The Memory Book
Page 14
So I wonder if I am supposed to remember when I went to sleep
Maybe they didn’t give me anything at all
Maybe I just don’t know
Kill me now.
Here’s a shock: According to my doctors, a person with mild retardation can’t go to college, can’t live in a city away from their parents, and eventually will barely be able to think for themselves. It doesn’t matter if I still have the ability to communicate and walk and think right now, because apparently, in addition to being doctors, they are fucking SOOTHSAYERS and they know these things. So they have decided to break my dreams and render my life completely meaningless.
I was like, “How do you know? The episodes could still be really rare!” WHICH IS ACCURATE ACCORDING TO PROBABILITY AND LOGIC. THREE BREAKDOWNS OVER FIVE MONTHS DOES NOT EQUAL IMMINENT DANGER. THAT IS LITERALLY A TWO PERCENT RATE ON ANY GIVEN DAY.
The sickening fucking look Dr. Clarkington had, like she was simultaneously crying and letting out a fart, when she said, “I’m sorry, Sammie. There’s nothing we can do.” I almost punched her in the face.
If there’s nothing you can do, then why are you fucking with me, huh? There’s plenty of things I CAN STILL DO. LIKE GO TO COLLEGE. Great, now I’m crying.
Now they’re telling me none of it will ever happen. If my mom’s chant is mmhmm, mmhmm, then my new chant is this will never happen.
I love to-do lists! How about lists of things I will never do! How about it! I can list everything I’ve ever wanted for myself, and after it the phrase, “This will never happen.”
NYU: this will never happen.
Stuart Shah: this will never happen.
Harvard Law: this will never happen.
The UN: this will never happen.
Everything is over, and I will die.
die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die die
I DIDN’T DIE
Bette and Davy are building a fort of cushions around me as I write, which makes sense. I barely move from the floor anymore, so I am an ideal load-bearing structure.
Here’s what I see: my feet spread out under a blue fuzzy blanket, the kitchen/dining room table covered in the remains of two peanut butter sandwiches. On the sill of the window above the sink, a line of orange pill bottles with white lids.
Small circular white pills for pain.
Oval blue pills for vertical gaze palsy.
Red pill-shaped pills for numbness.
Prozac for depression.
Et cetera.
The last one on the list, I haven’t taken yet. But I’m about at that point.
“Play with us, play with us, play with us,” Davy is chanting, the fort abandoned as she and Bette run around the couch. I look around for Harrison, hoping he can distract them, but remember he’s at camp.
“I can’t,” I tell them. Too busy watching a terrible, terrible show about people who compete to find valuable goods in storage lockers.
“Why?” Bette asks.
“I can’t move,” I say.
“That’s not true,” Bette says. “You get up to go to the bathroom and get food! I saw you just now!”
She was right. I can move. I just don’t want to. Move to go where? Outside? To the border of our property?
The only comforts I have are two fictions: the fiction of whatever is on TV, and the fiction of texting Stuart, who now thinks my strep has turned into mono. (It turns out it’s easier to lie when you’re typing, and because of medicinal side effects, your tongue is dry anyway.)
And neither comfort requires movement. So.
Speaking of Stuart, where is my phone?
Uggghhh.
I keep it next to me so I don’t have this problem. Seriously, I’m not having a memory lapse. I didn’t move it.
Then I hear Bette and Davy giggling under the kitchen table.
Oh god.
“See? You can move!” Bette shouted with a triumphant smile on her face when I stormed over and snatched it back. They both ran outside.
Whew, they didn’t text or call Stuart.
They texted Coop. They must have found his name as the only one they recognize. Coop sometimes gives them “helicopter rides” at church.
I yanked open the sliding doors and screamed at them. “DON’T DO THAT!”
Bette called from somewhere in the tree line, still laughing. “HE TEXTED YOU FIRST! I JUST TYPED ‘OK’!”
Oh, so he did.
Coop: Hey gurl just wanted to check and see how you’re doing. Can I drop by? Also Mom made you guys a ton of food so I’m gonna bring that.
Me: Ok
So I guess Coop’s coming over. I need to put a password on my phone.
WHAT HAPPENED
I was outside for the first time in a week and a half on one of our plastic lawn chairs, realizing that Vermont had turned into summer while
I was indoors. The sky was heavy with potential rain clouds, but the daffodils had made way for lilies of the valley and purple clover, the tomatoes in Mom’s garden were streaking red, and there were a couple of hummingbirds at the feeder.
Bette and Davy were watching them, crouched in the bushes near the house, trying not to make a sound.
As Coop approached from down the mountain, holding two bags in either hand, I held a finger to my lips and pointed to the colorful blurs.
I may be a useless sack of shit but all of us McCoys like watching the birds. Especially hummingbirds. I used to know so many facts about hummingbirds.
Coop set the bags down slowly and put on a silly I’m-a-spy walk.
Bette and Davy giggled, blowing their cover, and the birds jetted away.
“Way to go,” I said as he picked up the bags again.
“I did my best,” he said, shrugging. As he got closer, my instincts fired and I checked for a joint behind his ear. Coop would forget something like that, especially in the summer. There wasn’t one.
“I’ll put these in the kitchen?” he asked. I waved him on.
I heard him banging around in there through the crack he left in the sliding doors, opening and closing the fridge. “Did you guys move the cups?”
“Yeah,” I called. “They’re in the other cabinet now.”
It was strange to let Cooper Lind go inside our house as I knew him now, always surrounded by this crew of people shorter than him, hanging on him, a huge, doped-up smile on his face.
But then again, we would never see each other in the hallways like that anymore, around all the people.
And there were the ratios I always relied on: Coop had a ratio, too. Fourteen years to four years. Four years he spent in a cloud of parties and weed, fourteen years he spent in this house. He was still seventy percent of the kid who knew where the cups were.
I guess it wasn’t that strange, if you think about it that way.
So he came back out with a glass of water, pulled up the other lawn chair from where it was turned over near the gutter spout, and sat down. I braced myself for the questions that were no longer relevant to me.
Are you really that sick?
Will you be able to go to college?
What are you going to do now?
When he didn’t say anything, I cut the sound of the breeze and the birds and the bugs, so we could get it over with.
“Thanks for coming to get me that night,” I said.
“No need.”
I gave him a look.
“You already thanked me a million times,” Coop said.
“I did?”
“Yeah.” He was squinting against the sun, which had just made an appearance. “Do you remember what happened?”
I can gather from what I wrote, but that was mostly nonsense. I shook my head.
He began to tell me, but as he spoke, shame and fear began to snake in my gut and wrap my head, throbbing at the beginning of a headache.
I asked him to stop.
I went inside, got my laptop, and handed it to him. I told him I would rather read it later. I didn’t tell him why.
I would rather he write it because written words seemed more malleable and distant than words coming out of his mouth. He was the only person who really saw the moment, and the only person, at this point, who had seen me get that bad. Because of him, I would be here, stuck, deteriorating for the rest of my life.
Then again, if Coop hadn’t seen my calls, if he hadn’t left the party, I might not have a life left to deteriorate. At this point I’m not sure which is worse, but I won’t get into that.
And there was another reason: this way, if I didn’t like what had happened in the written words, I could delete them from my memory book. That seemed more satisfying than forgetting things he said out loud somehow.
He scrolled up and down on this document before I said, “Hold on! Just… don’t read any of it. Just start a new page and write it.” He looked at me, brows furrowed. “Please,” I added.
“Are you writing a journal or something?”
“Something like that.”
well i started at nervig’s at about 7 o’clock, but he was already too drunk to drive to get the kegs so i went back to norwich to pick them up. when i got back it was about 8 o’clock and people had started to arrive. i had to help carry and set up two kegs on my own so again, i was not drunk, and at about 9 i saw i had missed your first call. i called you back but you didn’t answer. then you called me again about 15 minutes later and i picked up. you weren’t talking directly into the speaker so i couldn’t understand you but you kept saying, is this coop, is this coop, and i kept saying yes, yes, and eventually you got on the phone and made sense. you said you were lost, and i said, didn’t i text you the address? and you were like yes, but you couldn’t remember where you were. your voice was very shaky and you did not sound happy. so i asked you if you wanted me to come get you, and you said, yes, please, and then you sounded like your normal self again. you were like, coop, i’m fine. i’m just lost. i’ll figure it out, and hung up.
but that didn’t seem right to me, so i called you back, and you didn’t answer. i called again and again, and at that point i was kind of debating whether or not to just let it go, to be honest. sorry if that’s hard to hear but this is kind of a therapeutic thing for me, too. to write this down. i can understand why you do this. it was really hard to see you like that, and kind of hard to relive it now, but it’s good.
anyway, i was debating, because katie kept trying to pull me back to the party, even though she and i aren’t technically together, we just hook up. all your friends were there, too. i asked maddie if she had heard from you, and she said no, and i thought about asking that stuart guy i see you with, but i didn’t feel like it, and it looked like he was checking his phone all the time anyway, and if you had called him, then he would be leaving.
but he didn’t leave, and when you called me again and all i could hear were sounds of cars passing by, i left right away.
you were just a half mile from the party. i found you crying in the driver’s seat. i thought you were just drunk or something so i laughed at you and i feel bad for that.
i’m sorry.
i got you to take the passenger seat and figured i would drive you home.
then i realized something else was very wrong, because sometimes you called me cooper, sometimes you called me sir, and sometimes you would remember you were supposed to go to a party, and sometimes you would ask me how i was, and say that you hadn’t seen me in a while.
i took you home and as we walked up to your house, you sort of came to and asked me what I was doing there. and i told you, and you thanked me over and over and gave me a hug, which was nice of you. :)
we woke up your parents and they took you to the hospital and that’s pretty much it.
now you’re sitting next to me texting someone. probably stuart, i’m guessing. i hope that guy knows what he’s in for.
^^^ What’s that supposed to mean??
why are we still typing
Because I want to curse you out, you asshole, and Davy’s sitting right there.
it was supposed to mean that you’re not the average girl sammie, it was supposed to be a compliment
Oh, because I’m like ailing or whatever. Like someone can’t have normal feelings for me because my liver’s enlarged and shit.
i mean, it’s a fair assessment
No, that’s true, Coop, but you can at least humor me while I have the first real relationship in my entire life and probably the last. So why can’t you just be nice?
oh like you guys are serious huh
Yeah, I think I could be in love with him.
word
That’s all you have to say?
yeah i’m not going to get into it
Why?
i just said i’m not going to get into it
You don’t like him or something?
he’s sort of a prick y
eah
What??? No he’s not.
someone who has three houses but pretends to be this humble literary dude, it’s exhausting, like just be real dude
You’re grasping at straws.
lol that’s such an outdated term
You just don’t know him.
i’m not about to either
Fine.
fine. he’s probably romanticizing you as a sick person, too, just saying
I haven’t told him.
oh? huh
Why do you have that stupid smile on your face?
idk why are you afraid of telling someone you supposedly could be in love with or whatever something so important about yourself?
COOPER WAS KIND OF RIGHT
He was being an asshole about Stuart, but he was right. If I really want Stuart to like me for who I am, he had to know what who I am actually looked like. He needed to know about NPC. So that’s why, a couple of days later when I found out that Davy and Bette would start a crafting camp, and that Coop’s mom would be the one checking in on me that day, I texted Coop for a favor.
Me: Can you tell your mom that she doesn’t need to come today and give me a ride into Hanover for a few hours?
Coop: yeah why
Me: To meet with someone really quick
Coop: cool, i’m actually going into town at 1, i’ll swing by, what do you want to do?
Me: Oh, I’m just going to chill w/ Stuart
Coop: Oh word.
Me: Can you also drive me home at 4? Or will you be gone by then?
Coop: so demanding
Me: I’m sick :(
Me: I’ll make you treats!
Coop: ya well ur lucky thats when i was going to come back to strafford anyway