The Memory Book

by Lara Avery

“Time to go?”

  “Time to go.”

  “You meant so much to me,” I told him.

  “Don’t speak in past tense like that,” he said, his voice breaking.

  “You mean so much to me,” I corrected myself, because he does.

  “I think we would have been good, if things had been different,” he said into my ear.

  “I know we would have.” But things were. There’s no “will be” or “could be” for me anymore. Things just are.

  “Tell me if you ever need anything.”

  “First thing I need.”

  “What is it?”

  “Keep trying.”

  We let go. “Okay,” he said, nodding. “Okay.”

  MASS

  I went to mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help with my parents for the first time in six years

  I didn’t talk to God, but it was a comfort to hear the voices together, their chanted prayers so deeply memorized they don’t even have to think

  I cling to every memory now so hard

  I’m glad Harry and Bette and Davy have something that can dig deep traces in their memories, and it’s something beautiful, something outside themselves

  Mom and Dad took my hands on either side

  When I got home I asked them to help me do something

  I had a little money set aside from my grandparents, a little from Mom and Dad trying to help me go to New York, and most of it’s gone now to the disease

  I asked that if all of it wasn’t gone most of it should go to my siblings’ college of course

  But if at least a hundred or something was still left over

  Mom and Dad can call the NPC Clubhouse, you know those kids in the tropical shirts, and buy each of them a book, whichever book they wanted

  Stories are good at times like these, to tell them, to hear them

  I thought of Coop and the notes we made around the house

  Stories are always good

  I WISH I HAD DONE THIS FOUR YEARS AGO

  It had been almost a week and I was fed up

  I kept making excuses to walk Puppy down to the highway to see Cooper’s house, even when it was almost too hard to walk

  Mom and Dad got me a wheelchair but I don’t like it

  Coop’s truck would be in his driveway, but he’d never come out

  I don’t know when he came or left

  Maybe he didn’t

  Maybe he was staying at Hot Katie’s house

  Or maybe he had gone away to another city, too

  Every possibility made my bones feel like sawdust

  The next day I think it was the next day we piled into Dad’s car to go to the ski resort for oh, no reason, you know, just to stop by, no I begged them please, please, and eventually I just showed Mom the letter to Coop, which I still hadn’t sent because I was too afraid it wouldn’t make a difference. I told them I missed him like I was missing one of my senses, a sixth or seventh sense that I didn’t know I had until it was gone

  I didn’t even know if he was working so we noodled slowly from the parking lot to the lodge

  Dad asked Mom, bring back memories?

  They remodeled, Mom said, and for some reason they both looked at some sort of storage locker thing at the edge of the parking lot

  Ew

  But so I went into the lodge and there was a man scraping grime off the countertops with a metal blade

  Excuse me sir is Cooper Lind working here now

  He’s on the lifts, the man said without looking up

  My heart jumped into my hands

  Can I speak to him?

  You can call him on my walkie and he’ll come down here

  Or maybe he wouldn’t if he knew it was me

  I had to try

  The man handed me the device but I had trouble keeping it in my bending hands so Harrison steadied them and I was about to press the button when Harrison pointed to a switch on the side

  The switch read “announcement”

  We looked around and saw a white speaker horn attached to the edge of the building

  Identical speakers lined the poles all the way up the slope, to the top

  Harrison mouthed announcement?

  I looked at the man, who was still scraping his grime, and nodded

  Harrison flicked the switch

  I cleared my throat, and the rumbling went straight from my mouth up the mountainside, echoing so loud that every person working nearby looked up

  None of them were Coop

  So I said, as clear as I could, trying not to laugh, WOULD DUMBSHIT PLEASE REPORT TO THE LODGE

  Harrison erupted in a fit, Mom covered Bette’s ears, and Dad covered Davy’s, but we were all doubling over

  DUMBSHIT TO THE LODGE PLEASE I repeated

  The man scraping grime shook his head and held out his hand for the walkie

  I watched the slope

  Three figures had been working, and they kept working

  Maybe he wasn’t coming

  Maybe he thought I was trying to humiliate him

  I thought about grabbing the walkie again and announcing I LOVE YOU, COOPER LIND, I’M SORRY, PLEASE COME BACK TO ME

  But then a figure came out from behind the base of the chairlift, holding a wrench, flipping it like it was no big deal, walking slow, like he was coming down for lunch break

  He was wearing a ball cap but I knew it was Coop, he took it off, and his hair fell out

  I came out of the office, my family stayed inside

  I realized I had been holding my heart in my hand the whole time so I put it back in my chest where it started ticking again

  When he saw me he started walking faster

  And then running

  He stopped himself, pausing for just a moment, and I reached in and stopped my heart

  Coop, I called, and I have never been so happy to see someone in my entire life

  His face broke into a smile and he ran the rest of the way down

  hello memory book it’s cooper lind. i just wanted to let you know that sammie mccoy is the love of my life and i was dumb to spend more than an hour apart from her. i was afraid that she and stuart had gotten back together. even when i received her texts i got this sick fear that she just wanted to meet me to tell me that it was over, that she was caught up in the moment, or that she had made a mistake. i shouldn’t have been afraid. in fact i didn’t even know what fear really felt like until the last eight hours i’ve spent awake in the waiting room of dartmouth medical center.

  sammie had a seizure that sent her into shock. she’s in stable condition now, but she wasn’t before, and if she had gone that quickly, without me even getting to say goodbye, i would have wanted to lie down in the street. she’s awake now and talking to her family.

  a few days before the seizure sammie and i were lying in her bed and she gave me permission to read this. i suppose i want to explain myself a little bit. i mean not how sammie saw me, because these are her words and she gets to write her story, so i won’t address anything she brought up. but i would like to tell you, future sam, why i never told her i loved her until now:

  no fucking clue.

  trust me, i have had eight hours to mull this over in my head, but i still don’t know.

  my best guess is that i am human

  she gives herself a lot of credit in the brains department, as she should, but i don’t know what she was thinking when she said she was not attractive. girls like sammie confuse the average man. girls like sammie befuddle anyone who is used to being told a certain type of woman is the best possible looking woman, because she’s not that, and yet she is undeniably a knockout. sammie has these pale pink delicate lips, light brown eyes that change color in the sun, this crazy head of hair, and the way the top of her moves from the bottom of her could give a guy motion sickness. she started exhibiting these traits, or at least i started noticing them, when she was 12 and i was 12. but all of those are not what makes sammie attractive to me. you could point out a
million girls with those traits. what it is, is…

  i guess it’s for the same reason i didn’t tell her i loved her sooner. it’s because she has a light behind her coming from somewhere mysterious that only very strong people can take without feeling intimidated or jealous or wanting to suck it up for themselves. like confidence or something. and maybe that light is just love, and that’s what makes her so attractive to me, this endless loop of love and desire, love and desire, but i don’t think it’s just that.

  so i admit it, i was kicked into gear when i saw that a disease was going to try to eat away at it. and then it was a real kick in the ass when i thought someone else was trying to take on that light. because i was stupid, and i always thought she would go somewhere, and when i was ready, whenever that would be, maybe at fuckin 50, i don’t know. but when i was ready, i would just happen to get a job nearby and we’d reconnect and we’d spend the rest of our lives together. i was “saving” her for later. like a fucking asshole.

  i regret that. i regret that with every fiber of my being. i’m ready now. i was always ready.

  Hey Cooper Francis Lind-

  Thanks for sleeping here with me. I’m going to the doctor’s. You’re the best. I think there are some breakfast hot dogs in the refrigerator that as you know are just normal hot dogs that you eat at breakfast time. I love you.

  -Sammie

  sammie darlin-

  i have to go to work today but i will be back this afternoon to walk puppy with you if you’d like, or at least you can sit outside with us and play captain stickwoman. be aware though that davy is really into turning me into a whale lately and it is not a flattering impression. no legs will be broken though. i think.

  i love you.

  -cooper

  to the doctor’s again coop. i hate these early appointemtnts but i love you.

  samantha,

  it is i, francis the goat! i have returned from the dead to express my undying love for you.

  don’t eat me,

  francis

  cooper lind is in my bed? i think i am having a dream but i should probably wake him up

  i haven’t seen him since last year

  i wonder if he came over after a party or something

  did cooper lind come over?

  i should sleep on the floor

  SAMMIE! MY LOVE! always wake me up. always, always, always wake me up. i know it’s not that easy for you to remember but i thought i would at least type it here in case you decide to write at night again. i’m your boyfriend now. always wake me up, always wake me up, always wake me up.

  COOPER. FRANCIS. LIND.

  did you smoke a j in my shed before work????

  i seriously hope i am not imagining that smell

  either that or we have skunks

  guilty

  sammie,

  i hope you slept okay after last night. i have to go to work but if you’re feeling a little tired, just know you had a little episode. you did fine.

  i love you.

  coop

  Coop I don’t know what I would do without you

  I’m really happy

  -Sammie

  Hi, Zam Zam! My favorite memory of us would have to be the fall of junior year when you started wearing this very strange, cheap kind of Chap Stick, which you applied normally at first, and then it was like your lips got addicted to it and you didn’t realize. Remember? And this was before we were friends, so I didn’t know if I should say something or not, but it was like, you would come to practice, and as you were making an affirmative speech, you would be putting on this Chap Stick without even realizing it, pacing around, and your lips started to get tinted this bluish purple. I think when Mrs. Townsend stopped you in the hallway and asked you if you were cold, you realized you had to stop. You came up to me like a heroin junkie and handed me the tube and you were like, Maddie, HIDE THIS FROM ME. That’s when I knew: you were not just a nerd with vicious cross-examination skills, you were a weirdo just like me. And you will always, always be in my weirdo heart where you belong. You pushed me to be better in every single way because of your strength and ferocity and your pure grip on every moment. You’re true blue, Samantha McCoy. You changed my life. I’m going to try to call you tomorrow without losing it. Thanks to your mom and your lovely Cooper for reaching out to me down here in Atlanta. (By the way, COOPER LIND? Your neighbor?? I knew it! Did you know he used to come to all the debate tournaments we had in Hanover? I was always like, who’s that stoner bro in the back of the room?)

  I will love you always.

  Your partner forever,

  Maddie

  Hi sissy,

  Mom is typing for me since I want the words to be right. My favorite memory is when you watched The Princess and the Frog with me and we sang “Almost There” together. I will see you at the hospital and give you every jewel.

  I LOVE YOU.

  DAVY

  Hi sissy,

  My favorite memory with you was probly something you might not think of. It was actully very close to now when you were not doing so good but you were ok. We were in the yard and you started to look around and I knew you were not remembring. Then I took your hand and took you to the hummingbird feeder and said hey sissy look remembr. You said oh good Bette its hummingbird season. Then you said shhhhh and pointed and we watched. It is my favorite because it didn’t matter that you didn’t remembr that it had already been hummingbird season but it was just nice that you were excited and wanted to share them with me! And that is my sister forever! I love you very much.

  Bette

  Hi Sammie,

  I can’t do this very well. I asked Dad if it would be ok if I told you in person because it just doesn’t feel good to type it. I know you liked typing on this but I type a lot (haha) and I’m on the computer a lot (haha) so I just want to tell you in person. I’ll see you.

  I love you,

  Harry

  Hi sweetheart,

  Harry and I are in kind of the same boat. The best moment of my life was when I held you in my arms for the first time. I’ll talk to you soon.

  Love,

  Daddy

  My first baby,

  Words cannot capture my grief at watching you fall away little by little. But I suppose in losing some layers, your golden core came out. You are loving, compassionate, driven, talented, and beautiful, and you will be that way forever, whether in body, in our memories, or in this book.

  My favorite memory is so hard to choose, because I have loved every waking minute of our lives together, from the minute you kicked me inside my stomach to this very moment, when I am watching Daddy hold your hand.

  I remember when you were eleven, at your first spelling bee in Grafton County. You beat out thirty middle schoolers, and I was so proud. You came running off the stage and you were absolutely beaming and your arms were held wide open. I know not everyone will relate to this, but in a mother’s life, there always comes a time when “I love yous” become scarce and weird for both parties. Sometimes you’re scared your kid is only going to say it because they want something, or they’re doing it out of obligation, or they hate you, but in that moment, when you ran toward me and the first words out of your mouth were “I love you, Mama!” my heart almost burst with joy.

  That I should be so lucky to be the person you want to be with and express affection for in the proudest moment of your young life. I was just as bursting at every single one of them, and I know I would have been present at thousands more.

  I hope this time is one of them, too. Because I am full to bursting for you, and you should be so proud of yourself for how gracefully you have walked this long road.

  I love you, I love you, I love you, infinity times.

  Mama

  hey sammie

  you have just gone. my favorite memory is this whole book because it is you. thank you for recording your life. it was supposed to be longer. i guess you should know that before you passed, at sunrise, you asked to be moved to
the window so you could see your side of the mountain. you said, “so i can see home.”

  i love you,

  Cooper

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Oh, man. This book means so much to me. Whether they know it or not, many at Alloy—Joelle Hobeika, Josh Bank, Sara Shandler—have seen me grow up. Five years ago I walked into their old offices fresh from sleeping on a couch in Brooklyn, wearing a T-shirt with pit stains. I had no idea what I was doing. I’ve got to admit: for all the flailing melancholy I bring to their incredible stories, I am always pleasantly surprised when they keep me around. Designers—wow, three for three. Stephanie Abrams, for answering all of my panicked, broke emails. Romy Golan, for your fine-tooth comb. And the standing ovation goes to my editor, Annie Stone. Annie, thank you for allowing me to stretch your story, for letting Sammie be as weird as she needed to be. On the sea of writing, your creativity and sharpness and patience were anchors and lighthouses and the storm, all in one. (You would probably cut that sentence.)

  Pam Garfinkel, what a pleasure to work with you twice in a row! And how strange to gain so much insight from someone I’ve never met. You packed the foundation of this story, and you never let me get away with anything. That’s invaluable. Thank you.

  Leslie Shumate, thank you for running with me in the final stretch. And to all at Little, Brown—Farrin Jacobs, Kristina Aven—Poppy has gained a dedicated fan for life.