The Weight of Memory

by Shawn Smucker

  “Yes.” She hesitated. “I’m almost certain.”

  “What do I do when I go through the door?” I asked.

  “You’ll know.” But she said it in such a way that made me think she didn’t really know herself what I was supposed to do or what I might find there.

  “Can’t you tell me anything?” I asked. “I don’t understand how something can be so important to you but you don’t know anything about it.”

  “I already told you,” she replied in a soft voice. “A long time ago, someone took something from me when they went through the door. I can’t go through myself—I’m simply not able to—so I need you to go inside and bring it back out, the thing they took.”

  It was almost morning. She kept saying that. We ran up the stairs as quietly as we could, like cats, but if you walk downstairs for ten minutes, it takes longer than that to go back up. My legs were so tired. I sat down on the steps and cried. I couldn’t go any farther. My legs were too tired. I couldn’t do it. I thought she had forgotten about me.

  A hand grabbed my arm, and I screamed. It was the silver-haired woman—I couldn’t see anything, but I knew it was her because of her icy touch. She lifted me up in her arms like a baby, and we rushed up the stairs. She moved so quickly that before I could blink we were outside and into the woods.

  I don’t know the timing of everything, but the sky was starting to lighten as we swept along through the forest. I fell asleep in her arms, and when I woke up, she was lowering me gently through the window. I tried to see her face one last time as she lowered me down, but she had pulled up her hood, and it cast a deep shadow. And besides, I fell asleep as soon as she put me down. It didn’t matter that I was lying on the wood floor. I was so tired.

  Going Under

  The three of us sit at the table eating a simple breakfast of bacon and eggs. You seem hungrier than normal, wolfing down the food like it’s your last meal. You reach for more bacon and moan with delight after each bite, the sounds pulling a slight smile onto Tom’s face. He seems to have withdrawn again, acting more like the Tom we met at the diner a couple days ago, and I think it’s because of the question I asked him last night, the one about him taking those photos of Mary.

  I sigh and push my eggs around. I’m not hungry. Is this lack of appetite a result of the diagnosis or the sickness spreading inside of me, or am I too despondent after Tom’s and my conversation last night? I have to admit it was strange seeing those photos and realizing that someone else saw Mary that way. He noticed her. He took her in. This started an uneasiness working its way through me, and it hasn’t stopped this morning.

  There is no way you could have hiked through the woods at night to our cabin, not through the rain and the cold. And besides that, how would you even have found your way? No, Pearl, it’s not possible. I am worried for you, worried enough to talk with Tom about the things you’re saying, even though I’d rather not talk to him at all right now after seeing those photos.

  “Do you still want to learn to swim?” he asks you in a disinterested tone.

  “Oh, yeah,” you say, your mouth full.

  “Pearl,” I say.

  You chew your food and swallow, blushing. “Sorry. I would love that.”

  “Well,” Tom continues, “when you’re finished eating, get on your swimsuit. If that’s okay with you, Paul?”

  “Sure.” I shrug, trying to pretend it means nothing to me one way or the other.

  At around a quarter to ten on that bright morning, we find ourselves walking out to the dock in our swimsuits, each of us carrying a towel and shivering. The September air is finally chilly, and I hug my arms to my chest. A breeze kicks up, rushing toward us from out over the lake.

  We all bumble our way into the boat, and Tom starts it up. He only runs the motor for a few seconds though, long enough to get us about fifty feet away from the dock, out into the lake.

  “Should be nice and deep here,” he says, and before I know what he’s doing, he jumps out of the boat and disappears under the water. When he comes up, he’s smiling. It’s the kind of smile that can’t help surfacing, the kind of smile that I can tell he is trying to keep to himself. It’s the old Tom peeking through.

  “Can you throw in the anchor?” he asks me, so I do. “Come to the back of the boat,” he tells you, treading water.

  You sit on the steps at the back of the boat. Some of the water laps up over the edge of the lowest step, rolling over your toes.

  “It’s so cold!” you protest, hopping backwards, up out of the water.

  “Jump in. I’ll catch you.” Tom puts his hands out in front of him. “Come on. Don’t be afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid,” you say, and I have to smile, because those are always words that lead you into action. Afraid? You are the least afraid person I’ve ever met.

  You stand at the back of the boat, and the tiny lake waves barely move the boat up and down. You jump, and you’re under.

  You come up with a shriek. “It’s freezing!”

  Tom laughs, a wholehearted laugh, the first I’ve heard from him since we arrived, and you grin. The sound of it takes me back decades. Even if I couldn’t see, had I heard that laugh, I would have known exactly who it was.

  For the next ten minutes or so, Tom proceeds to teach you how to float on your back and how to tread water. At one point, he comes over and pulls himself up onto the back of the boat. The two of us watch you float on your back. Your eyes are closed, your face and fingertips the only things breaking the surface. It’s like you’re dead, or in some faraway place.

  “She’s a quick learner,” Tom observes. “Can you hand me my towel?”

  “Is she okay out there on her own?”

  “She’s fine. She’s got the floating thing down.”

  The morning feels so good, so new. It’s inconceivable on this morning how sickness and death and darkness can even exist.

  “About last night—”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it, Tom. It’s okay. Let’s let it go for now.”

  Tom nods. “Fair enough.”

  “There’s something else though,” I say.

  Tom looks at me. I’m still staring at you out there in the water, afraid to take my eyes off you in case you sink down into the depths. I can feel Tom’s gaze on the side of my face.

  “It’s about Pearl.” I tell him the story you told me, and when I finish talking, the day is quiet, the morning breeze has died down, and the boat is almost completely still. You are still floating, eyes closed. The sunlight glares off the water.

  “Yes,” Tom whispers to himself. “Yes, I see.”

  “So, what do you think?” I ask him, still not taking my eyes off you.

  “What do I think?”

  “Yes.”

  “I assume you mean, do I think Pearl is suffering from some form of psychosis.”

  I bite my lip and nod. “That sounds about right.”

  “Paul, things are not as simple as that. Psychosis is not an off-or-on switch—this person is, this person is not. Pearl may well be exhibiting subtle signs of psychosis, but I would only be able to determine the extent of that after meeting with her regularly, over a series of sessions.”

  “She’s having conversations with people who don’t exist,” I whisper. “She’s on a mission to save me, and this mission has her flying through the woods and going down endless stairs in a house we both know doesn’t have an endless stairway.”

  Your arms flutter in the water, and I stand, causing the boat to shift. But you regain your composure, and soon you’re floating again, completely still.

  “Doesn’t that count for something?” I continue.

  “Perhaps,” Tom admits.

  I find myself fuming at him. But before I can come up with another comeback, he speaks again.

  “You know, it might do her good to stay out here for a little while. For both of you to stay. Only if you’d like, of course. A change of scenery might be exactly what she needs in
order to shed some of these things.”

  Your delusions feel more serious to me than that. But Tom hasn’t seen the carpet. He wasn’t there when I found you in bed this morning after you had obviously been wandering the woods late at night by yourself. I don’t know what else to say.

  “Let’s give it some time,” Tom says, and I can’t help but feel like a placated child.

  As we sit there at the back of the boat, your eyes pop open, staring up at the sky. You peek into the water out of the corner of your eye, as if straining to see something barely outside of your vision. Panic comes over your face.

  You quickly roll over onto your belly, duck your head under the water, and you’re gone, down into the depths of the lake.

  The Loss of You

  Pearl!” I cry out, getting ready to jump in and follow you. But the boat leans hard into the water and then rises so quickly that I stumble backwards. Tom has jumped in. I take a few sharp steps to the back of the boat. I experience again what I lived through on the day Mary left me. Even in the midst of the chaos, I recognize the smallest details: the warmth of the late morning sun; the far-off edge of the lake where it curves over to meet Tom’s house; the way the haze is clearing from the sky, the bright blue taking its place; and the pale, daytime moon hanging wispy and transparent over the trees.

  I dive in and go under, and I have to remind myself not to breathe, because the iciness of the lake nearly causes me to gasp. How were you floating there unfazed in this freezing water? I open my eyes, but it’s too dark to see anything. I kick as hard as I can to the bottom, waving my arms frantically, searching for you, but I feel nothing—not you, not the bottom, not branches or fish or anything. Only cold, cold water swirling through my outstretched fingers.

  I can’t reach the bottom. I can’t find you. The underwater world might as well be deep space, and I wish I could stay there for a long time, explore the dark places at the bottom. Is this what death is like?

  I stay under as long as possible, until a red haze begins to press in at the edges of my eyesight and I’m about to pass out. I turn and let my sorrow drag me to the top. The cold of the water no longer bothers me. I am numb to it. I burst through the surface and gorge myself with air, unable to take it in quick enough.

  Scanning the surface for bubbles, I tread water and gather myself to take another plunge, but as I breathe, Tom pops up lightly from the depths.

  “Did you . . .” I begin.

  He doesn’t answer. He gives me a look that has a warning, one I don’t recognize. Is he telling me to be careful? To stay back? To prepare myself for the loss of you? He takes a few deep breaths and sinks into the water, his feet breaking the surface as he kicks his way straight down from the spot where you vanished moments before.

  The Glassy Sea

  The fall after Mary and I got married blurred past with high school activities that tried to mark our senior year. We spent as many of our days as we could together. I kept promising her I’d get her a small diamond ring as soon as possible, but she smiled and turned the twist tie on her ring finger.

  “I’ve already got you, Paul. I don’t need a ring.”

  Did she prefer the twist-tie ring because it didn’t draw any unwanted attention or questions? The truth is, she was changing. The laughing, lighthearted Mary I had met at the Halloween party one year before had begun to withdraw during our first summer at the cabin, and by the time school was in full swing, she’d become almost a recluse. It wasn’t that she avoided Tom, Shirley, or me, but when we were all together, I’d so often find her staring off into the distance, eyes glazed over. Those moments always gave me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach—they made me feel like I was losing her, that she might leave me. But just as quickly, she’d snap out of it, her eyes clearing, and she’d smile bashfully at me and take my hand. The few times I voiced my concerns, she waved them off gently. I let her do that. It was easier that way.

  Autumn in Nysa is always like some kind of golden era in a fairy world. The trees slip from green to the brightest reds and golds you’ve ever seen. When October hits, the days are suddenly shorter, the darkness gathering in pools along the main road. The four of us spent those chilly evenings in the diner or in secluded spots along the lake, sitting close to crackling fires, our arms around each other. I don’t know why, but when I think of that autumn before our final summer together, it seems like a quiet time, an era in our lives when we did more than our fair share of staring into the flames and not speaking, of looking out over the lake with our hands in our pockets, breath becoming visible in the cold air.

  Winter followed fall, and while autumn’s short days had felt appropriate in a melancholy sort of way, winter’s darkness seemed like an affront. I could feel Mary withdrawing into herself even further, and a flat sadness glazed over her eyes as she stared off into the cold distance. We could spend an entire evening together in which she’d say barely a handful of words.

  Only the snow snapped her out of it, and we got an unusual blizzard in early December. The four of us even went sledding on the hill behind the school, and Mary gave a real smile for the first time in two or three months. The little children sledding alongside watched us with amazement, surprised that teenagers could enjoy such a simple, childish pleasure.

  Whenever I asked if she was okay, she gave a half-hearted attempt at consoling me, reaching across the table at the diner and forcing a smile that only had the strength to lift one side of her face.

  “Oh, Paul, I’m in a blue funk. It will pass.”

  There were three churches in Nysa: Our Lady of Nysa Catholic Church, Saint John’s Episcopal, and First Baptist. It wasn’t a full range of churches like most towns have these days, but it was enough. The parking lot of Our Lady was almost always empty, except for a green Ford pickup truck that I assumed belonged to the priest, even though it didn’t fit the image I had of what a priest might drive. None of my friends were Catholic; in fact, I didn’t know of a single Catholic on the entire island. But I always felt drawn there—maybe by the tall steeple that reached up into the sky, maybe by the way the gold letters of the name shone in the sun, or maybe simply by the emptiness. When it came to God, I wasn’t sure what I believed, but I preferred to explore his realm on my own, away from the crowds.

  Saint John’s Episcopal Church was an old brick church with a bell and a fountain outside that I sometimes saw children playing in. The rector was a middle-aged man who, during the week, sat on a bench on the sidewalk and looked up hopefully at anyone who walked by. He was not a Nysa native and never would be, even though he had lived there for twenty years or so. Even being born in Nysa doesn’t confer legitimate Nysa status—for that, you need to have a couple sets of grandparents who grew up there, and preferably at least one set of great-grandparents as well.

  First Baptist was the obvious front-runner in our town. On Sundays people had to park on the street because the parking lot was full, and we watched them glide confidently through the wide, welcoming front doors and into the presence of God Almighty. The men wore mostly navy-blue or gray suits with paisley ties while the women swished along in ankle-length dresses and heels. Sometimes we could hear them singing all the way from the diner.

  Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!

  Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.

  Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,

  God in three persons, blessed Trinity!

  Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore thee,

  Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;

  Cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,

  Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.

  “What do you think they mean by that?” I asked Tom one Sunday morning while the four of us grabbed brunch at the Nysa Diner.

  “What does who mean by what?” Tom asked, shoveling a forkful of omelet into his mouth.

  “‘God in three persons, blessed Trinity,’” I said.

  Tom shrugged. �
�Who knows what church people think.”

  “The Trinity is made up of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit,” Shirley recited unexpectedly.

  We all gaped at her before bursting out laughing.

  “What?” she said, blushing.

  “How’d you know that?” Tom asked, admiration and confusion mixing in his voice.

  Shirley shrugged. “My parents used to take me to church when I was little, that’s all.”

  “Mine too,” I admitted. “But I don’t remember any of it.”

  “What were they saying about a glassy sea?” I asked, hoping Shirley could enlighten me.

  But she took another sip of her orange juice and shrugged. I stared out through the window and imagined the cold lake waters on that December morning. We sat there eating and not saying a word, and at first Mary’s voice was so quiet I didn’t know she was talking.

  “It’s where you go after you die,” she whispered. “Over the sea, and it’s where everything wrong is made right.”

  How quiet we were after Mary said that, none of us even eating or drinking. The only sound was the rest of the people in the diner chatting, their metal silverware clinking against the plates, the old men slurping their piping hot coffee, and the cook in the back calling out orders as they were ready.

  Tom tried to say something funny to lighten the mood, but Mary’s words clung to us.

  It’s where everything wrong is made right.

  A few weeks later, Tom pulled his car up along the sidewalk, and the four of us walked into Saint John’s Episcopal Church. We chose the Episcopal church because the Catholic church was too intimidating and the Baptist church seemed to require a level of dressing up we could not attain to. It was a cold Sunday night, only a few days before Christmas. I guess that’s why we were there. We wanted to celebrate our last Christmas as high school students, mark the season outside of our own disinterested homes strung with limp strands of weak lights.