“Your memories of Edward belong to you,” she says. “They’ll go with you wherever you go.”
Ophelia gives a knowing smile and shakes her head. “It wouldn’t be the same. There’s something special about this house. Things grow here. Even memories. If I were to leave here all the other memories would be lost, and in time even my memories of Edward would fade away.”
“What other memories?”
This is the moment Ophelia has anticipated. For two days she has said nothing and patiently bided her time, but now this girl from Pennsylvania has asked the question that will give way to the secrets. Ophelia feels certain Annie is the one. Perhaps the girl has already felt it. It’s possible that, just as Ophelia herself felt it all those years ago, Annie now senses the magic of this place.
“Most people think memories are only in a person’s head,” Ophelia says, “but I know better.” Ignoring Annie’s look of confusion, she continues. “Good memories attach themselves to an inanimate object and stay there until the right person comes along. When they find a soul that welcomes them, those memories live again.”
Several seconds tick by before Annie laughs. “For a moment there you had me. I thought you were serious.”
“I am serious.” There is a touch of indignation in Ophelia’s voice.
“That’s impossible,” Annie replies. “Memories can only belong to the person they happened to. They’re not like germs that stick to something and get passed on.”
“That’s what I once thought,” Ophelia replies. “But a few years after Edward was gone, I started searching my mind for memories and that’s when I found them.”
“Found memories of Edward, right?”
“Yes, but I also found a whole lot more.” Ophelia pushes back from the table and stands. “Wait here, I’ll show you.”
With that she turns and disappears back inside the house.
The years weigh on her like a heavy overcoat, and Ophelia slowly climbs the stairs to the loft. She knows where she’ll find the Bible; it is in the top drawer of the chest that Edward brought from their first apartment.
The chest is the only piece of that furniture Ophelia still has, and it is packed full of memories—some hers and some belonging to other people. Each object is kept in a separate drawer lest they collide with one another and lose their clarity. Carefully lifting the Bible from its resting place, she tucks it under her arm and starts back down the stairs. Going down is only slightly less arduous than going up. She is careful to first lower her right foot to the tread below and then bring the faulty left leg down beside it.
Moving slow as she does, it is a good ten minutes before Ophelia returns to the porch. When she finally gets there, Annie has a fresh pot of dandelion tea sitting on the table.
“Well, well,” Ophelia says, “isn’t this a nice surprise.”
“I hope it’s not too strong,” Annie replies. “I made it just as you do. Three scoops of dandelion and a pinch of chamomile.”
Although that amount of dandelion is almost double what Ophelia normally uses, she nods and says, “Perfect.”
Laying the Bible to the side, she stirs a spoonful of honey into the tea and sips it. Strong, but perhaps strong is good. She has never before shared these memories because they were not hers to share. Now she has no choice; she is getting on in years, and if the memories are not passed along they could be lost forever.
There is only a spot of tea left in the cup when she leans forward and begins to tell the story.
“This Bible was the first one,” she says. “I found it in a second-hand store. I’d looked at ten or more books before my hand went to this one, but the minute I touched it I could feel the memory.”
Annie listens intently, but the corner of her mouth twists into an expression of disbelief.
“In that dusty old shop I could smell the cool breeze coming off a mountain and I could see the slender fingers of a woman’s hand. I heard a sob as the woman dipped her pen in an inkwell and crossed out the words ‘girl baby’. On top of those crossed out words she wrote in ‘Abigail Anne’.”
Ophelia lifts the Bible and hands it to Annie. “Look for yourself.” She watches closely as Annie lifts the cover and looks at the first page.
Beneath the words “Family Bible”, someone has written “William Matthew Lannigan – born September 1824 – died January 1879. Married to Hester Louise Dooley”.
“There’s no crossed out words,” Annie says.
“Keep turning the pages,” Ophelia replies.
Annie does, but before she has gone through the next two pages a chilly wind rolls across the garden and she feels a shiver go down her back. When Annie turns to the fifth page she sees the words Ophelia has spoken of. Above the name Abigail Anne is the name William Matthew Lannigan – born August 1912, the same day as the girl. They were twins.
Annie is certain that acquiring another person’s memories is not possible, and yet the earnestness with which Ophelia speaks has cracked open the door to belief.
“Don’t you think that maybe you only think you remember these things because you’ve seen it written here?” she asks.
“I saw the woman’s hand before I opened the book,” Ophelia answers.
“And that’s why you think you’ve picked up memories that belong to this Abigail Anne Lannigan?”
“No,” Ophelia answers. “The memories I feel belong to the girl’s mother, Livonia.”
Annie looks at the Bible again. Above the listing of the two births is a notation that William John Lannigan has married his fourth wife, Livonia Goodwin, in April of 1910. She flips back through several pages. The listings move from century to century—there are new wives, babies born and deaths. So many deaths. When Annie counts up the children of William John Lannigan, there are twelve. Abigail Anne is the twelfth child.
There are dates of death for many of the children but no indication of what has happened to Livonia Lannigan or her twin babies. Annie turns to the next page, but there is nothing.
She turns several more pages before she looks over at Ophelia and asks, “What happened to all these people?”
“I would imagine they’re dead by now.”
“Even the babies?”
Ophelia nods. “The twins were born in 1912; they’d be over 100 years old now so it’s not likely they’re still—”
“But if you have memories of them can’t you tell—”
“I don’t feel the memories of anyone but the mother,” Ophelia answers. “And even then I can only feel the good memories attached to the Bible.”
Momentarily setting aside her doubt that such a thing can be true, Annie asks what memories Ophelia can see.
“Not see so much as feel,” Ophelia answers. “I know Livonia was happy with the birth of those babies, but there’s some kind of sadness blocking out anything more.”
“Knowing a mama is happy over the birth of her babies is a natural thing,” Annie says. “A person doesn’t have to have ESP to know that.”
The corners of Ophelia’s lips curl ever so slightly. “You’re right about that, but there’s more.”
“More?”
Ophelia nods. “Yes, but it’s late.”
“I’m not the least bit sleepy,” Annie says. “Go ahead, tell me everything.”
“Everything is a tall order,” Ophelia replies. “Memories aren’t meant to come all at once. Squash them together and they’ll become meaningless. A good memory is something you have to live with for a while, let it settle in and become part of who you are. Then when it’s feeling at home and welcome, you can move on to the next one.”
Annie suddenly has an urge to hear more of these mysterious memories, so she pushes on. “I’m ready now.”
Without arguing the point, Ophelia takes the Bible from the girl’s hand and stands. “Not tonight. We have plenty of time.”
This is true. Ophelia Browne has eleven months before she will turn ninety.
Annie’s Dream
When A
nnie crawls into bed that night she cannot rid herself of thoughts about the story Ophelia has shared. One moment she is filled with the desire to know more, and the next she is poo-pooing the idea of calling up another person’s memories.
It’s the rambling of an elderly woman, she tries to tell herself, but that is difficult to believe. Ophelia is a woman who despite her years is witty and bright. Age has not blurred the line between fantasy and fact. Annie thinks back to earlier in the day when they worked side by side in the apothecary. The magic was not in the herbs or potions; the magic was in Ophelia herself.
After hours of tossing and turning Annie finally drifts off to sleep, and when she does the dream comes.
She is once again sitting on the side porch, but this time she is alone. She opens the Bible in front of her, but the pages are blank. There is nothing—no words, no names, no dates.
“What did you think you’d find?” a voice asks.
Startled, she looks around and sees nothing. She is still alone. “Who are you?” she cries out.
“I’m a memory,” the voice answers.
“Impossible!” Annie answers. “A memory is not a living thing. A memory is…”
The voice erupts in lighthearted laughter. “You were saying?”
The laughter sounds again.
Still searching, Annie lifts the table skirt and peers beneath it. Seeing nothing, she asks, “Where are you?” Her words are sharp and spiked with apprehension.
“I’m anywhere, everywhere, nowhere,” the voice says. “I’m a memory.”
“Well, you’re not my memory!” Annie shouts. “Leave me alone.”
“People don’t get to pick and choose their memories. So it looks like you’re stuck with me.”
“No, I’m not!” Annie says angrily. “Go find somebody else. I don’t believe in ghosts, spooks or spirits.”
“I’m none of those things,” the voice answers. “I’m the memory Livonia left behind.”
“Then go back to Livonia, if that’s where you came from.”
“Ah…” The memory sighs. “If only such a thing were possible.”
Before Annie can question the voice again, there is a rustling in the brush and the scarecrow steps up to the edge of the porch. There are patches of straw sticking out of his shirt, but he no longer has a cotton head. He has Michael’s face.
“What’s going on here?” he demands. The anger and intolerance in his voice also belong to Michael.
Annie gasps. “Michael? What are you doing here?”
“I’m a memory you have to deal with,” he answers.
“No!” she screams. “No! No!”
The sound of her own scream wakes Annie, and she bolts upright. There is a moment of confusion as she looks around the room then remembers where she is. Beyond the window she sees the pale pink of a new day dawning.
~ ~ ~
By the time Ophelia gets downstairs, Annie has made a stack of pancakes and a pot of dandelion tea.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she says, “but I was up early and…”
“Bad dreams?” Ophelia questions.
Annie nods. “I was dreaming about the people in that Bible.” She hesitates for a brief moment then asks, “How did you know?”
“I also had dreams,” Ophelia replies. “I think that last pot of tea may have been a mite too strong.”
“But why would that—”
“Dandelion tea sharpens a person’s sixth sense,” Ophelia says. “It can sometimes enable us to see things as they really are rather than as we think they should be.”
“Oh dear,” Annie says. “I made this pot a bit stronger than last night’s, and I’ve already had two cups.”
Ophelia laughs. “Well, then, you’ve had enough dandelion tea for a while.”
~ ~ ~
When the clock chimes nine, Annie calls her office and tells Peter Axelrod she needs the week off. “A family emergency,” she says but doesn’t elaborate.
He is a bit piqued but stops short of being angry. When she hangs up she feels a weight lifted from her shoulders. There is no work, there is no Michael; there is only a full week of Ophelia and the magic of her stories.
For the first time in many months, Annie is truly happy. The anxiety that has dogged her footsteps for months is gone.
Annie
I’m not a person who is quick to take to new people and places, but I feel right at home here. I can’t even say why. I just know how I feel.
Maybe it’s the peacefulness of this place, or maybe it’s Ophelia and the way she tells those stories. I don’t believe a memory can stick to something and be passed along like a flu germ any more than I believe pigs can fly, but when she’s talking about those memories she makes them sound as real as the chair I’m sitting in.
This afternoon she brought a snow globe from upstairs and told me it was another of her treasures. Treasures, that’s what she calls these things that supposedly have memories attached to them. According to her, the snow globe belonged to the woman who wrote in the Bible; only the snow globe, Ophelia says, has lots of good memories. After lunch we sat on the side porch and she told half a dozen stories about this little girl, Abigail Anne, and her mama.
I could see the snow globe was really old and when I held it in my hands it was warm, like some kind of heat was bottled up inside of it, but I didn’t feel the memories the way Ophelia does. She asked if I could see how it was—that little girl and her mama talking about dreams and planning for the future. I said I could imagine how it might be, but I couldn’t see anything other than the figurine of a little girl and a Christmas tree inside the snow globe.
I’m not certain, but I think Ophelia was disappointed when I said that. In the future I should just pretend to see the things she sees. What harm would it do? I’d be making an old woman happy, and that’s a good thing. She doesn’t have much else to be happy about, living alone with just a scarecrow and garden for company.
It’s funny how Ophelia talks about all these people she never once met, and yet she says hardly anything about her husband.
I wonder why.
The Bicycle
For the remainder of the week, they follow much the same routine. A leisurely breakfast followed by two hours of gardening and then lunch on the side porch where they sit and talk for most of the afternoon. Ophelia has a storehouse of treasures but she brings them out slowly, one at a time. On Tuesday it is a small rubber ball that she claims belonged to an eleven-year-old boy with a dog.
“I suspect there were times when that dog was his only friend,” Ophelia says. “He’d throw the ball and the dog would chase after it.” She hands the ball to Annie and points out the bite marks.
“See,” she says. “Proof positive.”
Annie nods as if in agreement, but she knows the same marks could likely be found on almost any ball belonging to a child with a dog.
“The lad’s name was Adam,” Ophelia says. “Adam or Allen, something of that sort.”
“You can tell all that from a ball?”
Ophelia laughs. “Not just a ball, I have other things.”
“Things that belonged to the same boy?”
Annie sees a smile cross Ophelia’s face as she gives a nod. “I have the lad’s bicycle also.”
“But how?” Annie asks. “How do you find these things and know they belong to the same person?”
Ophelia’s shoulders rise and fall, and there are several seconds of hesitation before she answers.
“Sometimes I find them and sometimes they find me,” she says. “The ball found me. I was planning to prune my big bromeliad that day, and when I sat down with my clippers there was the ball, stuck smack in the middle of the plant.”
“But how?”
Ophelia gives another shrug. “I asked myself the same thing. At first I thought the ball belonged to some local child who’d come looking for it, so I carried it around in my apron pocket for three whole days. The third day was when I started sensing the memori
es that were stuck to it.”
“What about the bicycle?”
“I found that in the Sisters of Mercy thrift shop.”
“But how’d you know it belonged to the same boy as the ball?”
“I’d had the ball for almost a month and while I couldn’t see the lad’s sadness I could feel it was there, so I began worrying about him. I worried that he might be cold or hungry, hoping he had a place to sleep and someone to love him.”
Annie leans closer and listens intently. There is a certain intimacy in the way the old woman speaks. Her words seem soft as a whisper; they have the feel of a secret that can travel between friends and go no further.
“That day I stopped at the Sisters of Mercy in search of an iron skillet, but the moment I walked into the shop I was drawn to the back of the store where they have things like baby carriages and bicycles.”
Annie says nothing but her brows are knitted together, and she focuses on the words coming from Ophelia’s mouth.
“I think it happened because I was so worried about the boy,” Ophelia tells her. “I suppose he needed to let me know he was okay. Anyway, the second I touched my hand to that bicycle I knew it was his and I could feel the happiness coming out of it.”
Annie gives a sigh and leans back. “Wow. That’s unbelievable!” As soon as the word is out of her mouth she wants to take it back.
“I don’t mean unbelievable as in not to be believed,” she adds, “I mean just flat out amazing.”
“That it is.” Ophelia nods. “That it is.”
Ophelia has already moved on to a new story when Annie asks if she can see the bicycle. Although she is reluctant to admit it even to herself, she wants to touch the bicycle and see if she also feels the memories it holds.
“It’s in the storage shed,” Ophelia says. She stands and motions for Annie to follow.
They leave the porch and cross the yard to where the shed stands. Annie has been here before; it is the same wooden building where Ophelia stores her garden tools and the small chair she sits on to pull weeds. Although Annie has not noticed it before, in the far back of the shed there is a blue tarp covering what must be the bicycle.
Memory House: Memory House Collection (Memory House Series Book 1) Page 3
