The Weight of Memory

by Shawn Smucker

  “Yes?” I say without opening my eyes. I know today is Friday and that there’s no school on Monday, and I imagine my doctor going home and telling her husband, if she is married, about the old man she had to talk to today, the old man who is only fifty-eight and has anytime to three months left to live. Did I seem old to her? I imagine him drawing her close and the two of them not saying it but thinking it, how sad it would be to only have anytime to three months to live. We are all comforted by the misguided confidence that we have certain decades ahead of us.

  “Mr. Elias,” Ms. Howard begins again.

  I jump, opening my eyes, because there she is, right in front of me. I don’t stand up though. I sway there awkwardly in the swing, and she’s not much taller than me, even though she’s standing.

  “It’s about Pearl.”

  “Pearl?”

  She nods.

  “I hope she’s not misbehaving.”

  “Oh, nothing like that. Nothing at all like that! She’s doing very well. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  I raise my eyebrows and wait. I am good at waiting for other people to speak. I have somehow developed a patience that almost enjoys the awkward silence.

  Ms. Howard clears her throat nervously. I watch a gust of warm wind animate a few loose hairs on her head. “There’s . . . it’s . . . Pearl has been selected by her teachers to attend a weekend camp for high achievers. Not this weekend but next.”

  “Yes,” I say. “No school on Monday?”

  “That’s right. The retreat isn’t this weekend—it’s next weekend,” she repeats, as if talking to one of her students. “They’ll go to a camp north of here, play games, go through leadership exercises. It’s a wonderful opportunity for only a handful of children.”

  I think of Dr. Cortez sitting on her stool as I left the examination room, the tiny birdlike feeling of her clavicle as I squeezed her shoulder. I think of how one side of her mouth twitched. I think of her words.

  Anytime to three months.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” I say vacantly.

  “Oh, you can take some time to think—”

  “No, not Pearl. I’m afraid not.”

  She stares at me with something like confusion. I can tell she is not someone who is used to hearing the word no.

  “It would really be a wonderful opportunity for—”

  “Not Pearl,” I say, each word a dead weight. “I’m afraid not.”

  She purses her lips. I close my eyes and lean back in the swing, begin that soft front-and-back movement. Even with my eyes closed I can feel her disdain cling to me like humidity. I know what she is thinking—I am causing my grandchild to miss out. I am too old, perhaps, to recognize the opportunity for what it is. I’m not a fit parent.

  I can hear the light scuffing of her footsteps back to the school. I hear the heavy sound of the metal door opening.

  “Ms. Howard!” I suddenly say, untangling myself awkwardly from the swing.

  “Yes?” she asks, pausing, cautiously hopeful.

  I walk across the playground, limping. My right foot has fallen asleep. “What’s the date?”

  “The date? Of the camp?”

  “No, today,” I say.

  “Today?”

  “Yes, today’s date.”

  She stares up into the hot sky, the ash-colored sky, hovering as it is above us, perhaps threatening a thunderstorm later. Her gaze pierces the humidity and finds the sun even there, even while it is hidden. She shakes her head and wrinkles her brow. “The 22nd?”

  “September 22nd?” I ask.

  “September 22nd,” she says, flitting inside, the door crashing scornfully behind her.

  I wave at her absently, return across the expanse, and sit back in the swing. And for the first time since the doctor’s words—anytime to three months—I feel quiet tears forming behind my eyes and my throat aches, because today is John’s birthday, and I have not seen him for four years. You have not seen your father since you were seven-almost-eight, and in a week it will be forty years since Mary left me. It is a tornado of memory, and I glance up, certain I will find the sky in a boiling state of Armageddon. But there is no approaching lightning, no funnel cloud. The gray actually appears to dissolve like melting cotton candy, and the blue seeps through.

  A bell rings from the bowels of the school, and a few of the doors unlatch. The parking lot has filled with parents, and all the children spill into the heat, their feet sliding like sandpaper on the pavement. As my rough hands try to dry my face and stop up any more tears that might think about leaking out, your wispy voice calls out to me, and it’s like you’re in some faraway place, calling to me from a land I will never find.

  The White-Haired Woman

  Grampy! Why are you swinging? I want to swing!”

  “Go on.” I stand, taking your backpack, but the first thing you do is hug me, and I hold you there in the heat. You move quickly to the swing, and I watch you. As you glide, your long, dark hair moves in a rhythm, trailing out behind you like a comet, then clutching tight against your back, then flying again. Your eyes remind me of your father’s—dark as coal, glittering.

  The sun brightens, and I notice people around me shading their eyes, still watching for their children to come out. A man who left his house wearing a flannel in the autumn heat takes it off and ties the arms around his waist. A woman steps smoothly out of her shoes and stands on the warm pavement in her bare feet, arms crossed.

  “You know,” you say in your innocent voice, “we had a helper in our class today.”

  “Like a teacher’s aide?”

  You nod and giggle. “The swing gets my stomach.”

  I smile. “You’re good at swinging. Much better than I was. I always needed a push.”

  Emphasizing your independence, you strain against the chains, stretch your legs, flying higher. “She had very white hair, or silver, like moonlight.” You seem disconcerted by the color. “She helped me draw a map.”

  “Is that right? A map? Of what?”

  “Of the place where you grew up. There was a long bridge that goes over a river, and a lake on the other side, and a cabin on the shore.”

  Chills flash through my body, along with a hint of nausea I think might be the result of this sickness.

  I have never told you about where I grew up.

  I have never told you about the town or the cabin or what happened at the lake. If all was well, I wouldn’t tell you about it for another five or six years, when you’re older. But all is not well, at least not with me. Anytime to three months. Time is running short. I am left wondering what things to tell you and what things I will take with me, what things you will never know.

  “The silver-haired woman said she needs my help to find something, something that means a lot to her. It’s somewhere in the town where you grew up. When are we going?”

  My chest feels hollow. It has been a while since you’ve made things up like this, but the ring of truth laced through your tales unsettles me. In kindergarten you told a lot of stories, but you were little, and the squeakiness of your voice gave you a pass, comforted your father and me, because of course a tiny little girl would have imaginary friends to take tea with. Of course a six-year-old’s bear told her fairy tales and guarded her bed at night. Of course.

  But at some point, it started feeling a bit odd. And now that you’re eleven-almost-twelve, it feels like a kind of willful misbehaving. The silliness is gone. At eleven, your eyes bear the light of seriousness, and you are often taken aback when I don’t entirely believe your stories.

  “Where I grew up?” I clear my throat, and my next words fade. “Is that right.”

  I watch you swing. Maybe you did have an aide in class. Maybe it was a simple exercise, a coincidence. Is it so unlikely that a child would draw a map with a cabin or a lake? I am suddenly relieved, talked back to earth by the quiet sound of the breeze and the dimming of the world as a cloud swallows the sun. I look for your teacher, and I s
ee her standing by the school.

  “Ms. Pena?” I call out. “One second, Pearl. You can keep swinging.”

  I can’t tell if you hear me or not—your eyes are closed, your face pure childish ecstasy as you glide through the air. I lay your backpack down beside the swing and drift in the direction of your teacher, my hands in my pockets.

  “Mr. Elias, you’re looking well.” Ms. Pena says this with a flirtatious grin, though I am at least ten years her senior. I don’t know if she does this to be funny or to make me blush. When she sees that I’m embarrassed, she grins, mission accomplished. She adjusts the straps on a little girl’s backpack before sending her off with her parent.

  “Yes, well, thank you,” I say, reaching up and nervously touching the marble-sized tumor above my ear, hidden among the weeds of my hair. Still there.

  It is always still there, no matter how many times I check. And it always seems the tiniest bit bigger, although that’s not possible. Is it? That it would grow by the hour? By the minute?

  “Pearl was telling me about her day.” I try to keep my words light, but Ms. Pena can tell something is off.

  “You’re such a wonderful guardian,” she says, again in a playful voice, trying to lighten things up. “I wish I had a guardian like you. Someone handsome to watch out for me.” She seems almost embarrassed by her own boldness, like a small chipmunk darting out into the open before spinning around and vanishing into the shadows.

  I don’t know what to say to that—she has been fishing for a date ever since Pearl showed up in elementary school four years ago. I clear my throat and swallow hard. The day feels much, much warmer. When I don’t reply, she takes a more serious tone.

  “Mr. Elias, is everything okay?”

  “Oh, fine, fine,” I say.

  I clear my throat again. Is this a side effect of my impending demise, or is it only from the fall pollen? Or is it because of Ms. Pena with her red lipstick, her shining smile, her fitted blouse?

  “Pearl was telling me about the teacher’s aide in class today,” I begin, scanning Ms. Pena’s face. She doesn’t blink. She doesn’t say anything. I continue. “She told me the aide was a woman with white hair who helped her draw a map. A map of where I grew up?”

  The confusion finally sets in. “I’m sorry, Mr. Elias,” she says, shaking her head. “We didn’t have a teacher’s aide.”

  “Did you draw maps?”

  “Pearl may have drawn a map during art class.”

  “Was there a substitute or an aide in art class?”

  She shakes her head. “Not that I know of.”

  With that short sentence the dread rises in me, and a dim version of the chills I felt earlier. Oh, Pearl. Let’s not do this again.

  “Thank you, Ms. Pena. Thank you for your time.”

  Ms. Pena gathers herself, enough at least to regain her playful tone. “My time is your time, Mr. Elias. Remember that! My time is always your time!” She giggles, blushes, and turns to help another student. She peeks at me over her shoulder, but I turn, pretending not to notice.

  An active imagination is one thing. Outright lies are another thing completely. I do not mind you pretending or drawing fantastical things, but this feels like an unnecessary deception, some deliberate crossing.

  But the image of the white-haired woman is not one unfamiliar to me. I remember the stories Mary used to tell, and another chill spreads through my body, and a lightness, and I wonder again how long I have.

  My mind is so distracted that at first I don’t see that the swings are empty, both of them. They hang in that still day, barely swaying. And your backpack is no longer leaning against the swing.

  You are gone.

  The Emptiness

  Oh, Pearl, I think—a common refrain.

  When I see the emptiness of the swings without you, I feel the emptiness of the lake, the waiting for Mary to come around the corner in her kayak. Tom arrived first, leaving his kayak in the water and running past the cabin. Shirley arrived next, pulling both her and Tom’s kayaks up onto the pier one at a time, then jogging to the cabin, hugging me, telling me what happened in words that didn’t make sense.

  Accident. Fell in. Tom’s going for help.

  Shirley paced, frantic, shrugging off my questions, saying over and over, “I don’t know, Paul! I don’t know!”

  The sound of rocks from the driveway clattered off the bottom of Tom’s car as he drove at a ridiculous speed away from the cabin. I handed the baby who was your father to Shirley and ran for my kayak, her shouting after me. I hear the sound of my feet slapping the wooden dock, the emptiness of the lake, how impossibly calm the water remained while inside of me a panic was rising.

  Looking for You

  I glance from the doors of the elementary school to the chain-link fence to the large gate at the opposite end of the playground. It’s a security gate, wide enough for cars to pass through, and at the end of the day all the children leave that way. I walk quickly to the gate and look for you, hoping to see you wandering up the alley. When I don’t see you, I turn and face the playground, the school. I check the windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of you.

  Pearl, I think again. Why?

  I watch the other parents and children shuffle out, some driving, most walking, winding their way up the alley or down the street. The children are jumpy, their voices squealing with pent-up energy, while their parents walk beside them, most of them with shoulders hunched from working first shift or third shift, or from not working, or from days spent waiting. I search for you among the forest of backpacks and blue jeans. Soon the expanse of pavement stretches empty except for a few teachers standing in a huddle by one of the doors, chatting at the end of another day.

  Ms. Howard comes around the building. She always does one last sweep of the schoolyard before going back inside. I have seen her do this a few times. She might be a bit of a nag, but she’s a meticulous nag. Very thorough.

  “Ms. Howard?” I say with relief, and she turns, sees it is me, and gives me a flat smile. I wish you would not have made me ask Ms. Howard for help. “Have you seen Pearl?”

  Her head cocks to the side as if I’m speaking another language. “I’m sorry?”

  “Pearl came out. I spoke with Ms. Pena. When I turned around, Pearl was gone.”

  “Oh no,” she says.

  Part of me feels that she says it ironically. She’s not surprised at all that I have lost you again. Misplaced you. But I try to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe her “Oh no” was genuine.

  “Is she running again?” she asks.

  Ms. Howard is referring to a time period a few winters ago when you used to run away from me. At first your escapes filled me with worry, which soon became anger and eventually only embarrassment. When I realized that I couldn’t make you stop leaving, I fastened a bracelet around your wrist that you couldn’t take off, one that had our address and phone number on it. People all over our small city called or brought you home to me.

  “No,” I say. “It’s not like that.” But I wonder. Are you running again? Did the woman you saw in your classroom, the mysterious teacher’s aide with silver-white hair, have anything to do with this?

  Ms. Howard sighs. “If you allowed Pearl to take part in the camp, Mr. Elias, it might give you a nice break from the child.”

  A break. I know I am old to be raising a child. I do not need a break.

  “Do you mind if I take a look back through the school one last time before I go home?” I ask, weary.

  Ms. Howard doesn’t say anything, only turns and leads me toward the metal door.

  I reach up absently and rub the knot again. I can’t help sizing the knot up. I used to be very good at convincing myself it was shrinking. It’s amazing how successful we can be at fooling ourselves, but that was wishful thinking. I was so successful at talking myself into that illusion that by the time I went to the doctor, it was too late. Now I lay my index finger alongside the knot, like pointing a play gun into the middle
of my head, and note that the knot reaches all the way out to the joint.

  Inside the school, it is cool, almost cold. I suppose the sunlight streaming through all the classroom windows must have triggered the air-conditioning. The sweat on my forehead and the back of my neck now feels icy cold.

  Ms. Howard hugs herself, rubs her arms briskly, and leads me through a set of double doors into the main hallway. “Pearl is a curious child,” she remarks, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to reply to that, or even if she meant to say it out loud.

  I wait. The school is empty and quiet, and our footsteps sound rushed, out of place.

  “There is much to be said in favor of children who have an imagination,” she continues, seeming to conduct a back-and-forth conversation with herself. Pearl is curious. Yes, but that is good.

  “Is there?” I can’t help asking.

  Ms. Howard glances over her shoulder as we turn a corner. “Of course,” she says, clearly confused that I would even question such a premise. “Curious children, those with real imagination, shape the world.”

  Just as I am about to ask another question, this one about when, in her estimation, the world lost its shape, Ms. Davis comes out of the art room and nearly runs into us. “Oh! Ms. Howard, I’m sorry, excuse me.”

  Ms. Davis is long and narrow in every way, built like a sapling. Her face is a thin oval shape, her eyes are long and wide, and her hair reaches down to the middle of her back. She is at least six inches taller than me, and that’s without the heels she is currently wearing. She crosses her thin arms. Everyone seems cold. There are shadows everywhere now that the school day is over—many classrooms are empty and some of the hall lights are off.

  “I’m sorry,” she continues. Apologizing seems to be her way of interacting with the world. Others say hello. Ms. Davis apologizes. “I didn’t expect to see you without Pearl.”

  “Without Pearl?” I say.

  “Yes, she was here only a few minutes ago.” Ms. Davis peers around us, as if expecting to see Pearl fading away down the hall.