“Take Mark Dowling,” he said. “That man hasn’t had a night out with the guys in ten years.” I argued that Mark and Cindy seem very happy together, but Michael insisted it was just Cindy who was happy. “How can a man be happy when he’s tied to a wife and six kids?” He made it sound like a question, but I knew Michael well enough to realize it was more of a statement and I didn’t bother answering.
Last night Michael said he’s a changed man, but he didn’t go into specifics. I was itching to know exactly how he’d changed, but we were having such a good time I hated to spoil the evening by asking. I felt like I was with the old Michael. The one I fell in love with, not the one who went at me tooth and nail every time I so much as mentioned marriage.
Near the end of our being together most dates ended with us angry at each other. We’d go out for a quick dinner and be back home before ten o’clock. But last night was different. We went to a little French restaurant where there was a violinist and a tiny dance floor. Even though there was not another soul waltzing around the parquet, Michael asked me to dance—three times! Knowing how he’s always hated to be the only couple on the dance floor, I would say that’s a sure sign he’s changed.
When we came home he asked if we could go out again Saturday night, but I had to say no. I told him I was going away and wouldn’t be back until late Sunday. I suspected Michael would ask where I was going, and he sure enough did.
“Visiting a friend,” I told him.
“Male or female?” he asked.
I told him it was a female but didn’t mention her name. I figure he doesn’t need to know about Ophelia and her ability to pull memories from things. He wouldn’t believe it anyway. Michael’s a skeptic; he doesn’t believe in much of anything.
It’s funny because Ophelia is the exact opposite. She believes in everything. I think that’s what makes her so likable.
A Job in Jeopardy, A Love Renewed
The clock has already struck one when Michael kisses Annie goodnight and disappears down the hall. Once he is gone, she pulls her suitcase from beneath the bed and starts to pack. Tomorrow she will leave from the office rather than return home.
Already the excitement of revisiting Memory House is running through her brain. She thinks of the bicycle. She remembers how it felt when she touched the handlebar; the boy was there, reaching out to her. The image came and went in less than a heartbeat, but it was solid as the bicycle itself.
Twice Annie has visited an antique shop on the south side of town. She has wandered through the dusty aisles, picked up a doll, a weathered hat and brass plated desk set, but none of these items offered up memories. They sat lifeless in her hands, revealing nothing of their past history.
She has now come to the conclusion that the secret to such insight is only at Memory House. If she is to gather memories from other times and places, Ophelia must show her the way.
As Annie closes her eyes, her last thoughts are surprisingly not of Michael but of the lovers she saw lying on the platform bed in Ophelia’s loft.
~ ~ ~
Annie arrives at the office early. She plans to skip lunch and be out of there by three-thirty. She is surprised to find Kathryn is not at her desk; in fact the desk has been cleaned out. Not a single file or notepad remains. It is a small measure of relief not to have Kathryn’s roving eye watching her.
Pleased with this turn of events, she settles at her desk and reaches for the file atop a new pile. It is an application for a joint policy—a husband and wife with a handicapped child. They are asking for a policy that guarantees one million dollars if either of them are injured or killed.
Annie suddenly feels something. She is not sure if she is picking up a memory or if it is just her heart reaching out. The husband has high blood pressure and the wife smokes, but Annie bypasses those factors and gives them both a rating that will allow them to obtain the policy.
She is working on the fourth application file when she hears the shrill of laughter. The sound comes from Peter’s office, but when Annie steps into the aisle and peers around the corner it is Kathryn sitting behind the desk that for all these years has been Peter’s. He is nowhere to be seen.
The nameplate on the glass window now reads Kathryn Newman, Managing Director.
A frown settles on Annie’s face. Peter is not only her boss; he is also her friend. There has been no mention of change, but already it has begun. Annie’s suspicion is that he has been moved out of his office to make room for Kathryn.
Going in search of him, she walks the full length of the office floor checking to see if he has been moved to another office or, worse yet, is sitting in one of the small cubicles at the far end of the floor. She finds him in the office in back of the accounting department, the office that yesterday housed Tom Neely. Peter is packing things in one box and unpacking them from another.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
Peter gives the pretense of a smile. “Henley needed an office for Kathryn and asked me to move.”
“Where’s Tom?”
Peter shrugs. “Gone, I guess.”
“Gone as in laid off?”
“Probably.” Peter lifts Tom’s calendar and tucks it into the box. “Kathryn said it was his choice.”
“I doubt that,” Annie says angrily. She pictures Tom Neely, a soft-spoken man with silver hair and a pleasant disposition. He is no match for someone like Kathryn.
Approaching the subject gingerly, Peter tells Annie she will now be reporting to Kathryn.
“She wants tighter control of the underwriting department,” he explains.
This news is not what Annie wants to hear. She rolls her eyes in disbelief, then asks what Peter is going to do.
“I’ll work with accounting,” he says.
“Work with or manage?” Annie asks.
Peter lifts a set of bookends from the box he has been unpacking. “That’s yet to be determined.” He avoids looking directly into Annie’s eyes.
“This stinks,” Annie says then turns to leave.
“Be careful,” Peter warns. “Kathryn’s not a woman you want to cross.”
When Annie returns to her desk she still has seven case studies waiting for her, but she plows through them and is finished by one-thirty. All seven have been given a generous rating. With her workload squared away, she heads for what is now Kathryn’s office.
From the doorway Annie sees the tight twist of hair atop Kathryn’s head, but her chair is turned and her back to the door. She is studying a file and doesn’t hear Annie approach. With little patience and a growing dislike for Kathryn, Annie raps against the doorframe. Without waiting for a response, she walks in and stands in front of Kathryn’s desk. It is an aggressive move, but Annie doesn’t care.
“I’ve got to leave early today,” she says. “Family problems.”
Kathryn turns her chair slowly, glances up and then returns her eyes to the file. She is slow to speak but eventually says, “My understanding is that you are single and live alone.”
“That’s true,” Annie answers, “but I’ve got an elderly aunt in Burnsville. She’s not well and needs help.”
“And you feel this aunt is more important than your job?”
The question rattles Annie’s bones, and she answers too quickly.
“Yes, I do,” she says, making no apology for her words.
Without speaking Kathryn removes the wire frame glasses perched on her nose and looks square into Annie’s face.
“This is not the time for arrogance,” she says. “You may take the afternoon off, but be aware that we are all under considerable scrutiny at this time.”
Kathryn has included herself in the “all”, but Annie knows this is not true. Everyone else in the office may be under what she calls scrutiny, but Kathryn herself is not. She is the one wielding the axe.
Annie mutters a simple thank you and returns to her desk. Five minutes later she is in the elevator and on her way to the parking garage.
~ ~
~
The thought of Peter settling into the small office picks at Annie’s brain until she sees the skyline of Philadelphia disappear in the rear view mirror. Only then can she let it go. There are worse things, she tells herself. Poor Tom Neely has no job at all. Annie remembers Peter’s words—“It was his choice”—and she hopes Tom was offered retirement. Retirement doesn’t carry the same stigma as being fired.
Once she has put that issue to rest, she moves to thoughts of Michael. She wants to believe he is a changed man, but how much he has changed is yet to be determined.
For the first time in many months she is now able to remember the sweetness of his kiss and the warmth of his arms around her. How, she wondered, could she have forgotten these things? Again Annie tries to liken her relationship with Michael to that of Ophelia and Edward, but there seem to be few similarities.
Give it time, she tells herself and brushes back the doubt hovering over her hopes.
The corner of Annie’s mouth curls upward as she pictures Michael’s look of disappointment when she said no to a Saturday night date. It was the first and only time she could recall him having that look. Right from the start it had been the other way; she was always the one offering up her heart, and he was the one deciding whether to accept it.
Annie is happy with the changes in Michael. She believes it will breathe new life into their relationship. What she doesn’t yet realize is that she also has changed.
A Hole or a Whole
Annie arrives in Burnsville two hours earlier than she’d anticipated. Lost in her thoughts, she’s driven straight through and not stopped for anything to eat. There has been no lunch or supper, and the rumble of her stomach now reminds her of it. She slows the car as she passes the weathered sign, then pulls into the driveway and climbs out. Rapping the brass doorknocker, she wonders what memories Ophelia will reveal this time.
It is a full minute before the door swings open, and Ophelia offers a welcoming smile. She is wearing a large bib apron that has a dusting of flour on it.
“Sorry,” she says, “I wasn’t expecting you until later.”
“I left the office early,” Annie explains. “A lot of problems there.”
Annie leaves it at that. She has decided to ask for advice on the troubling situations, but not just now. This moment is reserved for the simple joy of returning.
As they pass through the foyer, Annie catches the scent of beef bubbling in thick brown gravy. “Are you making stew?”
Ophelia laughs. “You must be hungry.”
“Yes, I am,” Annie answers. “And I can smell—”
Ophelia turns and points to the glass bowl on the table. “It’s the potpourri.”
Annie laughs and smacks her forehead. “I forgot.”
“Well, I hate to disappoint you,” Ophelia replies, “but I’ve made a roasted chicken. I thought maybe we’d have a late-night supper on the porch.”
Walking back toward the kitchen Annie sniffs the air again. This time she catches the fragrance of warm chicken and can picture it, the skin a crispy brown and the meat so tender and juicy it falls from the bone.
“I guess the potpourri knows what I’m thinking,” she says. “Now I’m smelling chicken and sweet potatoes.”
Ophelia chuckles. “That’s not the potpourri; it’s my roasted chicken. When you knocked, I was just taking it from the oven.”
“Sweet potatoes too?”
Ophelia nods.
In the kitchen Annie moves about as if this is her home. There is familiarity in everything she touches. Filling the water kettle, she sets it to boil then reaches for the canister of dandelion tea.
“I have been dying for a cup of this,” she says.
Her words are strangely enough true. Several times during the week Annie longed for the bittersweet taste in her mouth, so much so that on Tuesday she stopped at the gourmet grocer on Liberty Street and bought five different boxes of tea, all herbal. Not one of them came close to the taste of dandelion tea. In fact the alfalfa tea was so bitter that after a single sip she tossed the entire box into the garbage can.
As Annie moves about, folding napkins and setting silverware in place, the stress on her face is obvious. Her brow is furrowed, and ridges of worry stretch across her forehead. She smiles, but her mouth is a tight little line that exposes the truth.
Ophelia notices this and pulls a bottle of lemon balm from the cupboard shelf. In even the most extreme cases lemon balm will calm the nerves, but it is a potion to handle carefully. Add too much and the person will fall into a deep sleep that lasts for days. Counting the drops as they fall, she adds nine to the tea then pours a cup and hands it to Annie.
As they settle at the table, Annie gives a deep sigh. With it she lets go of the week’s frustration.
“It’s wonderful to be back here,” she says.
Ophelia smiles. She doesn’t say anything but she doesn’t have to; her smile is enough. It encourages Annie to give voice to the thoughts in her head. Although she planned to wait until tomorrow, the words tumble from her mouth.
“It’s been a strange week,” Annie says. “Good in some ways, bad in others.”
“I believe it best to speak of the good first,” Ophelia says. “Once a person has good thoughts in mind, the bad often seems less stressful.”
Seeing the wisdom in such a strategy, Annie tells of Michael’s return.
“I’ve been miserable for months,” she says. “Then there’s a knock on my door, and he’s asking to come in. He says he’s missed me. A lot.”
“What about you?” Ophelia asks. “Have you missed him?”
“Have I ever!” Annie answers. The enthusiasm in her voice adds emphasis to the words. “Being alone isn’t fun. The days drag and—”
“Oh, I understand being alone,” Ophelia cuts in. “After Edward was gone, this house seemed emptier than I thought possible. It was as if the rooms had grown larger and I had become smaller.”
Annie leans forward and drops her chin into the valley of her hands. “I know exactly what you mean. That’s how I feel. It’s only a one-bedroom apartment, but sometimes it feels way too big for me.”
“The thing is,” Ophelia adds, “there’s a big difference in missing someone because they filled a hole in your life and missing someone because they were your whole life.”
Such a thought stops Annie cold. “How can you tell the difference?”
A softness settles on Ophelia’s face, and she smiles as if at that very moment she is seeing Edward.
“Your heart tells you,” she says. “When a man is your whole life you will do anything for him, no matter how foolish or how difficult. You’ll even give up the things you love and follow him to the far ends of the earth without ever asking why such a thing was necessary.”
For a long moment Annie says nothing. She is thinking about Michael, remembering that he wanted to be with her this weekend and recalling how she’d said no because she wanted to be here. Not with Michael, but with Ophelia.
“What about the other people in your life?” she asks. “Aren’t they important?”
Ophelia can still see the tears cresting her mother’s eyes and the puffed-up redness of her daddy’s face.
“Yes, they are,” she says, “and leaving them behind can be painful beyond belief.”
“Why do you have to leave them behind?” Annie asks. “Shouldn’t a woman be able to have both?”
“You would hope so,” Ophelia says with a sigh, “but it’s not always possible.”
For a moment she is silent, gathering her own memories. When the picture is set in her mind, she tells Annie of how her father disapproved of her marriage.
“Daddy thought Edward was a penniless dreamer,” she says. “A man who would never be able to support a family.”
“But he did,” Annie interjects. “You have this house and—”
Ophelia gives a gentle laugh. “It’s always easier to see things when you’re looking back.” She continues her story
, telling how they’d run off and been married by a justice of the peace.
“That was something Daddy couldn’t forgive,” she says. “He never spoke to me again. When that happened, we left Atlanta and settled in Richmond.”
“That’s so sad.” Annie’s shoulders slump as she leans back into her chair.
“No question it caused a great deal of sadness in my life,” Ophelia says. “But it still wasn’t enough for me to leave Edward.”
After she has said this Ophelia sits silently. Her eyes, now misty, focus on the hands in her lap. She rubs the fingers of her right hand across those of her left and touches the ring finger that once wore a band of gold. She must once again pack away these memories. They have been with her for over half a century, and yet they still ooze pain when brought to the surface.
Annie, oddly enough, is relieved that she has no such worries. After her mother’s death, her daddy remarried that same year. He and his new wife live in Florida and have no interest in what Annie does one way or the other.
When they have finished eating, Annie carries two mugs of hot dandelion tea to the side porch and they sit in the wicker chairs. It is nearing the end of May but on this night there is a chill in the air, so she wraps her fingers around the steaming mug and warms them. She asks if Ophelia would like a woolen lap robe, and the answer is yes.
Unlike her office, the things at Memory House have not changed. Everything is exactly as it was on her last visit, so Annie knows she will find the throw neatly folded and draped across the arm of the sofa. She fetches it and tucks it around Ophelia’s bony knees.
The moon is a slender sliver in the sky but the stars are bright. Annie closes her eyes, and for a moment she can see the youthful Ophelia and Edward lying on the platform bed in the attic. They are looking up at this same sky.
Memory House: Memory House Collection (Memory House Series Book 1) Page 6
