“Nice collection,” I remark.
“Shirley’s,” he says, and that one word, her name, is filled with longing. It’s the most emotion he’s shown yet, and it gives me hope that the old Tom is still in there somewhere.
“She always did enjoy a good story.”
On one of the shelves, completely out of place, sits one of those Russian nesting dolls, the kind that you can break in half to find a smaller doll inside, and another, and so on. I reach up and take it from the shelf. It’s so bright, painted with reds and oranges and greens, that it seems almost garish there among the beiges and grays and pastel blues.
“Another one of Shirley’s favorites,” Tom says, but his voice is flat again. So flat that I look over at him to see if there’s a problem. He gives me a tight smile and almost imperceptibly glances at the doll.
I look at it again, spinning the top half around without removing it. “Where did she get this?”
“She liked to travel,” Tom says, and again I think his voice seems strained.
Maybe it brings back memories of Shirley, I think, placing the doll back on the shelf. “I’m sorry,” I say, but I’m not sure what I’m apologizing for—Shirley’s death? Handling something that has personal meaning? Simply being there?
Tom shakes his head. “It’s okay.”
“I love it here,” Pearl says.
We both spot her standing by the bannister, and I have this vision of her, that she’s a bird getting ready to fly away. It feels like Tom and I stand there for a long time looking up at her, not saying anything.
She smiles down at us. “I love it here,” she says again.
“We lived here for almost two whole summers,” I say to her, but I’m also saying it to Tom, reminding him for some reason, as if he might have forgotten. “Tom, Shirley, your grandmother, and me.”
“Really?”
“Really. It was . . . We had a great time.”
“A million years ago,” Tom reflects.
“A million,” I repeat.
I see it again—that morning—and even with the new furniture, the vision is strong of me standing there, passing Johnny to Shirley, the sound of Tom’s vehicle kicking up stones, me running down the dock, jumping into my kayak so recklessly I nearly tip before I can get going.
“I think I’ll wait outside,” I say.
“You don’t want to see the rest of the place?” Tom asks. Hidden in his voice is the understanding of how hard this is for me, but there is also a twinge of disappointment. Maybe he hoped I had left those memories somewhere else, somewhere far away.
“Another time,” I say. “I’m sure we’ll be back.”
He nods, and I turn, push open the door, and walk down the long dock. I don’t get in the boat though. I sit and let my feet dangle, and because this dock is lower to the water than the one at Tom’s house, my feet nearly graze the lapping waves.
Why am I here? I wonder for the hundredth time.
I hear the pitter-patter of little feet skidding along the dock, feel a small hand on my shoulder, and sense the restless sitting of an eleven-year-old.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” you reply, your hand moving to mine. Your fingers are so small. “I know why we’re here.”
I feel alarmed, though I don’t know why. “You do?”
There is a solemn expression on your face. “The woman told me last night.”
“The woman?” Every time you mention her, sadness and disappointment rise in me, holding a small dose of anxiety. I keep thinking something must be very wrong.
“She told me why we’re here. And Grampy? She needs my help, but she’s going to help me too. We’re going to make it all right.”
All right. Wouldn’t that be nice.
“I saw there was a red X on your map where this cabin is,” I said.
You nod eagerly. “Yes! The silver-haired lady put that mark on the map last night. And now I think I know why—the door must be here! In your old cabin! I’m going to go look around.”
“That’s fine, Pearl. But stay out of the basement.”
“There’s a basement?” you ask, your eyes lighting up.
“Pearl,” I say in a warning voice.
“Hungry?” Tom calls out from the cabin.
I look over at you. “How about you?”
You nod, grinning, but I can tell the excitement of searching the house is distracting you.
“Sure,” I shout back.
“Can you bring in the bag of food from the boat?”
I help you climb down into the boat, you grab the bag, I hoist you up, and we walk back up the dock. And for just a moment I think I can see it: a life for you here in Nysa. The sun is shining and the trees are rustling in the breeze and the lake is all around us, blue and shimmering. You wouldn’t need a lot of people around—Tom would give you a happy home, make sure you get a good education. You would like it here, even alone, roaming the woods and spending days out on the lake. It would probably be safer for you than the city.
You skip ahead, and I follow you inside.
Tom is in the kitchen—I can hear him taking plates from the cupboard. “I hope you guys like ham and cheese,” he says.
You have vanished again. I think I hear you upstairs. But that isn’t what gets my attention.
The Russian nesting doll? It’s not on the bookshelf anymore.
It’s gone.
Photographs
We stay at the cabin long into the afternoon. I even take a nap while Tom shows you some trails in the woods. By the time we’re loading up the boat, the sun is lower in the western sky and the shadows of the trees reach out far into the water, rippling, waving goodbye.
The boat’s engine roars to life, and we pull away into the lake, racing the darkness home. You cannot take your eyes off the cabin, and even long after it is out of sight, you sit at the back of the boat, watching it retreat behind us.
“We’ll tell him tomorrow,” I reassure you. I’m beside your bed, tucking the blankets in around you. “Will that make you feel better?”
You nod. The carpet is awful.
“Should I roll that up and move it over beside the wall?” I ask. You understand what I’m saying. The room might not seem so bad if we get the carpet out of the way.
You nod again. I take the cut-out squares of carpet, put them in a small pile, and place them in the closet. I have to wrestle with the rug to peel up the edges—it was attached to the floor with some kind of glue, and it takes me a long time to free it from the wood. After a long battle, I roll the carpet the long way and slide it over so that it’s up against the wall.
The whole time I’m doing this, a heaviness presses against my chest. It was a good day. It was a good day with Tom. What will he say when he sees this?
The knot throbs on my head, so much that I don’t even reach up to make sure it’s there. I know it is. And with each throb comes the question.
What will you do when I’m gone?
What will you do when I’m gone?
What will you do when I’m gone?
Tom seems to have a soft spot for you, but what will he do after he finds out about the carpet? And do I even want you to stay here in this dead town, grow up in this dying place? We didn’t see a single child when we were in town. It’s beautiful out here, but would that be enough for you? Each hour seems to bring a change in my perspective, and right now I’m skewing pessimistic.
I wander over to the small table and flip through the books you’ve been reading. Then I step over to the window and stare out into the country darkness. I envision taking the boat out at night, roaring around the lake, docking, and going inside the dark cabin. Where did that nesting doll vanish to? Did Tom put it somewhere? Why?
“Grampy?” you call from the bed.
“Yes?”
“Will you tell me about Grandma?”
For a second I have trouble catching my breath. I am still looking out the window. “What would you like to know?” I man
age to ask.
“Was she like me?”
“In what way, Pearl?”
“You know. Did she see stuff no one else saw?”
I think of the silver-haired woman she saw in the field that dark night, and again in the cabin that first summer. “Sometimes she did. She had an imagination, I guess. Like you.”
“But I’m not imagining things, Grampy. These things are real.”
I pull my eyes away from the window and look over at you, so small in the bed made for Shirley. I reach up and tenderly touch the knot on my head. For a moment I do not hate the lump. For a moment it feels as much a part of me as my heart or nose or kneecap.
“I know, Pearl,” I say. “I know. But when you see things no one else can see, you have to accept that it might be hard for people to believe you.”
“Do you believe me, Grampy?” you ask.
“About what?”
“About everything.”
I sigh, walk over to your bed, bend over, and kiss your forehead. “I love you, Pearl. Good night.”
“Did you believe Grandma?”
I pause.
“You know,” you continue, “when she saw stuff?”
I take a deep breath, staring at the long rows of books. I wonder where they all came from and how many of them Shirley read before she died.
“For a long time, yes, I did,” I say.
“’Night, Grampy,” you say, but the light in your eyes has dimmed.
I turn to walk out. I turn off the light, and darkness fills the room with a kind of warmth. I begin drawing the door closed behind me when you call, “Grampy?”
“Yes, Pearl?”
“I didn’t find anything in the cabin today. I didn’t find the door.”
“It’s okay, Pearl.” I turn to go again, and again your voice stops me.
“I know you’re very sick.” You pause. “I know you’re dying.”
Your words leave me blinking, my mouth hanging open.
“And we’re going to help you get better,” you insist. “The silver-haired lady can help us.”
I wander through the house, distracted by your latest proclamation.
I know you’re dying. And we’re going to help you get better.
I’m so taken by your words that I lose track of where I am, get lost again, and find myself somewhere in the basement. The ceilings are lower here, the hallway long and straight with a sprinkling of doors on either side. I look over my shoulder, debating if I should go back the way I came, but at the far end of the hallway I can see stairs leading back up. They head up into the middle part of the house, maybe the kitchen. I head in that direction.
But my curiosity overcomes me at the first door, so I open it slowly, reach inside, and fish around on the wall for the light switch. When I find it, the room lights up, and I see that it’s another spare bedroom. The carpet is cream, and the comforter on the bed is navy blue. There are no windows, not even the small window wells that some basement bedrooms have. I don’t know how Tom keeps the water out with the lake being so close. A door, partially open, leads into a bathroom.
I turn off the light and close the door.
I find myself wanting to check each and every door, spend the rest of the evening searching all these rooms. For what?
The next door that I open creaks, and two recliners face a large screen on the far wall. A kind of home theater. I close the door.
I manage to walk the rest of the way down the hall without opening more doors. Then I notice a gleam of light coming from under the last door on the right, just before the stairway, which climbs half a flight before turning. I listen for the sound of footsteps, but there’s nothing. The basement is almost completely silent, apart from the humming of some distant appliance.
I turn away from the steps and open the door to the last room. The floor is different from the other rooms—it’s unfinished concrete, and the room is some kind of storage area. It’s lined with row after row of well-organized metal shelves. Some hold shoeboxes with white labels; some are lined with binders, each labeled with black marker in exaggerated handwriting. Accounting boxes take up a few rows, apparently full of tax documentation. At the far end of the room, the shelves hold large plastic bins, also labeled.
When I enter the room and pull the door closed behind me, the rest of the house goes completely silent, like I’m sealing myself into a crypt. Even the distant humming I could hear from the bottom of the stairway shuts off, and again I strain my ears, listening for the approach of someone, anyone, but there isn’t a sound. I walk through the aisles of shelves, my socks scratching quietly on the cement floor.
I run my fingers along the shoeboxes, and while I can’t tell what they are from the way they’re labeled, when I lift one of the lids and take a glance inside, it looks like they are all filled with letters or printed-out emails or notes. One person’s handwriting seems to dominate—Tom’s or Shirley’s or perhaps Shirley’s mother’s. Why so many letters, and what could they possibly have had to write to each other about? Didn’t Shirley’s parents live here in Nysa? Didn’t Tom’s?
I drop the lid of the box and turn, taking in the rows and rows of binders. One is marked “Jan–Jun 1980.” The year after Mary left. I pull it from the shelf and open it—it is full of photographs tucked into plastic sleeves with only an occasional caption. But I don’t need captions for most of them. This is close enough to the time I remember, and although I wouldn’t have been in Nysa anymore, I can supply the captions myself.
Tom and Shirley on the couch with her parents.
Tom and Shirley fishing in a boat in the middle of the lake.
Tom holding up a bass.
Shirley smiling, shielding her face from the sun.
I page through the notebook, photo after photo after photo, mostly of Tom and Shirley but also of friends I recognize but whose names I can’t recall. I close the book. What would those years have been like for me if Mary hadn’t gone away? Would the three of us, John included, have thrived here in Nysa? Would we have stayed even as things deteriorated, as people moved away, as Nysa shrank? Would we have grown old alongside Tom and Shirley, spent Labor Days and Memorial Days together on the lake, eating burgers and watching John (and maybe more of our own children) jump off the dock or water ski or jump off The Point?
A shot of curiosity moves through me, something like adrenaline mixed with dread and hope all at once. I slide the notebook back and look to the left of it, my eyes roaming the shelves.
There it is.
A book from the summer before John was born. The second summer that we lived at the cabin.
I take it down and hold it in my hands. I imagine the photos Shirley must have taken that summer, pictures of Mary’s swelling stomach and of me, baby-faced, standing beside her with my baseball cap on backwards, grinning awkwardly. Eighteen years old.
I turn the notebook over and over. I can open it if I want—there’s nothing keeping me from it—but there is something inside of me that’s afraid of those days, afraid of going back. I’ve run from that time of my life for forty years, and even when it’s right here in front of me, those years waiting to be viewed, mulled over, I can’t make myself do it.
But I have to.
I open it, and a sob catches in my throat. There are faded photos tinted orange of us at the cabin that summer and fall. John is a baby. These are photos Shirley took days before Mary left us. One of them in particular grabs my emotions. The two of us are sitting at the end of the dock, and the sun glares off the water. Our bodies both face out over the lake, but we’re looking over our shoulders at Shirley and the camera. I’m grinning and holding up a hand (“Stop, Shirley!”), while Mary tilts her head and smiles. At the bottom of the photo, I can see our hands resting on the splintered wood of the pier, our fingers barely touching.
I don’t see any sign of John in the photo. Was this taken in the weeks before his birth? It’s hard to tell—I can’t see Mary’s stomach.
Of all the thin
gs taking place in the photo—the sunny day, Shirley stealing another photo, me protesting, and Mary calmly letting it all happen—the detail that remains is the touch of Mary’s fingers on mine. Whenever our hands touched, her fingers were always moving, grazing over mine so lightly I could barely feel them. Yet there it was—her touch. It was like magic.
I take the photo out and tuck it in my pocket. I reach up and touch the knot on my head. Is it all a dream? Is it all a memory? Will I wake up soon, in my bed in our small city, or perhaps even longer ago? Maybe I’ll wake up and Mary will still be here, John will still be a baby, and life will somehow be back to the way I had always imagined it would go.
I slide the notebook back into the empty spot and grab the previous one, also from that summer but earlier, with photos of Mary clearly pregnant. As I page through, I notice a shift in the style of photos, as if someone else was behind the shutter. The pictures I had seen from later in the summer caught us all from a distance, and there were usually two or three of us in the photo, Shirley normally missing since she was taking the photos. But this album is different.
This album contains almost exclusively photos of Mary.
There are photos of her from far away as she stood at the end of the pier holding her swollen stomach. There are photos of her sitting on the sofa in the cabin, her legs crossed beneath her, staring through windows lit by the sun. There are photos of her asleep on the deck, and I remember how restless she became in those final weeks, how at night she slipped from the bed and wandered the cabin, sometimes pacing the kitchen, worried about the impending labor, too uncomfortable to sleep.
The thing about these photos is that they are beautiful, well taken by someone who clearly had an eye for how to frame a shot, how to catch that intangible thing that skilled photographers will sometimes capture. What first appears as a stray line of light is crucial to the image. Nothing is accidental.
Who took these intimate photos of your grandmother? It wasn’t Shirley.
Could it have been Tom? It had to have been. There was no one else there.
The Weight of Memory Page 14
