Forgotten

by Catherine McKenzie

“Don’t worry about it. You know Mom likes giving the most.”

  I nod at the truth of that, but I feel bad anyway. And then I notice something that makes my heart skip a beat: the row of bulging stockings contains one with my name on it, and also one with my mother’s. If I weren’t already sitting, I’d need to sit down.

  These stockings are not new. They date from my childhood, when Stephanie and I treated each other’s houses as extensions of our own. Somewhere along the line, we started getting invited to Christmas, and for Lucy that meant including us completely, right down to having our own stockings and innumerable presents under the tree. We didn’t have the money to reciprocate fully, and I know my mother sometimes felt awkward and embarrassed, but Lucy and Brian never mentioned it. Maybe it was because of this, or maybe that’s just the way of things established in childhood, but the tradition waned as we grew older, my mother and I (and sometimes Sunshine) forming our own, quieter unit.

  But we were here last year, something I’ve been blocking out since Stephanie insisted I join her. Lucy knew my mother was sick and wanted to spare her the effort of cooking a Christmas meal. I wasn’t sure whether she really wanted to come because she greeted the invitation with less than her usual enthusiasm, but when I asked her, she brushed the idea of not going aside. It would be fun, she said, to get the old gang back together. Neither of us said that it might be the last time.

  My mother was frail and thin, and her hair was starting to become wispy, like a baby’s, but we were still hopeful then that the chemo would work. At least I was. Maybe she’d already accepted that it wasn’t going to, but she kept that to herself. Everyone at the Grangers’ acted normally, like it was just another Christmas, just another gift exchange. I gave my mother an African tribal mask to add to her collection. She was delighted and I shared in her enthusiasm. And maybe this planted the seed that led to my trip. Or maybe she’d been planning it for a while; she left it so I couldn’t ask.

  Lucy catches me staring at the stocking. “I hope you don’t mind, dear, but I thought it would be nice to put Elizabeth’s stocking out too. So she’s here with us, in a way.”

  I feel like I might burst into tears, but I force myself to say, “Of course. Thank you.”

  Stephanie squeezes my arm and hands me a Kleenex. I blow my nose, muttering something about allergies, but nobody’s fooled. Sadness seems to radiate from me, dampening the Perry Como Christmas tracks, forcing down the level in Brian’s eggnog glass. I feel like the antithesis of Christmas and am about to suggest leaving when Stephanie’s brother, Kevin, shows up.

  Two years older than me, Kevin was my first hopeless crush. Quietly gay—he came out the summer after graduation, to the surprise of many—he always seemed to me to be the perfect older brother. Tolerant when Stephanie and I hung around him, dryly funny and helpful in obtaining party supplies if we asked him nicely and promised to call him if the party got too wild.

  No one in the Granger family is tall, and Kevin’s no exception. About my height, with dark blond hair, his best feature is his dark blue eyes.

  He kisses his mother perfunctorily on the cheek, shakes hands with his father, and ruffles the top of Stephanie’s head, chiding her for not calling him the minute she got back. And then he lifts me up from the couch into a tight hug and says, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Well, this must fucking suck.”

  “You have no idea,” I murmur into his chest.

  “We all wish Elizabeth was here, you know. It’s not the same without her.”

  “No.” It isn’t. It isn’t the same without her at all.

  “At least there’s plenty of alcohol,” he says.

  I smile through my tears as Kevin releases me and heads to the bar stand in the corner of the room. He mixes three strong vodka tonics and hands them to Stephanie and me like he’s a doctor dispensing medicine.

  “Drink up, girls. It’s Christmas, after all.”

  I wake up early the next morning in Stephanie’s room nursing a turkey hangover. Steph is wheezing gently across the room in her childhood bed, the twin of mine. The beds are still covered in the matching pink flowered covers she chose when she was twelve. I hear her early-rising parents shuffling around downstairs, shushing each other and talking about letting “the kids” sleep in. I’d like that, but all I can think about is my own childhood house, a block away, sitting cold and abandoned, the furniture covered in dust sheets.

  I rise as quietly as I can and take my clothes to the bathroom to dress. Then I creep down the stairs, bypassing the kitchen for the front entrance. I suit up and slip out into a gentle snow. The streets are muffled quiet, the light gray and still.

  In a few minutes I’m standing at the edge of my old front porch. It looks the same as ever, maybe a little neglected. A simple white clapboard house, much smaller than the Grangers’. Black shutters. A bay window. The curtains shut against the world. A sagging porch holding a swing, dead leaves scattered between the railings. The swing has a dusting of snow on it, and the metal chain holding it up is starting to rust.

  I wipe the snow away with my mitten and lift the seat’s lid, and there it is: the heavy wool Hudson’s Bay blanket we always kept there so we could swing in all but the coldest of weather.

  I sit on the seat, tucking the blanket around my legs. I push at the floor absentmindedly while I gaze across the street. The swing rocks and creaks.

  My mother grew up in this house. We moved here after my father left us, mostly for financial reasons. I don’t think my mother had a very happy childhood, being the only child of an insular couple who’d found themselves expecting in their late thirties, but “they did their best,” as my mother was fond of saying. They certainly took us in willingly, but it was a hushed-down childhood, noise and toys kept to a minimum. I knew they loved me more than I felt it.

  They passed away ten years ago, within weeks of each other, leaving the house to my mother and, now, to me. Deciding what to do with it is one of the many things I tried not to think about while I was away. And the memories inside have kept me from coming here since I’ve been back.

  Directly across the street is Sunshine’s house. Or where she grew up, anyway.

  Sunshine’s parents still live there, as far as I know. It’s how she and my mother met, growing up together like Stephanie and me. I know her number is inside, on the wall, next to the phone I spent too many hours on as a teenager.

  And any minute now, any second now, I’ll find the strength to go inside and make the call I should have made a week ago.

  In the end, I don’t need to. I don’t know how many minutes go by, but I hear a scraping noise on the stairs, and when I look up, there’s Sunshine.

  “Emmaline?” she says tentatively, like she might be speaking to an apparition.

  I stand up quickly, tripping over the blanket as it falls to my feet. She opens her arms and I collapse onto her broad chest. As she wraps her arms around me, holding me close, I smell her familiar smell—a mix of patchouli and earth—and for the first time in a long time, I feel safe. I feel home.

  Inside the cold house, Sunshine holds me away from her and studies me from the top of my messy ponytail to my booted feet. Her grizzled gray hair is cut boy short, and there’s a single red streak that flops across her forehead. Her face is round and lined, and her brown eyes are watery and kind.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask her when speech returns.

  “I was packing up to leave when I saw you out the window, sitting on the porch swing just like you always used to do.”

  “You came home for Christmas,” I say, as much to myself as to her. Sunshine lives in Costa Rica, running an ecotourist supply shop on the edge of a jungle. She makes the trek home to visit her still-hale but disapproving parents infrequently. My mother’s funeral was the first time she’d been home in years.

  “I did. When did you get here?”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Don’t know what, dear?”

  I gu
ess I’ve gotten so used to the idea of everyone thinking I was dead, it never occurred to me that Sunshine might not have even known I was missing. She left town a few days after I did, and she’s never kept track of world events at the best of times. She shuts out the worst of times completely, refusing to read anything that involves destruction or human suffering.

  We sit on the couch and I tell her my story, from Africa to finding Dominic moving into my apartment. I save Craig for last, and when I get to him, I’m emotionally spent enough that I only feel like crying but don’t actually do so.

  Progress, progress.

  “I’m sorry, Emma. You didn’t deserve that.”

  “No, but he thought I was dead. I should’ve known he’d move on.”

  “If he really loved you, he would’ve known you were still alive.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “No, you have a strong presence. I would’ve felt it if it had gone away. That’s why it never occurred to me . . . I heard about the earthquake, of course, but I knew you were fine.”

  “How?”

  “Oh, honey, you know I can’t explain my gifts. They just are.”

  I hide my smile. I remember Sunshine telling me when I was seven that a fairy died every time someone said, “I don’t believe in fairies.” When I told her I knew that came from Peter Pan (I was that kind of seven-year-old), she just smiled and said, “Of course it does. Mr. Barrie’s an expert on fairies.”

  “Lots of people thought I was dead,” I say.

  She appraises me again. “Yes, I can see that. There’s death hanging around you.”

  “Do you mean my mother?”

  “No, she’s not a bad presence. She’s the good you’re feeling.”

  “Then who is it?”

  “Who thought you were dead?”

  “I don’t know. Everyone.”

  She shakes her head. “Not Stephanie. She never gave up.”

  My heart constricts. “No, that’s true.”

  I stand up and take a slow lap around the living room. The dark bookshelves on either side of the fireplace are filled not with books but with African artifacts, filmy now with dust. My mother’s lifelong obsession, one I fed on countless birthdays and Christmases, saving up my allowance just to see the joy on her face when she’d unwrap the latest mask, or spear point, or beaded necklace. It didn’t matter that what I bought her—particularly when I was younger—was mostly fake. It was the thought that counted, and what she thought and dreamt about was Africa. The place she most wanted to go and never made it to. In my book of regrets, number one is never asking her why she was so intrigued by the place. Perhaps because it was just one of those immutable things, like cotton candy at a fair.

  But on the mantel, above the fireplace we never used because we couldn’t afford to have it fixed, is the reason I should’ve come here much sooner: pictures, pictures, pictures. Of my mother, of us together, of all the important moments.

  I pick up the shot taken on the day I graduated from law school and hold it close to my chest. Sunshine puts her hands on my shoulders. “If you’re going to move on, we have to clear the death away.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Here, come with me.”

  She leads me back to the faded chintz couch. When my grandparents were alive, the furniture was covered in plastic, making it slippery, the perfect place for me and Stephanie to play our favorite game—living room slip and slide—until discovered and punished by my frightened-looking mother. She peeled off those covers the day after her mother’s funeral with a determined look on her face. When I asked what she was doing, she only said, “Did you want another sliding session?” and then started laughing semihysterically. I hugged her, and we laughed and cried, missing Grandma even if we didn’t want to live by her rules anymore.

  Sunshine closes her eyes and places her hands on my shoulders. As she concentrates, the smell of patchouli seems to grow stronger. My mind starts to wander, flitting from my mom to work to Craig. God, Craig. He’s the one I should be throwing glasses at. Only next time, I won’t miss.

  Sunshine’s eyes open. “Stop thinking about him.”

  “Okay, Patrick Jane, now you’re kind of freaking me out.”

  “Who’s Patrick Jane?”

  “It’s the name of a character on a television show. He can kind of read people’s minds, only not really . . .” I trail off lamely.

  “Well, maybe I’ll watch it sometime. Now, I think I know something that might work.” She reaches into the large leather satchel she uses as a purse and takes out a pink crystal that’s the size of my thumb. “Give me your hands.”

  “What for?”

  “Just trust me.”

  I hold my hands in front of me and she places the crystal in them. “What’s the crystal for?”

  “I’m going to use it to draw out all the negative energy and localize it.”

  I think briefly of protesting, but what can it hurt? It’s only a rock.

  She holds one hand to her heart and the other on the crystal. She closes her eyes and hums a low, indistinct tune.

  “Instead of death, life. Instead of pain, happiness. Instead of brain, heart,” Sunshine murmurs over and over, almost singing the words.

  It’s strangely soothing. I close my eyes and feel myself drifting.

  Life, happiness, heart. If only saying it over and over would make it so.

  “You can open your eyes now,” Sunshine says.

  “Is that it?”

  “No, I want you to keep this with you until you find a place where you feel safe and secure and ready to let go of all the death, pain, and unhappiness. When you do, I want you to bury it in the ground and leave it all behind you.”

  The crystal feels warm in my hand, and lighter somehow. Maybe I do too. “Thanks, Sunshine.”

  “You’re welcome.” She kisses the top of my head. “Your mother loved you very much, you know.”

  “I know.”

  Chapter 13: When the Ball Drops

  The weather warms right after Christmas, as it often does. I remember more than one ski trip with Stephanie’s family where we ended up in the lodge watching the rain wash the snow away. And so it is this year. One day of steady rain and above-freezing temperatures is all it takes to scrub Christmas off the sidewalks and leave brown strips of lawn. The lingering, twinkling lights look out of place.

  I spend much of the week hibernating. As much as Stephanie lets me, at least. When she’s not dragging me out for walks, or on a quest to find the perfect throw for her couch, or any of countless other manufactured errands to keep me from disappearing into the box Dominic gave me for Christmas, I immerse myself in books I’ve always meant to read. The Time Traveler’s Wife, A Million Little Pieces, the collected works of Malcolm Gladwell.

  Dominic returns from his parents’, black mood back and firmly in place. He spends most of his time away from the apartment. He tells me he’s at his studio, working on the photographs for his next show. I don’t know him well enough to call him a liar, but judging from the smells he brings home with him, my bet is that he’s spending more time on a bar stool than in the darkroom. Not that I can blame him. He was supposed to be on his honeymoon, sipping frothy drinks in a deck chair under a hot sun. And who am I to call him out? If I thought hiding in a bottle would fix things, I’d be right there with him.

  “All right, Gloomy Head, enough of this shit.”

  I look up from What the Dog Saw. Stephanie’s standing at the end of my bed in jeans and a ski sweater with a disapproving look on her face.

  “How did you get in here?”

  “Dominic let me in.” Her eyes travel from the stack of books by my bedside to the dishes on the floor. “I leave you alone for one day and look what happens.”

  “I’m catching up on my reading.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m even reading books that are making me smarter. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, if you’re sick.
Are you sick?”

  I give a halfhearted cough. “I do feel a cold coming on, yeah.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Will you stop saying that?”

  “Only when you admit that you’re hiding.”

  “From what?”

  She stands and walks to the window, pulling back the filmy curtains. Cold sunlight streams through the dirt-spattered panes, falling across the bed. “From life.”

  “Ha! What life?”

  “From the life that’s passing you by.”

  “You mean my once brilliant career? Or were you referring to my ex-boyfriend?”

  She raises her right hand. “Enough. I don’t want to hear it. We’re late.”

  “Late for what?”

  “For finding the perfect outfit.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “It’s New Year’s Eve, and you’re coming to Drop the Ball with me. Whether you like it or not.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Too bad.”

  “I don’t have a dress.”

  “I mentioned shopping, didn’t I?”

  “I don’t have a date.”

  “I’ll get Kevin to come. We’ll make it a threesome.”

  “You did not just refer to me, you, and your gay brother as a threesome.”

  “Ask someone, then.”

  “Like who? Sunshine?”

  “What about Dominic?”

  I throw back the covers and stand up. “I doubt he’d want to come.”

  “You doubt I’d want to come to what?” Dominic asks, popping his head around the door.

  “Nothing,” I say at the same time as Stephanie says, “Drop the Ball.”

  His brow furrows. “You mean that thing at the convention center? Aren’t we a bit old for that?”

  “Yes, exactly. We are too old for that.”

  “Nonsense,” Stephanie says. “I’ve been going for years.”

  “Tell him how old you were the first time you went.”

  She colors, remembering, perhaps, who she went home with that night. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything. Besides, it’s fun.”

  Dominic’s eyes meet mine. “I’m in if you are.”