitchen stool and set it in front of the mirror for the girl, who quickly clambers up, still talking.

  “This is so great.” Her forehead wrinkles when she meets my eyes in the mirror. “Umm, I’m Maree, like Mary with a y but with two e’s ’cause I like it spelled that way, and I came up here so you can teach me guitar lessons, and then you said you could put my hair in a beehive.” She stops to catch her breath. “So that’s why we’re in your bathroom. Does that help with your lost memory?”

  “Yes, Maree, it does. Thank you.” Her earnestness is a balm to the unsettling way she brings up my memory, and while a part of me squirms with the implication of what she knows about me, the other part is charmed by her honesty and comfortable with her youthful exuberance. Smiling, I begin carefully sectioning the front of her hair, which is thick and soft, and as I work, the pink of her scalp shows through. From above her I can see the slope of her nose, which ends in an upturned nub. “Can you open the top drawer, Maree, and pull out the box of clips and bobby pins?”

  She plops the small plastic box on the counter, looks at me in the mirror. “Why do you have all these hair things when you have such short hair?”

  I begin to back-comb the hair at the crown of her head. “When I was little, my mom was a hairstylist. I guess I never got rid of her things after she left.” Thinking about her pushes at a door in my mind that swings open far too easily. I am eleven and sitting on a stool in our kitchen. Mom stands behind me, the snip of the scissors loud in the quiet of the kitchen. I wrinkle my nose from the musk of alcohol that surrounds her like a cloud. You look so much like him, Claire. My hair was long then, past my shoulders, thick and blonde. She swayed behind me; I could feel it in the movement of the air and the way she grabbed my shoulders to keep from stumbling to the side, swinging the scissors close to my head. Mom? She was never violent, but her moods were unpredictable: tears one minute, stone faced and silent the next. And then the loud snip by my ear, and a chunk of hair slid over my shoulder in long golden threads that scattered across the floor. Her cry echoes in my head. Oh shit, Claire; I’m so sorry. Oh no! I’m so sorry. She’d collapsed in a heap, slumped over, my hair grasped in her hands like wilted pick-up sticks. I’d scrambled off the stool and knelt beside her, rubbed her back, chewing at a fingernail, because I didn’t want her to disappear inside her room for days. It’s okay, Mom. I’ve always wanted short hair. Let’s just cut it all off, and I’ll look just like Dad.

  “Oh, my mom had to leave too.” A girl’s voice brings me back to my bathroom, a comb in one hand, her hair half-teased. I study the girl in the mirror. “Oh geez,” she says. “My name is Maree, and you are making my hair into a beehive.”

  I smile, let my mom slip away, stuffing the pain of her leaving back into its hole, where I try to keep it buried. “I haven’t forgotten you yet, Maree, but what did you say about your mom?” I start to pin the back of her hair, and her eyes light up when she sees the beginning of the hive.

  “I said my mom left too. Where did yours have to go?”

  My grip on the comb loosens, and I step away from the stool, study the girl, who stares at me, her face a mask I don’t understand. Ruth’s voice bounces around in my head. She’s sick, Claire. She can’t get better here, and she doesn’t want to keep hurting you. “Well, sweetheart, she was sick.”

  Her mouth drops open. “No way! So was my mom.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yep. A wolf bit her and gave her the America flu.”

  I nearly drop the comb. “The what?”

  Her eyes roll up to the ceiling as though she’s thinking hard. “Well, I can’t remember exactly, but she’s really brave and very strong, and she can’t be with me anymore ’cause she hunts wolves so I can be safe.”

  I raise my eyebrows, unsure of how to respond. The story is fantastical but surely laced with some kind of truth. I just don’t think it’s my business to ask.

  “My dad tells me a story about her every night before I go to bed. Her name is Uki.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone named Uki.”

  She slaps her thigh when she laughs. “But you can’t remember, so how would you know if you ever met her? You’re really funny.”

  I can’t help but smile. “Thanks.”

  I push a bobby pin into a section of her hair, not sure what to do with this information about her mom, but my heart squeezes for her because I wonder how close this tale is to my own. She’s just been given a better backstory.

  She strains her head to look at me over her shoulder, and with her hair pulled out of her eyes, I can see the arch of her thick eyebrows, the light-brown dusting of freckles across her nose and the tops of her cheeks, and I am splintered by a feeling that sends the comb clattering to the floor. I kneel to pick it up and try to squash the sudden desire I have to wrap her into my arms, kiss the very tip of her nose, and ask how school is going. Instead, I cross my arms, plagued by the thought that I could have been a mother today if I’d gone to the doctor when the headaches first started. But I didn’t and my baby died. I squeeze the comb in my hand and stand up, focus instead on finishing the beehive.

  “Are you okay?”

  I look up, nod. “I’m fine. Just been a long day.”

  She stares at me for a moment, then scratches her nose with the palm of her hand, studies her half-finished bun, and makes a face at herself in the mirror. “No offense, but I think I did better with YouTube.”

  The edges of my mouth curl into a smile, and I tap her lightly on the shoulder with the comb. “That’s because I’m not finished yet, smarty-pants.”

  She runs a hand across her brow. “Whew.” Her eyes brighten. “And my name’s Maree, like Mary with a y but with two e’s. Not Smarty-Pants. And you’re doing my hair into a beehive ’cause I suck at it.”

  I smile at her in the mirror. “Thank you, Maree. I think I’m all up to speed now.”

  Sometime later I watch Maree sling her backpack onto her shoulders, brown hair pulled into a smooth beehive that would have made my mother proud. I can hear her now. It’s perfect, Claire bear. Do you know how long it took me to learn the beehive? You’re just a natural at everything. I sniff, blink a few times.

  The girl pulls a crumpled piece of paper out of her backpack. “You want to teach guitar, and I want to learn. Here.” She pulls out a pencil, writes something on the back of the paper. “You have something about it in your notebook ’cause I saw you write it down when I showed you before.”

  I take the paper: it’s a flyer�
�mine, it looks like—about teaching guitar lessons. The little girl has scribbled her name, spelled M-a-r-e-e, and a short note in her childish scrawl: Dont forget! I want to be your guitar student.

  “Um.” I read the flyer again along with her note. My mother taught me to play. Some of my fondest memories with her include the times spent together hunched over our guitars in the middle of our living room. I was never very good. A fluttering of excitement builds in my chest at the idea. Teach this little girl, Maree, how to play the guitar. I hesitate even though I realize that I want to very much, because the real question is am I able to? Will my system hold up to a situation where someone else is depending on me to get things right? I can feel the impossibility of it in the tightness of my throat battling with the tingle in my fingers at the thought of teaching again in whatever capacity. And the guitar? All I remember about the guitar is what my mother taught me in her imperfect way all those years ago. Will it be enough?

  A thought makes my feet feel like they hardly touch the floor: I’m a teacher. It’s what I love. I’ll find a way to make it work.

  The girl has started to spin slowly in circles, hands out on either side like she’s trying not to tumble backward from the weight of her backpack. “Maree.” I read her name in my notebook, but saying it seems to surprise her, because she stops spinning so abruptly she nearly falls sideways.

  “You remembered my name?” she says.

  “Well, I think you might be a tough one to forget.”

  She nods seriously. “I am. My dad says so. And he also says that I’m a real handful.”

  I laugh quietly, filled with a sudden warmth that minimizes the sharpness of my fingernail pressing into my palm, reminding me to write this down.

  “So will you teach me guitar?”

  A buzz just under my skin. “Yes, I would like that very much.” Write it down, write it down—a mantra I repeat. Write it down. Write it down. “Well, I’d better go—”

  The girl gasps. “Oh yeah, you need to write it down. I see you write stuff down all the time, like even in the elevator. You’re always writing, and I think that’s because of your short memory.” Her words come out fast. I’m taken aback but also quite charmed. “You should do that now so you don’t forget and stuff.” When I don’t move right away, she sighs. “Oh, forget it.” She plops her backpack on the ground, fumbles around inside, pulls out a notebook and a purple colored pencil, checks the digital watch on her small wrist, and writes something down across the page. She tears it out of the notebook, shoves the paper into my hand, and with much effort, picks the backpack up and slides her arms into the straps.

  I read, You wil teech Maree guitar lesons on Monday at 5.

  “I choose Monday ’cause it’s at the beginning of the week, and it starts with an M and my name starts with an M, so that should be very helpful for you. And then I decided on five o’clock since I get really bored then ’cause it’s too early for dinner and too late to have more snacks.” She looks up at me, waiting. “So is that okay?”

  I grip the paper. I have absolutely no idea, but already I know that I’m not going to tell this little sprite no. That seems about as impossible a task as remembering our conversation. In fact, I find that I would very much like to see her again. “I’ll put it into my calendar, um . . .” I scan my notebook.

  “Maree,” she says. “I’m Maree, and you put my hair in this sweet beehive, and you’re also going to teach me guitar lessons on Monday.”

  I smile. I appreciate her specificity.

  With a flip of her beehive, she turns and walks toward the door but stops abruptly because she’s staring at a picture.

  I follow her eyes. It’s a picture of me standing outside the tunnel before I went to college the first time. It’s under a framed photo of me and Dad, one taken when I was quite young, with a salmon hanging in the air between us. She looks at me and then again at the picture. “You look the same,” she says.

  “Do I?” I run a hand through my hair, pull at the ends that are still short and blonde. “That wasn’t taken a long time ago, maybe five or . . .” I trail off and for a moment I’m swimming, my mind floating in a black void that turns the edges fuzzy. “That was—”

  “Ten years ago,” she says.

  My eyes narrow. “How did you know that?”

  She points to the lower right corner of the photo. Her nail is short, bitten down past the nail bed so that the skin is red, inflamed. “The date is right here.” She peers closer at another picture, this one of me on a sled attached to the back of Dad’s snow machine. I can’t be more than eight, and even though I can’t see his face, beside me is my best friend, Tate. I can tell from the too-big and frayed orange snowsuit he wears and the cracked goggles that cover half his face. His dad didn’t have a lot, but whatever he did have, he spent on alcohol and cigarettes. My skin tingles with memory: the sting of snow whipping across my face, my nose running from the cold, Tate behind me, screaming in my ear as we flew over the road. “Sledding behind the snow machine. It was my favorite thing to do in winter.”

  “It looks so fun,” she says.

  She looks at another picture, this one of Dad standing in front of BTI. I took it after he got the building manager position. “Who’s that?” she says. “He’s a big guy like you.”

  Her words warm me. It’s an accurate description of my dad, who is larger than life both in physical stature and in his presence. “That’s my dad, Vance Hines. He’s the building manager here.” I look down at her. “Do you know him?”

  Her glasses have fallen to the tip of her nose. She pushes them up with one finger, and I notice that her face has lost the cheerful exuberance from a moment ago.

  “We made flowers for him today at school, but I didn’t know he was your dad.”

  I press a hand to my chest, touched. “Wow, that’s so kind of you. I’m sure he’ll love them.”

  “Oh no, Ms. Claire.” Her eyes get wide and her bottom lip trembles, and when she speaks it’s hardly more than a whisper. “You don’t remember?”

  My body goes cold. Tears heat my eyes at the way she says it, with her eyes a brighter blue than before, her mouth twisted, and I don’t have to guess because on some level I already know.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I don’t want to know.

  Something writhes in my gut, threatens to cut me open. Sadness weighs upon my skin, and I have to lean against the wall or I’ll fall. I am overcome with the feeling that I have lost something I can’t ever get back.

  A small hand slides into mine, squeezes. Tears streak her small heart-shaped face. “You can come with me, Ms. Claire. Okay? I think Ms. Kiko is upstairs. I’ll take you to her. Okay, Ms. Claire?” Her voice is soft, the words lilting up at the end, as though she’s speaking to a small child. But I can’t feel the sweetness of it—not now, not when I’m afraid to speak. Afraid I’ll scream if I do. There’s a space inside me that’s not filled anymore. I can feel it even if my brain doesn’t let me see it. But I don’t want to see it, don’t want to acknowledge a loss this big. I’d rather forget.

  She leads me to the elevator and I stare at the lights as we rise up one floor; then I follow her down the hall to the community room. Inside are voices I know. Ruth, Sefina, Kiko. The girl murmurs something, but I can’t string her words together, not over the buzzing in my head.

  “I don’t understand,” I croak.

  She stops, turns to face me, her hand on the doorknob. “My name is Maree and you are Ms. Claire, and this is a thing for us to remember your dad.”

  I can’t breathe, can’t speak; I hold my stomach because I think I might throw up.

  She opens the door. “Ms. Kiko,” she calls into the room. “I think I did something really, really bad.” She hiccups over her tears. “I didn’t know.”

  Kiko, Ruth, and Sefina rush toward both of us. Maree quickly disappears inside Kiko’s hug, but I can still see the girl’s back shaking, and I feel a twinge for her sorrow too.

  The
room is empty of people, but it’s filled with rows of chairs, and at the front of the room stands an easel with an enlarged photo of Dad and me on the bank of our favorite fishing cove, a silver salmon hanging in the air between us. The picture is newer; I can tell because I look the same and Dad—I have to swallow a lump because Dad is not the age I remember him. He is older, his once blond hair a silvery gray, beard thick and fuller, longer than I ever remember it being, looking even more the mountain man he already is. The picture and easel are covered in paper flowers, big bright ones of all different sizes and colors, the kind that kids might have made in school as a craft activity.

  Ruth steps into my line of vision, and her face fills me with fear, because she’s doing something I’ve never, ever seen her do, not even when her husband disappeared through the tunnel and never came back.

  Ruth is crying.

  I must make a sound, because Ruth reaches out, grabs hold of my arms. “I’m so sorry, Claire.”

  I know what I’m seeing. Pictures, flowers, people crying. A memorial. The shifting ground scatters my thoughts, and I clutch at the doorframe, desperate to evoke a memory, no matter how faint, of Dad from today or yesterday or—

  A woman appears from behind me, and my chest hurts like I’ve been stabbed.

  Mom.

  She’s older, brown hair threaded with gray, skin forked in lines that span out from her eyes, down her cheeks. Heavy drinking will do that to a person—peel away all the good stuff, show the wear in their skin and eyes. Except her eyes look clear and still beautiful. Sober, perhaps. My heart hardens.

  He’s dead and she’s alive.

  I stumble backward, bump into something small, and hear a crunch. A young girl sprawls on the floor beside me, and her bottom lip trembles. Under my foot is a pair of black glasses, the frames broken in half.